Flooring for Hotels

Lobby, bar, restaurant, breakfast room and function space carry the heaviest load and the least tolerance for a tired surface. These are the areas where the floor is seen at close range, under artificial light, all day.

Three questions decide the material here.

What will be dropped on it. Glass, cutlery, luggage wheels, cleaning machines. A resilient surface with a closed joint handles the first three. The fourth depends on the pad and the maintenance schedule, which is why the maintenance document belongs in the tender pack.

What will be seen in two years. Public areas are read at standing distance and photographed constantly. A surface whose pattern comes from the weave holds up better than one whose pattern is a printed image, because wear in the walk line remodels a print and does not remodel a weave.

How it will be cleaned between service periods. A floor that needs a four-step routine is a floor that will be done in two steps by the second year. Agree the routine with the housekeeping contractor before the sample is signed off.

In rooms, comfort and quiet matter more than wear. In corridors, the reverse.

Corridors are long, narrow rooms with doors on both sides and no soft furnishing. They also sit above another corridor or a bedroom, so footfall becomes a structural problem rather than a surface problem. That is the point to specify impact noise rather than appearance.

Our wall to wall floor with a 3.0 mm PVC foam backing cuts impact noise by 22 dB (ΔLw, BS EN ISO 140-8). Write the requirement with the standard next to it, because a ΔLw figure without its test method cannot be compared with the figure in another tender.

There is a second acoustic question, inside the room rather than below it. Woven vinyl is dense and absorbs little sound. Our acoustic modular range is tested to EN ISO 354 at αw 0.05, which is not classified. If a consultant asks for absorption in a corridor, that request is answered by a ceiling or a wall panel, not by these tiles. Knowing this before the specification is written saves a substitution later.

Hospitality colour schemes are usually chosen from a drawing, then installed in a building with daylight, dirty boots and a cleaning machine.

Four things help in practice, and all four can be checked before the sample is signed off.

Solution-dyed yarn. The colour is in the yarn before the yarn is woven, so the surface does not depend on a coating to hide wear.

Two-tone yarn. Two tones of yarn in the same colour family give the grain of a natural fibre, and they hide small marks better than a flat shade.

Light and rub fastness tested to a named standard. BS EN ISO 105-B02 covers light, BS EN ISO 105-B04 covers weathering. Our position on these is supported by TÜV SÜD report 70.404.18.21948.01-00, SGS report SHIN1707041322MR, and SGS report HZ1293415/TX. Ask for the reports, not for a promise.

A pattern with movement in it. A plain mid-tone shows every mark. A weave with a visible structure does not.

One more point, because it comes up in every hotel project. Woven vinyl is not identical metre to metre. The two-tone yarn gives subtle variation across a roll, which is the quality that makes the material read as textile rather than as print. Set that expectation with the designer at sample stage.

Corridors mean long runs, and long runs mean seams.

A minimum roll width of 200 cm (±1%, EN 426) covers most corridor widths without a lengthways seam. Where a seam is unavoidable, welding closes it, and a closed joint will not collect soil the way an open edge does.

If the project uses tiles instead of roll goods, the trade is straightforward. More seams, and a damaged area that is replaced in an afternoon without closing the floor.

Hotel work is scheduled by floor closure, not by container departure. That makes lead time a design constraint.

Stock qualities ship in 2 to 3 weeks. Unique designs made to your own specification start at 1000 m² and take 4 to 6 weeks. Stock qualities carry no minimum order, which matters for a single feature area or a late change to one room type.

Order samples at the point where the scheme is shortlisted rather than approved. Samples are free of charge, with the courier at your cost.

• CE marking to EN 14041
• Declaration of Performance, for the product actually supplied
• Reaction to fire classification to EN 13501-1, for the product and backing
• REACH statement, and restricted substances reports where the operator requires them
• Colour fastness reports to BS EN ISO 105-B02 and 105-B04
• Impact noise test report, where acoustics is in the specification
• Maintenance schedule for the product line

The fire classification value lives in the DoP for that product. We send the document, because the number only means something next to its standard and its backing.