Flooring

The purpose of floor is to provide horizontal clean surface to support the occupants of a building, furniture and equipments. The floor structure must  be strong enough to bear super imposed loads. The strength of floor depends on type of flooring you use.

• Linoleum
• Rubber Flooring
• False Flooring
• PVC Flooring or Vinyl flooring

Cement Concrete Flooring

Cement and concrete are main components of both commercial and residential flooring. Cement is key ingredient in concrete products. It is binding agent that holds sand and other aggregate together in a hard, stone-like mass.

Concrete is produced by mixing cement with fine aggregate (sand), coarse aggregate (gravel or crushed stone), water, and often small amounts of various chemicals called admixtures which control such properties as setting time and plasticity. When the water is added to cement, it forms a slurry (thin semi-liquid cement) or gel that coats surfaces of the aggregate and fills the voids to form solid concrete.

The ratio of water and cement is the key that determines the strength of concrete whereas aggregates provide thickness, and decoration in some cases. Cement concrete flooring consists of cement concrete in the ratio of 1:2:4 (1 part of cement, 2 parts of coarse sand, and 4 parts of graded stone aggregate). Its thickness varies from 25mm to 50mm. The base concrete should be provided with slopes.

Flooring in veranda, courtyard, kitchens, and baths should have slope ranging from 1:48 to 1:60 depending on the location. Floors in water closet should have slope of 1:30.

Concrete Cement flooring... back in trend

Terrazzo Flooring

It is popular flooring for residential as well as public buildings. Terrazzo tiles have a smooth shine and are designed with marble or granite chips which add attractive designs to them. It’s available in an excellent range of colors and textures. This flooring is usually not slippery when wet because this has many grout lines.

Terrazzo flooring consists of an under layer of cement concrete in ratio of 1:2:4 (1 part of cement, 2 parts of coarse sand, 4 parts of graded stone aggregate, 12.5 nominal size). Its thickness varies from 34mm to 28mm. Thickness of top layer of marble chips varies from 6mm to 12mm whereas the thickness of terrazzo flooring depends on the size of marble chips used.

 

 

Terrazzo floor

 

A blue white blend of color in kitchen with perfect terrazo floor

(This Picture is Contributed by "Apurva Sharma")

Crazy Marble Flooring

It is little different from mosaic flooring for its casting. The cement concrete under layer of crazy marble should be 25mm thick. Marble stone pieces are laid on cement concrete base. The usual thickness of marble stone pieces is 20 mm to 30 mm. The mix of cement chips 4:7 is laid around stone pieces.
The mix of crazy marble stone flooring consists of white cement-marble powder mixture (ratio 3:1) by weight in proportion of 4:7(4 cement-marble powder mixes: 7 marble chips).

 

Crazy Marble Flooring

Brick Flooring

Bricks are very easy to install. As bricks are slip resistant you can avoid danger of slippery even when the floor is wet. This is the cheapest floor and is used in low category houses and temporary structures.

Cement mortar in ratio 1:4 or 1:6 (1 part of cement, 4 or 6 parts of coarse sand by volume) is used in brick flooring. Brick flooring laid on base concrete consists of 75 mm thick lime concrete mix or cement concrete mix (ratio1:4:8 or 1:5:10).

 

Brick Floor on Terrace

 

Trendy Brick Floor

(This Picture is Contributed by "Sharmishtha")

Ceramic Tile Flooring

One of the most common uses of ceramic tiles is for flooring design in homes. Ceramic tiles are affordable, have low-maintenance, and can easily match with any room decor. These tiles come in various sizes, shapes, thicknesses, and colors, and are either glazed or unglazed.

Ceramic Tile Flooring with minimal designing  

Tiles are available in different sizes.

Length (mm)	Breadth (mm)	Thickness (mm)
200	200	5-6
250	250	5-6
300	300	5-6

The thickness of ceramic tiles for floor is 8 mm.

Marble Flooring

Marble is usually found as rectangular, square tiles or as whole slabs. One side is smooth and the edges are beveled (sloping). Marble tiles provide beauty for years and functionality to your home with low maintenance. These tiles are durable and available in varieties of colors such as white, pink, green, grey etc. these tiles come in plain as well as textured form. This flooring provides an elegant, royal and decorative look to the room. They are suitable for almost any place.

