Author: Jonathan

The Heat is On!

Underfloor Heating or Under Tile Heating as it is also known, has become more popular and trendy in recent years through the two commonly used floor heating systems in the UK, ‘Water’ (pipe fed) and ‘Electric’ wire. This is down to the fact that not only is it a lot more affordable, it is also very easy to install.

There is nothing better on those cold early mornings than being able to walk into your bathroom (or any other room of the house) after getting out of that cozy bed and the tiles under foot being nice and warm rather than your feet feeling like you are trying to cross the North Pole!

Palace Chemicals stock a wide range of products that are ideal for the installation of either of the two Under Floor Heating systems under tiled floors.

One of the most common questions – ‘Is this product (Floor Leveller or Tile Adhesive) suitable for Under Floor Heating’? The answer is generally a resounding yes, or if not, we certainly will have a product that is suitable for the use with Under Floor Heating and the substrate to be tiled.

Another question – ‘How do I know which product is best for me’? The Adhesive needs to be flexible – For example Palace Multi-Flex Tile Adhesive can cope with the movement in the subfloor that the heating and cooling of the Under Floor Heating creates.

In the adhesive industry, there are Standard classifications that all manufacturers have to display on their packaging that show that the adhesives meet the requirements suited for that application.

The classifications you need to look for is either S1 or S2 depending on the subfloor where the tiles are being fitted. 

S1 = a Deformable adhesive with a transverse deformation >2.5mm – <5mm

S2 = a Highly Deformable Tile Adhesive with a transverse deformation >5mm

It is the same with Floor Levelling compounds. They have to be flexible enough to accommodate the heat and substrate alike such as Palace Chemicals Fast-Flex for electric wire; This product can be laid from 2mm – 30mm and is perfect for underfloor heating. Whereas a fibre reinforced screed is a good option for water fed pipes. Palace Thick-Bed levelling compound is ideal for this as it is fibre reinforced, polymer enhanced and can be laid up 80mm in one application.

Don’t Get Wet!

Changes to the British Standards back in 2018 regarding the requirement to use a proprietary tanking system in wet areas has certainly lowered the volume of issues with leaking floors & ceilings. But does everyone know the standard guideline for waterproofing…….?

Any area that is subjected to getting wet (shower, steam room, wet rooms etc) should be tanked – whether it be a new build or refurbishment of an existing area.
A big focus in this application is to ensure the tanking system used is strong enough to hold the weight of the tiles & adhesive.

Palace Chemicals have two tanking systems available on their range (Palace Shower-Tight & Palace Wet-Room) to suit a wide field of applications. If you are looking to tank an over bath showers for instance, the Palace Shower-Tight is perfect. Whereas, if you are doing a full wetroom installation, then the Palace Wet-Room is the required product. Both kits have the benefit of corner / jointing tape, with the Wet-Room kit having the additional pipe seals and a larger tub of liquid membrane for the bigger projects.

At the very least, a good tanking system provides a visible insurance policy; One that you won’t get with a premium that goes up every year. Certainly not one that you would need to claim against – Because it won’t go wrong (when installed correctly of course)!

Meet The Technical Team At Palace Chemicals Ltd. 

Palace Chemicals Ltd is a manufacturer of a wide range of Building Products & Adhesive, operating from a single site at Speke, Liverpool.

As a manufacturer of over 250 distinct product formulations, we have a long-established Technical Operation over-seeing the procurement, manufacture & development of all our products & the raw material supply streams they are based on.

The Technical Team operates from two well-equipped laboratories, the first being primarily concerned with the Quality Control of all batch manufactured products and the three technicians working in this area (Denise, Laura & Lisa), ensure that all batches produced meet the required physical testing specifications that are essential before each can be released for onward despatch.

On a typical day, the QC team will conduct testing on well over 100 separate batch samples. All of which are recorded, retained and are then readily available to support any future enquiries made as to the quality of the product and its’ performance when applied at point of end use.

In addition to the Quality Control function, we have our Research & Development laboratory where a team of Chemists are constantly working on a wide range of new & innovative projects which will provide enhancements to the product range by introducing new technology and performance standards, whilst also developing more creative uses of raw materials which can help improve the sustainability of our product offering.

The R&D laboratory team has two senior chemists (Jim Percival & Paul Kershaw) with over 80 years shared experience within the building products sector, who are then ably supported by two Graduate Chemists (Vivek Harkin & Laura Whitfield). All of whom are working on projects which will keep the Palace Chemicals product range at the leading edge of Building Chemicals technology.