Amtico

...“there’s Amtico.”

Amtico have been producing flooring for nearly forty years, but they’re very coy about telling you exactly what it is. “It’s sumptuous” they say, or “atmospheric”, but they’re reluctant to tell you what it’s made of. It’s nowhere on the website at www.amtico.com or in the brochure. Finally I emailed them. They ignored me. If I had to guess I’d say that it’s a very heavy-duty vinyl.

There are three dedicated ...
...at the possibilities of the Amtico range. I visited a smaller local showroom, mainly because I wanted to carry out “the Rosie test”. Rosie and I walked over floors which looked for all the world like sedimentary sandstone, or marble, or bleached wood. We trotted over Roman mosaics and antique woods. Rosie ran over the playroom floor and stopped dead on the studded zinc bathroom floor. Did she like it? It was better than that. She didn’t even notice ... more

When I planned my kitchen I knew exactly what I wanted. I’d known for five years which units were to be fitted. The appliances posed few difficulties and the tiles waved at me as I walked into the showroom. The only problem was the floor.

I like a kitchen to be soothing. When I stagger in first thing in the morning, bleary-eyed and resentful, I like the kitchen to offer me coffee and reassurance, so my kitchen was to be cream with brown granite working surfaces and a stainless steel sink unit. The logical choice for the floor would have been wood, but we have a polished-wood floor elsewhere and two large and frequently wet dogs have done it no favours.

“What you want” my friend said “is a laminate floor. Come and see mine.” I went. Fortunately, I took Rosie, the elder of our two Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs, with me. The floor looked beautiful. Rosie went to greet my friend’s cat (actually, he was approaching from behind and she was trying to get away, but I promised I wouldn’t tell you that) and she skidded and met the French windows rather sooner than she expected. She ended up spread-eagled on the floor and had difficulty getting to her feet again. The cat looked contemptuous. Laminate flooring was crossed off the list of possibilities.

Ceramic tiles would be just as slippy. A stone surface would be cold underfoot and difficult to clean. Vinyl flooring of the type that comes in a roll doesn’t last with big dogs. Rosie ate most of the last one. I was beginning to despair. “Well” said the gentleman doing my kitchen “there’s Amtico.”

Amtico have been producing flooring for nearly forty years, but they’re very coy about telling you exactly what it is. “It’s sumptuous” they say, or “atmospheric”, but they’re reluctant to tell you what it’s made of. It’s nowhere on the website at www.amtico.com or in the brochure. Finally I emailed them. They ignored me. If I had to guess I’d say that it’s a very heavy-duty vinyl.

There are three dedicated Amtico showrooms in the UK, in London, Epsom and Sheffield, where you can be amazed at the possibilities of the Amtico range. I visited a smaller local showroom, mainly because I wanted to carry out “the Rosie test”. Rosie and I walked over floors which looked for all the world like sedimentary sandstone, or marble, or bleached wood. We trotted over Roman mosaics and antique woods. Rosie ran over the playroom floor and stopped dead on the studded zinc bathroom floor. Did she like it? It was better than that. She didn’t even notice it.

An Amtico floor is individual to you. You can choose to have a plain floor or to add borders or mosaics. You can mix different ‘materials’, say different stones or woods, which would be difficult to achieve if you were using the real thing. The only limit, with some 250 designs in the range, is your imagination.

My choice was an American oak floor with a border of woodland leaves. I toyed with the idea of having a central motif, but decided that it might look just a little over-the-top.

Amtico can be laid on floorboards, but as mine were a mixture of old and new I was advised to put a skim of 12mm marine plywood onto the floorboards to give a perfectly level surface.

Fitting took rather less than a full day, even in my kitchen which is 3m by 4m but with more angles and corners than the average maze. I was expecting that at least some of the floor would arrive in the form of a large sheet, but what arrived were packs of 7.5cm wide strips which, on the surface, looked exactly like a plank of wood. This strip is slightly flexible, but must be stored flat as any bending can not be completely removed and will show in the finished floor. Adhesive was applied to the floor and the strips laid on top of this. The fitting is a particularly skilled job as any mistakes in the cutting of the strips will be obvious. My floor has an exterior edge laid parallel to the walls with mitred corners and then the woodland border next to this. The central part of the floor is then formed from strips which cross the kitchen diagonally. I can’t fault a single joint and there are hundreds of them.

Once fitted you are advised to strip and treat the floor. This removes the factory-applied surface and you then apply a liquid finish over the whole area. This took me about an hour and a half including drying time and included about fifteen minutes of actual work. It’s not particularly difficult or skilful – you simply need to be particularly careful to keep everything clean if you are to achieve a good finish. This needs to be done every six months and is one of the conditions for the 20 year guarantee for a floor in a residential property. When the floor was laid it looked excellent. Once it had been treated it looked stunning. A pack of cleaner, stripper and finisher came as part of the initial purchase of the floor and should last for two treatments.

Also included in the initial purchase price is a set of self-adhesive felt pads, which reduce the impact of furniture on the floor. I’ve attached them to the bottom of the stool and the ironing board.

Regular maintenance is minimal – it gets a mopping when it looks dirty. Stains wipe off and none has yet left a mark. After six months of hammer from two humans and two large dogs who have the delicacy of a herd of elephants there isn’t a single scratch or mark on the floor. It’s still a delight to the eye and comfortable and quiet underfoot. I’m told that it’s non-allergenic too, although I’ve no means of checking that.

Do I have any quibbles? Well, yes, there’s one small one. My kitchen was very expensive. It was so expensive, in fact, that I daren’t even tell myself how much it cost, but when people first walk into the kitchen they always say “Wow, what a brilliant floor!” I offer to show them the state-of-the-art hob and they enquire how the marquetry border was done. I demonstrate the fancy taps and they’re jotting “Amtico” in their diary. It does have quite an impact, to the extent that little else is noticed.

At about £1000 you might think it’s very expensive, but a wooden floor which looks like this one would have cost considerably more and would have been harder to maintain. Our last vinyl-on-a-roll floor (in a smaller kitchen) cost £200 and really should have been replaced after two years, so it cost me roughly £2 a week. This floor is guaranteed for twenty years which works out at less than £1 a week. I reckon I’ve got a very good deal.

 

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