[Dalton] Just one year after Shaw Industries made the bold moveto join its two premium powerhouse brands — Anderson Hard-wood and Tuftex Carpet — Anderson Tuftex (A/T) leadership hastaken stock of its product portfolio and is applying lessons learnedfor increasing brand exposure and speed to market in year two.

“Over the past year, we took the opportunity to step back andevaluate what was missing from our portfolio,” Carrie EdwardsIsaac, vice president of marketing and consumer strategy, ShawIndustries, shared with FCW. “The beauty of bringing these twowell-established brands together is their combined history; we’renot starting from scratch.”

Building brand equitySHAW TAKES A/T TO THE NEXT LEVEL

By Mallory Cruise-McGrath

Continued on page 6

JANUARY 07, 2019 • $4

2019OUTLOOK

Stories begin on page 12.F L O O R C O V E R I N G W E E K L Y

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Carrie Edwards Isaac and Katie Ford of Shaw Industries and Anderson Tuftex

42 JANUARY 7, 2019 | FLOOR COVERING WEEKLY

T E C H N O L O G Y

Installation products today offer multi-ple uses and benefits in a single product, blurring the lines of what separates one from another (like a mortar versus an adhesive), while many companies also aim to round out their product lines with full installation systems.

For instance, products that used to be installed with cement-based mortars such as ceramic tile are increasingly be-ing set with adhesives based on chemis-tries like moisture-cured polyurethane, said Dan Marvin, director of technical services at Mapei.

“Flooring such as vinyl and wood that once were only installed with a bucket and a trowel may now be in-stalled with double-sided tape adhe-sives that instantly bond to both the substrate and the backing,” Marvin said. “These changes in how flooring is being installed are based on new developments in rheology (the study of how something flows), adhesive chemistry, and as a response to the ev-er-evolving backings coming from the resilient flooring industry.”

Recently, Mapei introduced a new tape adhesive, called MapeContact,

Adhesives advance to multi-tiered systemsBy Elise Linscott

which prevents moisture vapor transfer to the back of the flooring, so it can be used over substrates with high relative humidity readings. It also has sound-re-duction properties, which is increasing-ly important as multi-family home con-struction outpaces single-family homes, Marvin said.

With the popularity of luxury vinyl products and other multilayer flooring materials, the ability of an underlay-ment to be thin, dense and supportive are paramount, said Deanna Summers, marketing specialist at MP Global.

“Those flooring materials by nature conform to the subfloor, and pronounce the imperfections profoundly,” Summers said. “Having something that helps to support the interlocking system and minimize the imperfections of the sub-floor are important. However, as always in the past, sound control is one of the key factors of a quality underlayment’s function. Underlayments should prove laboratory testing of how well it will con-trol sound and noise from spreading.”

While many new flooring materi-als boast water-resistant qualities, there is still a need for underlayment

to protect against harmful moisture that can lurk beneath in the sub-floor, especially concrete subfloors, Summers added.

“While the flooring materials are marketed as waterproof from the top side down, underlayments help the flooring become ‘waterproof ’ from the bottom side up. Although the materials (the flooring) is made from

are impervious to moisture, the sum of all the parts together are still left vulnerable,” she said.

Multi-tier systeMs & sustainable products

Multi-tier, solution-based systems from individual companies, including product offerings with full warranties that match the lifetime of the flooring manufacturer’s warranty, are another of the latest developments in the installa-tion products industry, said David Jack-son, field technical services manager at DriTac Flooring Products. If installed properly in accordance with the speci-fications of the manufacturers, the sys-tem should perform well in both sound and moisture mitigation.

“These system-based flooring in-stallation solutions are provided by a single-source supplier and boast prov-en technology and unmatched value, allowing both distributors and dealers to see an increase in profits,” Jackson said. “This contractor-approved, tried and true method is a ‘double-stick’ in-stallation consisting of two layers of adhesive above and below a layer of un-derlayment, giving peace of mind to the consumer,” he added.

HPS Schönox North America is also working on a full system; this summer, the company introduced hybrid self-lev-elers (made from cement and synthetic gypsum) that can be used with other products like a mineral sublayer and its 3D glass fabric, said Tracy Johnson, graphic designer at Schönox. The min-eral sublayer also provides benefits like thermal insulation, and the products are designed to work together in one flexible system.

Many new adhesive and installation

More companies are offering solution-based installation systems. Pictured is Bostik’s Surface Prep lineup.

