LVT: elegance and maximum hygiene in 5mm
The current health emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic is leading many public spaces to review their hygiene and safety standards, including their floorings and coverings. In this case, the location, a hospitals chapel, led to the choice of an extremely safe product such as LVT slabs,made of bacteriostatic PVC.
We were asked to replace the chapels carpeting of the civil hospital in Baggiovara (Modena) with an LVT vinyl flooring, which guarantees maximum safety from a hygienic point of view, as viruses and bacteria cannot proliferate on its surface.
The choice: Tucson
Our client has chosen the concrete effect LVT Tiles Tucson, as its colour perfectly match with the chapel’s walnut wooden furnishings. The 5mm thickness of this LVT flooring has been clearly an advantage because it avoided the creation of any steps, which could have made it difficult for patients on wheelchairs to enter.
LVT floor installation
The granite substrate on which the work was carried out was an excellent support base and did not require any kind of preliminary treatment. The only possible difficulty could have come from the irregular shape of the area, but the ease of cutting and shaping the PVC plates (a cutter is enough to make the necessary cuts) made this operation extremely simple and fast.
IIn fact, the vertical click system, which allows the replacement even of just a single plate, allows you to install the floor very quickly, you only have to remember to fix some parts of the floor with double-sided tape to the substrate.
IThe area around the priest’s altar was also covered with Tucson, for an extremely pleasant and harmonious final result. It’s important to mention how everything has been done in a single working day.
Installation of the profiles
As previously mentioned, vinyl floors are well suited to renovations thanks to its weight and 5 mm thickness. To connect the vinyl surface with the underlying floor, we have used connection profiles in anodized aluminium, which have also been fixed with double-sided tape. During the whole renovation we did not use glues and screws, nor did we create dust or any type of noise. The connection profiles have made it easier to access the area for people in stretchers or wheelchairs. The edges of the platform and the rear part of the area have been completed with special C profiles in anodised aluminium.
Finally, it should be said that the audio cables for the microphones have also been integrated into the floor, and have been covered with T-profiles.
A new Chapel
At the end of the renovation, we can clearly see how even a simple replacement of a non-hygienic material with an antibacterial LVT vinyl floor in order to guarantee maximum safety, can completely transform the appearance of a hospital chapel, making it more welcoming and pleasant for all its guest. And all this within a single day.