Royal villa with marble flooring

(This Picture is Contributed by "Ahmed")

White Marble Flooring

White marble stones of good quality are used. These stones have uniform veins and are spotless. This flooring is recommended for Hotels, Hospitals, Rest houses and Ban glows.

 

White Marble Flooring with minimal designing  

Kota Stone Flooring

Kota stone is a flat rectangular limestone. It is available as rough natural  slab in natural blue, green and brown color. Kota stone is a natural stone which provides value for money to common man. It is hard and strong and remains undamaged for hundreds of years, yet it is cheap in prices. Kota  in its natural surface is useful for exteriors and high traffic areas like swimming pool etc. It offers non slippery surface and good look. Its polished surface finish is highly suitable for Interiors. It can be used in bedroom, dining room, guest room, particularly in circulation area. in fact in whole house, office etc.

Wooden flooring

Hardwood flooring is one of the most popular and beautiful flooring which has been in use for years. It has an elegance, charm, and durability that make it a popular choice in most of modern homes. The style of hardwood flooring you choose should be a decision based on your lifestyle, the construction of your house, and your budget.

This flooring may be used for auditoriums, dance halls, gymnasium floors etc. The thickness of wooden blocks does not exceed 10 mm. The blocks are laid in desired patterns and they are fixed by means of hot glue. Then they are nailed with the help of panel pins. The heads of these pins are punched off and putty is filled in the holes.

  

Wooden Flooring

Wooden dine

( This Picture is Contributed by "Sharmishtha") 

Multicolored Linoleum flooring

(This Picture is Contributed by "Tara Vajpayee")

Rubber Flooring

This flooring is a popular choice today. It is available in form of tiles and sheets which are made from synthetic rubber. It comes in plain, ribbed, fluted or other raised patterns. It is suitable for locations where a non-conducting floor (where heat or electricity can not pass through) is required. For e.g., laboratories, amusement parks, etc. This flooring is a mixture of raw rubber, fillers such as fiber, corks, etc. and pigments. A small percentage of ‘sulphur’ is added to speed up the process of vulcanization (The process of making soft rubber harder by reaction with ‘sulphur’ naturally). The material is available in different colors for both sheet and tile forms.

Rubber flooring can be laid over any smooth and dry surface. This flooring is elastic, attractive, noiseless, sanitary, comparatively warm and soft but it is affected by oil and grease. This flooring is used for bathrooms, hospitals, X-ray rooms etc.

False Flooring

False Flooring is normally used in computer rooms for routing cables under floor. The floor panel should be made of 35mm thick ‘Nova teak Super’ particle board, 2mm thick PVC tiles on top surface and the underside should be coated with fire resistant paint. The edges of floor panel might expose PVC edging. The entire floor should be capable to take distributed load of 1200 kg. per sq/m. and a safe point load of 400 kg uniformly at the center of panel with a maximum deflection of 2mm.    

PVC Flooring or Vinyl flooring

This flooring is waterproof and is easy to clean. It is hard wearing and bears high wear resistance and hardiness. It is unbreakable and flexible. You can easily replace any damaged section of the flooring if you use vinyl-flooring tiles instead of sheet. This flooring also comes in a large variety of finishes these days including slip resistant vinyl flooring which is ideal for areas the public often walks on. This flooring is bacteria-free and resistant to chemical as the surface of Vinyl flooring offers resistance to attack from soft and diluted acids, alkali, petrol, soaps and detergents. However, any chemical spilled on the surface should be cleaned immediately to minimize any possible damage.

The sizes available normally are; width 1.5 meter in rolls and continuous length up to 20 meter. The thickness 2 mm and 1.5 mm has many selected shades.

There are three main steps which occur during layout of floors.
First step: Leveling of the filled up earth including watering, ramming.
Second step: Laying fine sand and cement concrete for base coat.
Third step: Lying floor toping may be of any type of flooring i.e. Brick on edge flooring, conglomerate flooring, terrazzo flooring, marble flooring, ceramic tile flooring etc.

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