Frequently asked questions

Yes, in most cases. What matters is not the existing floor itself, but whether it is sound. Three things settle that, before the first coat:

• Are all the tiles firmly fixed? Hollow-sounding tiles are tapped off, removed and filled.
• Is the substrate dry enough? That is measured, not estimated — the residual moisture must be below the limit for the chosen system.
• Is the substrate load-bearing? The bond strength must be sufficient; if in doubt it is tested on site.

If the substrate is suitable, the build-up decides the rest: always a suitable primer, followed by a scraping coat that levels out the relief of the joints. Your applicator carries out these checks; the limit values per system are in our technical data sheets, and if there is any doubt we are happy to think along.

Our systems work on most common substrates: concrete, cement-bound screeds and existing tiling. Wood, gypsum fibre board and anhydrite are also possible, each with the right preparation and the matching primer.

What counts is not so much the material as its condition. A substrate that is contaminated or contains moisture is not suitable until that has been remedied: contamination prevents adhesion, and moisture finds its way up.

The substrate determines the build-up, not the other way round. A moving substrate calls for a more flexible system, a heavily loaded substrate for a stronger build-up, and a sensitive substrate such as anhydrite for adapted preparation. That is why, with every piece of advice, we first ask what lies underneath.

Yes. It is a matter of choosing the right system, not of ruling it out. Our PU systems are eminently suitable for it: the small thickness gives little thermal resistance, and the material stays flexible enough to absorb the movement of a heated screed. Underfloor heating is also possible with an epoxy system — there the build-up decides whether it fits. Put the application to us and we will advise the system that goes with it.

Where things go wrong is rarely the floor, but the preparation. Before installation, a heated screed must have been fully heated up and cooled down again, so that the shrinkage is behind it. That heating-up protocol is documented by the heating installer and is not a formality — it is the most important condition for a floor that stays put.

After installation the heating is only restarted once the system has cured completely, and then gradually: in steps, not all at once.

A poured floor is applied seamlessly: across the whole surface there is no joint, no tile grid and no transition. That is precisely what makes the result so calm.

But seamless does not mean joint-free. What lies underneath determines whether joints are needed, and there are two kinds you must not confuse.

Shrinkage joints in the screed are the sawn cuts that control the shrinkage of a fresh screed. Once cured they are usually dead and can be filled and bridged during preparation.

Structural and settlement joints are joints that the structure itself allows to move. These must carry through into the floor finish. A poured floor cannot bridge a moving joint: if it does, the movement will sooner or later show as a crack directly above that joint.

The rule is therefore simple: every joint that moves stays; every joint that no longer moves can go. Which of the two it is, is assessed on site before the first layer, not afterwards. The execution and assessment criteria are set out in Buildwise TV 277, the guide to good practice for resin-bound floors (2021).

We supply the system and think through the build-up with you; your applicator decides on site where the joints go and how they are finished.

A resin-bound floor rarely cracks of its own accord. If it does, the movement almost always comes from below: from the substrate, not the finish. The floor makes visible what is happening beneath it.

A substrate that is still moving. A screed that has not yet cured, or has not been fully heated up, keeps moving after installation. That is why a heated screed should be fully heated up and cooled down again before installation.

A moving joint that was not carried through. See the question on joints and movement joints: a joint that moves and is poured over anyway will show itself.

A crack that was already in the substrate. Existing cracks are assessed and treated before the build-up — routed out, filled and, where needed, stitched. What you do not treat comes back.

The system itself plays a part too. Our polyurethane systems are slightly elastic and absorb small movements; an epoxy system is harder and stiffer and does so less. That is why every piece of advice starts with what lies underneath: a working substrate gets a more flexible build-up.

In short: cracking is a matter of preparation and system choice, and both are decided before the first layer.

Yes, and it is one of the applications where a seamless floor shows its greatest advantage. A kitchen brings together everything that puts a finish under strain: water, grease, temperature swings, cleaning agents and intensive use.

