Stones, a timeless element of design, have long been used to enliven floors, thanks to their inalienable character.They are quarried from mountains or manufactured and take up many forms such as marble,slate, travertine, limestone, sandstone, and granite. They have a dynamic range spanning from finely grained to heavily veined to thinly whirled.
While stone installations offer countless opportunities for design, the installation can be a challenging endeavor. Crack propagation and tenting of stone slabs are common problems that surface after the installation is done. This is even more prominent with sensitive premium stones that are often porous and must be handled with extreme care to maintain the aesthetics. Apart from requiring lot of expertise during handling, premium stones necessitate a tight tolerance to plumbing/leveling of the substrate to avoid shrinking of the adhesive and the subsequent emergence of hollow spaces. In addition, when the setting material is less resistant to shrinkage, it causes indents or fractures, which is a common phenomenon today. This is worsened when the stone is subjected to stress from deflection, considerable traffic, or lack of movement joints, driving crack separation in the stone. Indent fractures also occurs when installers tend to apply a much thicker layer of thin-set mortar on a membrane. When the stone is installed over this, the thin-set mortar’s moisture cannot be absorbed by the substrate, leading to expansion and thus cracking of the stone.
LATICRETE® 320 Thick Bed Adhesive is a polymer modified adhesive that can be used to install large and small format stones on both exterior and interior floors. The adhesive is hassle-free to use, requiring nothing more than water to be mixed in. It eliminates the risk of lippage, ridding the user of possible level differences. The product makes fixing large-format tiles a breeze owing to it’s non shrink property. It can be used on substrates with a bed thickness of up to 40 mm and is thereby capable of handling even heavy stone floorings. It works well with a range of substrates such as concrete, Tremix, VDF, precast concrete; cement and gypsum-based screed; cement backer board; ceramic tile, vitrified tile and natural stone surfaces, and cement terrazzo.
LATICRETE® 320 is always up for a good challenge. Not only does it work across a variety of substrates, it has a good underwater shear bond that makes it perfect to use in areas such as wash rooms, saunas, swimming pools and water bodies. LATICRETE® 320 is a high-performance product, exceeding ANSI A118.4 shear bond strength requirements along with IS 15477 – Type 2 Adhesive standards. It also complies with EN 12004.
With the backing of a robust innovation pipeline, MYK LATICRETE has been able to invest in future technologies and optimize products that adapt well to the ever-evolving stone installation marketplace and the associated challenges during the installation of Stones.