School floors ‘learn their lessons’ with Ultrabond ECO® 711 adhesive

The Renaissance Charter School is a tuition-free public charter school serving students in kindergarten through the eighth grade. The school provides students with the tools and skills to develop superior levels of achievement by providing a quality and challenging curriculum.

The new school needed to be opened in time for the 2009-2010 school year and there was a big need for speed as summer ended and fall approached. Part of getting the new school ready for opening day was the installation of 86,000 square feet of Armstrong Standard Excelon vinyl composition tile (VCT). Acousti Engineering did much of the interior work on the school; and Jason Whitney led the Acousti team that installed the VCT, using MAPEI’s Ultrabond ECO 711 thin-spread VCT adhesive. The crew completed the entire area in just 15 days, keeping the school opening right on schedule. Ultrabond ECO 711, which provides fast drying times, enhanced grab and greater slip resistance, helped contribute to the fast pace. The adhesive’s low odour and ultra-low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) made it an ideal choice for use in the school environment.

“We began the work by skimcoating about 80,000 square feet of the surface with MAPEI’s Planiprep™ FF to produce a durable, smooth surface for the installation of the VCT,” Whitney says. “The school owners asked us to create designs in the predominantly beige-coloured tile to give added dimension to the spaces. We made patterns in the hallways with a green tile and in the classrooms with a darker tan tile.”

One of the major issues with meeting the construction deadlines was the need for other trades to access the floors with heavy ladders and scissor-lifts almost immediately after the installation was complete in a given area. “By using the ECO 711, we were able to test the tiles for slippage a half hour after installation, and they couldn’t be budged,” Whitney explains.

“When we came to the final inspection, we were handed a zero punch list – we didn’t have to fix a single tile. Our MAPEI representative was on site the day we arrived and followed our work throughout the installation, ready to give us any support we needed. At Acousti, we are proud of the work we do, and each job done well helps us to acquire the next project. We really enjoyed using the ECO 711, and we’ll use it again.” b 44