:: New Horizons

Laying natural stone in high rise apartments provides retailers of tile and stone with new challenges. Apartment owners naturally want to lay a wide variety of floor coverings, including those which may echo, or transmit noise into living spaces located directly below.

To overcome this problem, local authorities have to revert to ISO standards as Australia currently does not have a testing standard for Impact Insulation Class (FIIC). The majority of testing conducted overseas, particularly in America, assumes that slabs are 20 cms thick. Here in Australia, a typical high rise slab is 17.5 cms. Therefore specifiers frequently have to ensure that they use products which exceed the standard.

The 43 storey Horizon Building in Forbes Street Sydney features this superb tiling project that utilises 600 x 300 x 20 mm sandstone tiles supplied by Bisanna, Surry Hills, NSW.

Speaking of high rise, it is hard to visualise anything taller than the 43 floor Horizon Building, located on Forbes Street in Sydney.

The possibilities of laying tile and stone at altitude are suitably confirmed by tiling works which were recently completed on level 42 of this landmark building.

Huw Davies of builder Horizon Habitats explained the need for state-of-the-art underlayment and noise reduction materials. We elected to use Regupol, which is basically a reconstituted rubber that is 10 mm thick. Regupol is a 6010 SH impact sound underlayment which reduces the sound of foot traffic, objects being moved or dropped.

Huw described the preparation process. This is where products like self-levelling screeds come in to their own. We utilised over 60 bags of Atlas Prebond to level the sub-floor, following removal of the existing parquetry. This saved a lot of time.

After the levelling process, the floor was primed with Regupol 130 Primer, the Regupol 6010 SH was adhered to the sub-floor using Regupol's 2 Part Polyurethane Acoustic adhesive. This process was followed by application of a coat of Regupol 022 Supergrip Suregrip sealer, basically a roll on sealant, which is applied prior to tiling.

The Tiling Works

The need to produce a flat, smooth surface, was vital given that the specified flooring was a 600x300x20 mm sandstone, called Pietra Azul. This was employed in all rooms, excluding the bedrooms.

Tiler Tony Vasallo spent a week laying approximately 90 square metres of this material, which was later sealed with a Tasman Chemicals sealer.

Tony Vasallo confirmed, The window ledges were tiled in granite, which provides enhanced porosity values in comparison to the sandstone. The bathroom walls were either of solid render or lined with approved sheet material, ready to receive enormous slabs of 1200x800x20 mm marble - Carrara Goyia. All the tiles were sourced from Bisanna in Surry Hills.

Tony advised, I used White 2 Part Addflextra to lay the sandstone and the work proceeded quickly, without a problem.

Lyn Molloy of architects Urban Moo, also based in Surry Hills added, The apartments were completed in November 1998; this particular unit can be described as very modern.

It is interesting to note that approximately 13 mm of Levelling Compound and 10 mm of Regupol was applied to the sub-floor before the 20 mm sandstone was laid. Great care had to be taken to ensure that levels were accurate and that ultimately these heavy tiles were adequately bedded in suitable adhesive and that noise levels were substantially reduced.