Being seamless. Joints are more porous than the surrounding material and collect dirt. A continuous surface is cleaned in a single pass. The floor-to-wall junction can run through as well, removing the corner where dirt normally builds up.

Providing grip where it gets wet. For those situations there is a version with a textured, scratch-resistant top layer — the same aesthetic, but with higher slip resistance. That choice is made zone by zone: a wash-down area calls for something different from a walkway.

Withstanding what lands on it daily. Hard-wearing, cleanable and easy to maintain, with no periodic retreatment.

Tell us about the space and how it will be used, and we will advise the system and the finish that suit it.

We work with the RAL and NCS colour charts. If your colour is in a different range, we measure it and convert it approximately to a RAL or NCS shade. “Approximately” is a deliberate nuance here: a colour on a floor, with its own texture and gloss level, never reads exactly like that same colour on a paint sample.

Bespoke colours are not an exception for us but daily practice. Because we produce ourselves, a colour is made for your project instead of chosen from what happens to be in stock. That also applies to small quantities: one room in a different shade does not have to wait for a large production batch.

With terrazzo systems the bespoke work goes further than colour alone. The aggregates, their grain size and their proportions also determine the final look, and they can be composed freely.

Samples are available on request. We always recommend them: a colour on a screen or in a colour fan is something other than that same colour on a floor surface.

Small imperfections can occur: a resin floor is applied by hand and is craftsmanship in that sense. Pronounced colour differences within one and the same floor do not belong to that — that is not a characteristic but an installation error.

What always applies: the final colour may differ slightly from the sample or the colour fan. A colour on a floor surface, with its own texture, gloss level and incidence of light, never reads exactly like a small sample. That is why we always work with samples, and why we recommend assessing them on site, in the light of the room itself.

Should a discussion nevertheless arise about the appearance of a floor, there is an objective frame of reference: Buildwise TV 277, Guide to the correct installation of resin-bound floors (2021), the successor to TV 216. It sets out the installation and assessment criteria a resin-bound floor must meet. We refer to it deliberately: it takes the discussion away from a matter of taste and brings it back to what has been agreed professionally.

Dry cleaning is enough on a daily basis: vacuuming or sweeping. The greatest wear does not come from use but from sand tracked in — grains act like sandpaper under a shoe. A doormat at every outside door does more for the look of your floor than any product.

For wet cleaning, use water and a pH-neutral, low-foaming cleaning product, well wrung out. What is better avoided:

• Acidic and strongly alkaline products — descalers, drain cleaners, bleach. These attack the top coat.
• Strongly foaming products: they leave a film that dulls the surface.
• Abrasives and scouring pads.
• Steam cleaners: not recommended.

Periodic re-treatment is not necessary. That applies to our full range, PU Stuc included — maintenance is the same for all our systems. The full instructions are in the technical data sheet of each system.

That depends on three things, and none of them is the product alone: the load, the maintenance and the quality of the installation. A floor in a home and the same floor in a production hall lead completely different lives.

What sets a resin floor apart from most floor finishes is that it can be renewed. If the top coat wears after years of intensive use, the floor does not have to come out: with all our systems the top coat can be applied again. That changes the question — not when is it finished, but when does it need attention. Provided it is maintained, the floor lasts as long as the substrate lasts.

What happens at the start is decisive above all. A properly prepared substrate and a matched build-up determine more about the service life than anything done afterwards.

Yes. That is not a makeshift solution but a property of the build-up: the top coat is a separate layer, and with all our systems it can be applied again without the floor having to come out.

Exactly what is done depends on what is wrong. Surface scratches and dull patches usually call for sanding and a new top coat. Local damage is repaired locally. And if the floor is still sound but no longer to your taste, the colour can be changed during that same operation.

What is decisive is the condition of the underlying layers. As long as the build-up adheres and the substrate is stable, refreshing remains possible. A floor that shows some wear after years is therefore seldom a floor that has to be replaced.