FLOOR COVERING WEEKLY | JANUARy 7, 2019 43

T E C H N O L O G Y

HPS Schönox: Perfecting subfloors[Florence, Ala.] HPS Schönoxis a leader in behind-the-scenes,floor-saving products — the company,whose German division is more than125 years old, first introduced self-lev-elers in 1911, and product offeringshave continued to develop since thenwith new technologies.

Graphic designer Tracy Johnson,who is in his third year with the com-pany, said he attributes its longstand-ing success to the variety and adapt-ability of its products.

“We try to offer a variety of prod-ucts from repair and patch, moisturemitigation, adhesives, self-levelers andwaterproofing as well to fill main po-sitions in our market,” Johnson said.“We fill the gaps we see in our productline that people are in need of, and webase those decisions from input we getfrom distributors and installers thatuse Schönox products. We’ll continueto do that in 2019 and beyond.”

The company’s newest products areits hybrid self-levelers, called AP Rapidand AP Rapid Plus, which use a HybridActive Dry technology and have beenavailable in the North American marketsince July, Johnson said.

“These are hybrids in the fact that

they include synthetic gypsum and ce-ment-based materials as well,” John-son said. The hybrid technology has aprecise binding formula which gives itunique features like early drying andcuring time, fast strength developmentand reduced shrinkage and expansion,with same-day floor covering and walk-ability for high-layer thickness installa-tions without the need of aggregation.

These self-levelers are ideal for com-mercial sites like apartment and mul-tifamily complexes, schools and othermulti-floor buildings, said marketingmanager Michelle Eubanks.

Another product that works in con-junction with the self-leveling systemincludes a mineral sublayer for soundand thermal insulation along with a re-inforcement layer called Renotex, a 3D,multilayer glass fiber fabric that addsstrength and durability to the self-level-er and is flexible, Johnson added.

THE MESSAGE:MARKETING STRATEGYEarly in 2018, Schönox North Amer-

ica adopted its “Ön It” brand campaign,which has been featured on the compa-ny’s website and on its retail messagingand marketing materials.

“We believe those two little words re-

Schönox’s new 3D glass fiber fabricprovides flexible reinforcement.

ally adhere to what our mission is whenwe help folks tackle the subflooring jobs,”Eubanks said. “If you don’t have the ap-propriate subfloor, you’re going to haveproblems later on. We are on it, and onit in a number of ways.” Heading into2019, the company will continue its “ÖnIt” campaign as a key part of the brand.

Five years ago, the company’s princi-pal, Thomas Trissl, also introduced its“Worst Subfloor Contest,” which givescustomers a mechanism to brag aboutsuccessfully renovating their floorswith Schönox products — an initiativethat’s been popular so far and will con-tinue to be a bellwether for Schönoxproducts, Eubanks said. This year’swinners will be announced at The In-ternational Surface Event in January.

products also focus on sustainabilityimprovements, alongside significantadvancements toward improvingspeed, efficiency, cost-savings andquality, said Arthur Mintie, seniortechnical services director at Laticrete.

“New developments of adhesives andinstallation products, like mortars andgrouts, are commonly made from recy-clable, sustainable materials and/or emitlow VOC’s,” Mintie said. “These newproducts are also designed to meet or ex-ceed many regulatory requirements andare equipped with supporting HealthProduct Declarations, EnvironmentalProduct Declarations and Greenguardcertifications, which help manufacturerscreate — and help buyers identify — tileand flooring installation materials’ im-pact on the environment.”

Most recently, Laticrete focused onits product collection for tile with theintroduction of a one-step, non-sagmortar for both interior and exteriorinstallations of large and heavy tile. Themortar is also Greenguard certified.

Bostik has introduced a moisture-re-active adhesive for gauged porcelaintile installations and applications thatsaves on time and resources, said AdamAbell, market manager, tile and stoneinstallation systems at Bostik.

“The ease of use and speed gaineddue to this product’s improvementsover mortar systems with only onecoat of adhesive material, as opposedto two like with mortar, has allowedfor the process to become significant-ly more ergonomic and expeditious,”Abell said. “The fact that it’s a pre-mixed product means that you don’thave to source electricity, water ormixing space on the site. It reducesthe overall complexity of these instal-lations, has created the potential formuch faster installations and has evenintroduced new features to tile instal-lations such as reduced sound trans-mission in wall applications.”

Mapei’s new tape adhesive, MapeCon-tact, offers sound mitigation benefits.

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