As
the three established divisions of Norcros SA, TAL, Johnson Tiles and Tile
Africa recently played important roles in an extensive tiling project at North
West University’s Potchefstroom campus in North West Province. The project entailed refurbishing the five-block
Sports Village, a guest house facility providing accommodation for the public,
athletes and sports teams preparing for significant upcoming sporting events, and
the multi-storey student hostel Kom en Gaan.
QUALITY
TAL, a member of the Green
Council of South Africa, is committed to manufacturing its high quality tile
adhesives, grout, waterproofing materials and construction products in an
environmentally responsible manner. All products are manufactured in South
Africa to suit local climatic conditions, and are tested in accordance with the
most stringent of standards in TAL’s SANAS accredited laboratory.
Johnson Tiles South Africa is the leading
manufacturer of quality glazed ceramic wall and floor tiles that meet
international standards. Tile Africa, a leading national chain, supplied all
the TAL tiling products and Johnson Tiles as specified for this project.
The Tile Africa
Commerical team’s specifiers advise on which solutions will achieve the
client’s desired aesthetic or functional requirement. They have over three
decades’ experience, an eye for décor and design, strong technical
understanding, as well as a trusted network of suppliers that allow for quicker
sourcing of products at competitive prices.
Chris Ferris of
CFT Tilers and Louis Nel of Boukon Construction are the contractors for Sports
Village and Kom en Gaan respectively, and both use Tile Africa predominantly
for all their tiling supplies.
INSTALLATION CHALLENGES
The five blocks of Sports
Village each contain eight residential units comprising a bedroom, bathroom and
kitchenette. Tiling in each block however, could only be installed during
sporting off-seasons when there were fewer bookings. Besides these delays, time
limitations were imposed on the tiling revamp in each block in order to reduce
the loss of rental income. This impacted TAL who had to meticulously plan stock
orders to ensure tiling installations in each block could be timeously
completed. Due to this erratic work schedule, the project took approximately
two years to complete.
Since the appropriately named
Kom en Gaan Hostel was used as temporary accommodation for students while their
permanent hostels were under renovation, tiling could only be installed during
the three-month student holidays. Stripping and removal of old flooring in the
hostel proved challenging, while carrying new materials to the upper floors was extremely labour
intensive as the elevators were unavailable for use during the three-month
project.
PRODUCTS FOR THE SPORTS
VILLAGE
TAL products for this
6 200 m2 project included TAL Professional Tile Adhesive
(2 750 bags), TAL Wall and Floor Grout – Dove Grey (200 x 20 kg bags) and
TAL Bond (50 x 20 litre drums). TAL Professional is a grey, general-purpose,
standard setting cement-based powder adhesive for fixing ceramic tiles to walls
and floors. Designed for ease of use, the adhesive allows up to three hours pot
life after mixing and is set after 24 hours. TAL Wall and Floor Grout is a
cementitious grout, offering resistance to moisture ingress and fungal growth.
TAL Bond, a modified latex-based additive, enhances the bond strength,
flexibility and water resistance of adhesives and grouts when used as a total
water replacement in the mixture.
The above products were used
for the bedding and grouting of 1st Grade Johnson Tiles (NR-364
Nirvana Brown 500 x 500 mm) onto walls and floors in each of the forty units.
The contractor for this project was CF Tilers, a TAL-approved applicator.
PRODUCTS FOR KOM EN GAAN
HOSTEL
Since priming was required
for this project, a slurry priming coat was used comprising TAL Keymix (100 x
20 kg bags), a cementitious, powder primer and TAL Keycoat (50 x 20 litre
drums), a modified latex primer, in a 2:1 mix (by volume). The mixture offers
exceptional adhesion to existing tiles as well as dense, impervious and smooth
surfaces such as power floated or steel floated concrete and screeds. The same
products used for the Sports Village, namely TAL Professional (1 500
bags), TAL Bond (30 x 20 litre drums) and TAL Wall and Floor Grout – Dove Grey
(120 x 20 kg bags) were used for bedding and grouting 1st Grade
Johnson Tiles (TC-574 Terrace Beige 500 x 500 mm) on the walls, floors and
veranda of the hostel. The contractor for this project was Boukon, another TAL
approved applicator.
Although extremely
time-challenging, both projects resulted in highly successful tiling
installations which will stand the test of time, eliminating further
refurbishments for many years.
More information at www.tal.co.za or TAL Technical Advisory Service on
0860 000 825
