Interviews / 8/8/2024

High quality flooring in growing demand

Navigating challenges with expertise: a success installation story at the Atlantic Hotel Münster

Interviewee

Karsten Preising

General Manager, Preising Fußböden, Neumark (Germany)

Due to their renowned experience, Preising Fußböden are involved in installation works in many prestigious hotel projects. As for the Atlantic Hotel in Münster, they made the most of their expertise to manage complex installation challenges and tight deadlines, appreciating Mapei reliable, quick-setting and sustainable Mapei materials. We spoke with Karsten Preising, General Manager at Preising Fußböden.

For almost 30 years Preising Fußböden has been installing wood, vinyl and textile flooring in hotels, on ships and in numerous other buildings in Southern Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Expertise and quality have made this medium-sized company based in the Vogtland region (Germany) one of the floor installers most in demand in Europe. Since 2019 the owner of the company, Karsten Preising, has been relying on Mapei solutions for most of their projects.

The wooden floors in the rooms and the conference room were laid with ULTRABOND ECO S940 1K adhesive after treating the substrates with ECO PRIM VG.

In which segment of the construction industry do you operate? Do you often install flooring in hotels?

We are one of the specialist companies most in demand in Europe in the hotels sector. We have a large slice of the flooring installation market, as you can clearly see from the figures: 4,375 projects completed in 28 years, 2,856 of which in the hotels sector. We install a lot of floors in five-star hotels, resorts and on luxury yachts: these include the Fontenay Hotel in Hamburg, the Adlon Kempinski in Berlin and the mega yacht White Pearl, considered to be the largest sailing yacht in the world.

What challenges are you most frequently faced with when installing floors for the hotel sector?

As far as new builds are concerned, a common challenge is the need to create screeds quickly and to ensure screeding contractors mix the materials correctly when installing a screed. There is also the question of responsibility: the flooring installer cannot be held responsible for how a screed is prepared and installed. This problem should be resolved by the regulations such as in the updated German DIN standard.

As far as renovation work is concerned, on the other hand, we come across problems due to residues of old resin-based adhesives which, for us, are an enormous risk. They are a risk to the effectiveness of any products applied afterwards, which is also why we often ask for support from the experts at Mapei Technical Services.

The hotel sector is a difficult one to work in and has very precise rules you need to follow. There are a lot of parties involved, but the number of global operators is always decreasing. A flooring installer has an enormous responsibility. If the opening of a hotel is delayed, for example, the consequences can be very serious.

Having said that, because of our reputation and expertise, we are regularly commissioned to take part in the most prestigious projects. We are a reference point in this sector: we work for almost all the main hotel chains and, in spite of the problems in the last few years, our turnover has remained absolutely stable for the last five years. We are pretty confident about the future: the hotel sector will always need high quality flooring.

We are pretty confident about the future: the hotel sector will always need high quality flooring.

ULTRABOND ECO S940 1K adhesive was used to bond wood foors in the conference hall of the Atlantic Hotel after treating the subtrates with ECO PRIM VG.

What were the biggest problems you encountered when installing the wood flooring in the Atlantic Hotel in Münster?

The Atlantic Hotel was one of those cases where our expertise was truly put to the test. We faced various types of challenges on this project: the sheer sizes of the surfaces, the complexity of the installation operations, having to carry out the work in line with the tight schedule, and the need to guarantee the work was up to the standard expected for a four-star hotel.

What criteria did you use when choosing the installation materials?

We certainly favoured materials with rapid-setting properties and which were easy and safe to work with. We also focused particular attention on installation materials with a low impact on the environment and safer for the installers to use.

Wooden floors installed with ULTRABOND ECO S940 1K were also chosen for some of the dining areas, while vinyl flooring laid with ULTRABOND ECO TX1 was chosen for the floors in many of the corridors.

What characteristics of the Mapei systems used for this project did you most appreciate?

We particularly appreciated the fact that Mapei has a solution for every problem, that it is able to supply products quickly and that the materials supplied feature high workability. This allows us to install flooring in a host of different situations: even, for example, on screeds that do not have all the characteristics required to receive the final floor covering. Mapei solutions enable you to overcome these problems and ensure quality installations even in these cases.

How important was it to be able to count on reliable, expert technical support that was always on hand?

We sign contracts also based on the date work is scheduled to start, and we know that this can always cause problems. We can’t, however, know exactly what problems we will come across, how serious they will be and when they will happen. This is why we are more than happy to have Mapei working alongside us because we know that, thanks to its experts and products, we will always get a quick, sound solution.