FFI 94 March 2018

Page 48

Special

PVC, vinyl and LVT floors: extra business for floor fitters

ANYONE WHO CAN FIT PARQUET CAN FIT ANYTHING PARQUET FLOOR FITTER’S SHOPPING TROLLEY GETS BIGGER AND BIGGER

Photo – Wicanders

We’ve often said that a parquet floor fitter’s career development is characterised by a constant extension to the number of possible floor coverings. ‘Traditional’ parquet floor fitters who focus solely on wooden floors are becoming a rarity. There are two indisputable reasons for this. Firstly, there is the conclusion that the increased popularity of various floor coverings has provided stiff competition. Then there is the simple fact that the parquet floor fitter’s professional expertise makes it perfectly possible to fit those types of floors.

Typical skills What exactly are those typical skills which parquet floor fitters have? We’re not talking here about fitters who fit only multi-layer parquet

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with a click system or other similar floors which, inspired by laminate syndrome, can often be fitted easily by seasoned odd-jobbers. We mean traditional, ‘classically trained’ parquet floor fitters who grew up on the colour, feel, and smell of solid wood. These are parquet floor fitters who fit solid parquet ‘starting from scratch’ with a shabby substrate onto an equally solid subfloor. Those floor fitters can fit ANYTHING. They measure, saw, prepare substrates, glue, sandpaper, re-sandpaper, finish, maintain, and, several years later, renovate. They are familiar with physics and chemistry and know better than anyone else about the freakish whims which wood sometimes has. They are familiar with just about all the tools, machines, and accessories and can handle them properly. Those are the floor fitters we mean. As we’ve already said, they have good reasons to fit all those other sometimes ‘reinvigorated’ floors because they have the ability and to ensure that


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