Karndean and Amtico - High Quality PVC and Resin Floors

Consumers will know this class of high quality PVC or resin floor as Karndean and Amtico - a superior form of hard floor.
superior floors | design features | how to measure | tile sizes | useful links

Superior floors based on high quality plasticizers

Plasticizers are additives that improve the plasticity or fluidity of materials as diverse as plastic, concrete or cement. The class of flooring made by Amtico and Karndean both rely on high quality formulations of plasticizer in plastic to produce exceptionally hard wearing floors, a class up from sheet vinyl flooring.

Both manufacturers use a layer of printed film sandwiched between a backing and a wear layer. Different qualities of these floors refer to different thicknesses of the wear layer. The thicker wear layers will be suitable for higher traffic areas such as commercial areas - residential products are usually just the same product with less demanding wear layer specifications.

The wear layer will determine the guarantee specification of the flooring - how long it is guaranteed to withstand footfall before the print is affected. Sheet vinyl floors such as Rhinofloor work on similar grading systems.

Design flexibility - borders; inlays; mix 'n' match

Apart from the quality, the other special aspect of this type of flooring is the sheer choice of product combinations and design features. These features replicate the work of skilled craftsman for inlays and borders at a fraction of the cost of the real thing. It will still be necessary to employ a skilled floor layer to complete this type of work.

Picture: Karndean floor (left); Amtico floor (right) - illustrating borders and inlays

How to measure

  1. Break the area down into squares
  2. Multiply the length by the width of each square to get the area
  3. Add up the totals of the areas
  4. Add about 10% for wastage
  5. Divide the total area required by the area covered by a pack size
  6. Round up the figure to the nearest multiple of pack sizes

When you require inlaid features such as borders or centre pieces, it is best to get a skilled estimator to work out such quantities. Make a clear note of exactly what you want. Provide the diagram of squares for the area.

Tile sizes

There are many different sizes for tiles, planks, borders and inlay - please visit the manufacturers own website for specifics. Here are a few sizes as a quick guide.

Amtico wood planking - 76mm x 915mm (3" x 36"), 114mm x 915mm (4.5" x 36") and 152mm x 915mm (6" x 36")
Amtico tiles - 305mm x 305mm (12" x 12"), 305mm x 457mm (12" x 18"), 457mm x 457mm (18" x 18")
Amtico strips - 3mm x 915mm (1/8" x 36"), 6mm x 915mm (1/4" x 36")

Karndean wood planking - 915mm x 153mm (36" x 6"); 1219mm x 178mm (48" x 7"); 915mm x 102mm (36” x 4”)
Karndean tiles - 305mm x 305mm (12'' x 12''), 406mm x 406mm (16" x 16") - 20 to 36 tiles per box

Useful links

Amtico - view products; get samples; get brochure

Karndean - view products; get samples; get brochure

Karndeans floor design - interactive programme

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