Your applicator assesses what is needed; we supply the system that suits the existing build-up, even when it has been there for years.

A floor is not a product but a build-up: primer, scraping coat, poured layer and top coat. Each layer has its own task, and they have to match in three ways.

• Chemically — the layers must adhere to each other, and not every resin tolerates every substrate or intermediate layer.
• Mechanically — a hard top coat on a flexible poured layer cracks along with every movement. The elasticity of the layers must be matched.
• In time — every layer has a window within which the next one must go on. Too early or too late, and the adhesion is lost.

That is why we develop our systems as a whole and not as separate products: primer, intermediate layers and top coat come from the same house and are tested together. If a component from elsewhere is introduced along the way, the build-up falls outside our system advice — and with floors that usually only becomes apparent months later.

Wherever it is technically possible, we work with renewable or recycled raw materials.

Our terrazzo systems contain recycled aggregates. These come from various sources, but most often from the demolition material of the site itself: the rubble of a building returns in the floor that is laid on it. More unusual streams are used too — we have already processed aggregate from recycled sports shoes.

The polyols in our polyurethane systems are of plant origin, and our epoxy systems also contain raw materials from renewable sources. Our systems are solvent-free.

There is also something that seldom appears in a product data sheet: where it is made. Our systems are produced in Belgium and not imported. That saves transport, but above all it makes small batches and bespoke colours possible without a residual batch being left standing somewhere.

And the third factor is the slowest but the heaviest: a floor that lasts a long time and can be repaired weighs less on the environment than a floor that is replaced twice.

Because the result is largely determined on site and not in the factory. We can match a system down to the details; what happens afterwards decides whether it succeeds.

A trained applicator does three things that do not fit in a manual. He assesses the substrate and knows when it has to be treated first. He works within the time windows of the system, in which mixing, pouring, de-aerating and overcoating each have their moment. And while applying, he sees whether something is going wrong, at the only moment when it can still be corrected — once cured, correcting is the same as starting over.

That is why we work with professional applicators and not with DIY projects. Our applicators are trained and supported by us, and we come along on site when needed: at the start-up of a new system, or on a project that calls for it.

Are you a client or architect looking for someone who works with our systems? Let us know — we will refer you to an applicator from our network and follow the project with you.

Yes. Every system has a technical data sheet covering the build-up, the consumption figures, the substrate requirements and the application conditions. Those sheets are what you need to specify a floor correctly, and they are available on request.

We write the specification text to suit the project. Send us the application and the build-up you have in mind, and you will receive text you can adopt directly — tailored to what has to happen in that particular building, rather than a standard block written for everything and nothing.

What we also recommend: specify a system, not a single product. A floor is a build-up of primer, scratch coat, poured layer and top layer, and those layers have to match chemically, mechanically and in time. A specification that fixes one layer and leaves the rest open leaves room exactly where things go wrong.

An objective frame of reference for execution and assessment: Buildwise TV 277, the guide to good practice for resin-bound floors (2021), the successor to TV 216. We refer to it deliberately — it moves the discussion away from taste and back to what the trade has agreed.

Working on a project? Tell us the application; we will supply the data sheets and put you in touch with an applicator from our network.

We produce in-house, in Belgium. That is not a slogan but precisely what determines the lead time: there is no international chain between your enquiry and the people making the product.

Standard products we deliberately keep in stock. What is in our warehouse is ready to leave.

Bespoke colour is daily practice for us, not an exception procedure. Because the colours are produced on our own tinting machines, a shade is mixed for your project rather than chosen from whatever happens to be in stock. That applies to small quantities too: a single room in a different shade does not have to wait for a large production batch.

A specific lead time depends on the system, the quantity and the moment — ask for it when you order and you will get a date, not an estimate. If something in the raw-materials market causes lead times to stretch, we tell you proactively rather than waiting.