Few things demonstrate a company’s worth and reputation better than the longevity of its customer relationships, says Palace Chemicals. The Liverpool-based firm says it takes pride in the number of clients it still services since it was established more than 44 years ago.
Simon Moogan, managing director of Walsall Tile, has been seeing representatives from Palace Chemicals visit his family-run business since he began helping his dad out at the age of 13, back in 1983.
“Palace Chemicals is always reliable,” says Moogan. “There’s never any hassle, never any comeback or complaints and the prices are very reasonable for what you get.
“As far as I’m concerned, when you look at the performance of their products, there’s no better deal in the industry”.
Moogan not only sells Palace-supplied product to the public and professional tilers from his store, his firm also has a long history of contracting the work for new build housing developments around the Midlands.
One such recently completed project is a 13-home development in Stafford, which was built by Four Petals Properties on the site of the former Nesbitt Arms pub.
The construction, which commenced in summer 2021, consisted of a mixture of maisonettes, bungalows, semi-detached and detached homes, all built as rental properties. The homes required an average of around 75sqm of floor and wall tiling each, throughout kitchens, bathrooms, ensuites and downstairs cloakrooms.
Walsall Tile used mainly porcelain tiles in neutral greys and whites – installed with the help of Palace products.
Preparation was completed throughout with Palace Tilers Primer, a waterproof primer that acts as a sealer and bonding agent, designed to improve adhesion strength and long-term durability of the joint between the adhesive and any surface substrate. The primer can be applied to gypsum plaster, new or worn concrete, sand & cement screeds and render, the company says, to reduce porosity, surface dusting and moisture absorption while improving initial grab.
Multi-Flex tile adhesive, in either grey or white, was then used for the bulk of the walls and floors at the Nesbitt development. The product is a cement-based, polymer modified S1 classified thin-bed ceramic tile adhesive, recommended for fixing most types of floor and wall tiles. Although the main substrates at the project were plaster or cement, the product is said to provide superior flexural strength and water-resistance, making it suitable for application onto a range of surfaces.
Moogan also specified Palace Super-Grip ceramic tile adhesive for use on some of the wall areas.
Super-Grip is a non-slip wall tile adhesive which reportedly boasts excellent workability, making it especially suitable for mosaic-style kitchen projects. Its initial grab characteristics enable consistent, first-time positioning of tiles.
To finish the job, Moogan used the company’s Anti-Mould grout in white, grey and beige. The product is a flexible, cement-based tile grouting compound available in various colours for joints up to 15mm around all types of tile. It contains a fungicide designed to prevent the growth of black spot mould. With its flexural strength as well as abrasion and shrink resistance, the product’s four-hour working time means it can be used in both interior and exterior applications as well as areas where under-floor heating is installed.
Simon Clough, who has worked for Palace Chemicals for almost as long as Palace has been dealing with Walsall Tile, says by far the most rewarding aspect of his job is seeing the large number of customers who had remained loyal to Palace, not just for years but for decades.
“We are continually improving our product technology, environmental credentials and of course, our customer service,” he said. “We’ve always known that, if you want to continue to be successful, you need to keep evolving.
“As a result, customers like Simon at Walsall Tile have stuck with us, quite literally for many years. That kind of endorsement is both fantastic and invaluable. It shows that we must be doing something right. We look forward to hopefully servicing Walsall Tile for decades to come.”
