Page 68 - History-of-flooringLR

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INSTARMAC’S HISTORY

Instarmac Group plc have been providing the flooring industry with expert subfloor preparation materials for 25 years.
In this piece, some of their employees take a look back at their most memorable moments of the last two decades.

On beginning their flooring journey, Shamshad Ali, technical manager at months of development work, we launched Level IT Super30.
Instarmac, reminisces: ‘What some people may not know is that our flooring
range was initially sold as part of our UltraCrete concrete repair range and ‘Level IT Super30 completely revolutionised the flooring industry. For the
consisted of two industrial flooring products – Cemfloor IT, now known as first time ever, contractors could use a smoothing underlayment which
Level IT Top, and Cemfloor IB, now called Level IT Base. could be walked on in just 30 minutes. The launch of Level IT Super30
marked a huge shift in the industry and set the precedent for all of today’s
‘One of the first big projects I worked on back in 1996 was to enhance and rapid setting levellers.
develop our tiling and flooring offering to include a bag and bottle product.
At the time, the market-leading leveller had a strong ammonia smell which ‘Even all these years later, developing the unique formulation of Level IT
had become associated with a quality product. We were determined to Super30 is still one of my proudest career moments.’
bring an ammonia-free smoothing underlayment to market but we knew
we needed to change the mind-set of the industry for it to be a success. The demands of the flooring industry have changed a lot over the years,
something Alan Collins, technical training and site support manager at
‘Over time, the flooring industry became more confident using ammonia-free Instarmac has certainly noticed. ‘I have been working in the flooring sector
floor levellers and soon enough Instarmac become synonymous with for 15 years and when I think back about the biggest shift I have seen, I
manufacturing quality subfloor preparation materials. would have to say the introduction of LVT is definitely up there.

‘Up until this point, a lot of floor levellers on the market were similar in ‘When I began my flooring career, LVT flooring just wasn’t a thing. Move
their performance but in 2008 everything changed. We had been forward a few years and it is everywhere, even in residential settings.
working extremely hard behind the scenes to manufacture the Underfloor heating systems are also far more widely available now than they
industry’s first ever rapid setting floor leveller. After months and were 15 years ago.

68 The History of Flooring