flooring

The need to deliver a supportive, good quality interior at a low cost presents difficulties in the selection of flooring within social housing projects. Speed of installation, homely design, easy maintenance and durability all at a low cost, is not something every floor can deliver.

Beauflor sheet vinyl flooring offers an attractive finish across a wide range of popular natural looks with benefits for the developer and tenant alike. For the housing association, it’s cost-effective, fast to install and durable helping to deliver value throughout its life cycle. Tenants benefit from a homely and comfortable floor that’s hygienic, easy to maintain, safe to walk on and which has the potential to support their feeling of wellbeing.

Joanna Crown, Marketing Director at WMS, leading supplier and installer of underfloor heating systems, has been elected as Chair for BEAMA’s Underfloor Heating Group.

“As the industry faces the biggest adjustment the UK housing market has ever seen, and may ever see, it’s never been more important for new build heating systems to work in harmony”, comments Joanna Crown, Marketing Director at WMS, leading supplier and installer of underfloor heating systems for new build developments in the UK.

Every day, 250 people start to lose their sight across the UK.  This is a problem that is made worse by poorly designed homes. When it comes to housing associations, many people with visual impairments are waking up in a home that is not adapted to their needs and the area of greatest risk for them is the bathroom. Here Stuart Reynolds, Head of Product and Marketing at AKW explains how social landlords can introduce simple bathroom design changes to improve the lives and safety of tenants. 

In new build homes with precast concrete or timber suspended ground floors, controlling atmospheric moisture in the sub-floor space is normally provided by means of natural ventilators. These include airbricks or grilles of appropriate size and number and are located on opposing external walls to ensure cross ventilation. Attention to detail with sleeper walls and other obstructions in the sub-floor void is also required to ensure that the air can move freely with minimum resistance between external ventilators.

While the provision of such natural ventilation is relatively easy to achieve in new build homes, existing homes often suffer the consequences of inadequate natural ventilation of sub-floor spaces. Ventilators can become blocked over time with dirt and debris or covered when external ground levels are raised through new landscaping or patio coverings. Extensions to homes can also result in natural ventilation of a sub-floor space being negatively impacted. You only have to look at the number of mid terrace homes throughout the UK with rear extensions added with original sub-floor ventilators still visible on the front façade but with none on the rear extension to understand how this can be a problem in many dwellings. There is no way to easily naturally ventilate such a sub-floor.

Luxury Vinyl Tiles, Carpet Tiles and Heterogenous Vinyl floors from IVC Commercial bring comfortable, durable and easy to maintain solutions that are affordable in new build and refurbishment in social housing.

IVC Commercial believes that good design should be easy to implement. For housing associations and affordable housing projects, this means floors that create a welcoming and comfortable home which are also cost-effective, durable and easy to maintain.

Kingspan Insulation has published a new white paper assessing how different floor insulation specifications can impact cost and floor-to-ceiling height in home refurbishments.