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Adhesive-free floors

Sustainable floors

For sustainable and carbon saving flooring look no further than Altro’s range of adhesive-free floors. Invented by Altro, manufactured in the UK and Germany, and crafted with locally sourced materials, the range includes aesthetic colour and wood design options, giving complete flexibility for your different application areas. 100% recyclable, Altro adhesive-free floors provide a lightweight, quick to install, cost effective flooring solution. Our sustainable floors save you time, money and the environment.

Save carbon, save time and save money

Traditional adhered floor (5000m²)
Polyvinyl chloride floorcoverings 7.73 kg CO2
Typical solvent free adhesive 0.40 kg CO2
Typical industry surface applied DPM 2.89 kg CO2
Total carbon usage 55,100 kg CO2


Altro Wood™ adhesive-free (5000m²)
Altro Wood adhesive-free 5.55 kg CO2
Adhesive not required
Integral DPM
Total carbon usage 27,750 kg CO2

CO2 saving

The calculation of CO2 saving is based on comparing CO2 data for the named Altro adhesive-free product against a typical 2mm adhered vinyl floor that uses a surface applied damp proof membrane.

The illustration of CO2 saving has been based on the US Environmental Protection Agency Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies calculator.

The calculator helps translate the CO2 savings into concrete terms such as the annual emissions from cars, households or the amount of CO2 sequestered by trees. 

Total carbon saving 27,350 kg CO2
Saving equivalent to tree seedlings grown for 10 years
Saving equivalent to vehicles driven for one year
452 6.1


Less subfloor preparation – avoid or reduce the need to re-screed

Avoid time taken to install a DPM

No application or curing time for adhesives

Lay, weld and walk on the floor, on the same day

Can overlay existing sound substrates


No need to purchase a DPM

Avoid having to make alternative arrangements to move occupants from the space

Avoid the need for noisy air extraction equipment – no adhesive = no odours

Less vehicle loads

Less disposal waste

Any questions?

Our customer care centre is here to help

Adhesive-free products

Altro Cantata™ adhesive-free

Tonal and modernist for maximum impact with minimum downtime

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Altro XpressLay™ adhesive-free

Versatile slip resistance with 30 colours to choose from

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Altro Stronghold™ 30 adhesive-free

Easy to maintain with strong scratch and scuff resistance

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Altro Illustra™ adhesive-free

Adhesive-free, stylish, functional and design-led safety flooring

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See the products in use

St John's School

Used once and re-used – Altro XpressLay adhesive-free gets second life

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Adhesive-free floors FAQs

Altro Cantata adhesive-free offers a range of colours and designs, with 14dB impact sound reduction and comfort underfoot.

Launched in 2009, revolutionary, international award-winning Altro XpressLay adhesive-free was the world’s first ever adhesive-free safety floor and was introduced to the market place after 5 years of development and testing.

Altro Stronghold 30 adhesive-free is the ideal floor solution for busy kitchens achieving Altro’s highest rating for slip resistance (PTV>55, R12).

Altro’s newest addition to the adhesive-free range is Altro Illustra adhesive-free, combining style, safety and durability offering a range of aesthetic possibilities, with 14dB impact sound reduction and comfort underfoot.

With all Altro adhesive-free floors no DPM or adhesive are required. They have been designed to avoid the need for a moisture barrier to subfloors which are damp and to those which cannot be prepared by traditional methods, due to surface contamination. The nodes on the underside of the sheet create an airspace allowing the evaporation of water vapour from damp subfloors.

Altro adhesive-free floors require no adhesive and no DPM (damp-proof membrane) so you make an immediate saving in CO2 by avoiding these elements.

The up to 50% saving is based on comparing CO2 data for the named Altro adhesive-free floor against a typical 2mm adhered vinyl floor that uses a surface applied damp proof membrane.

With reduced installation time and being able to walk on the floor the same day, your client can have their busiest areas back to normal use faster. An adhesive-free floor installation can reduce installation time by up to 50% compared with an installation using adhesive. For example (depending on substrate condition): a 200m² corridor would be laid in two days compared with four days with an adhered floor covering, with an approximate 20% cost saving. Time is saved on floor preparation as the need to re-screed the floor or use a liquid DPM, the mixing of epoxies and adhesives have been removed and you don’t need to wait for adhesive to cure before welding joints. By cutting installation time this gives you more availability to complete client jobs and saves you and your client time, money and hassle – making you more competitive in a demanding marketplace.

The main savings come from not requiring an adhesive and DPM in the installation, saving both the cost of the materials and the labour needed to fit them.

In addition, you will not need to hire noisy air extraction equipment; or make alternative arrangements to move or re-house occupants, this will in turn reduce disruption, costs for materials and labour overheads. You can also save costs on disposal by diverting your waste from landfill or by partnering with Recofloor, or recycling the floor and reusing it in another area of your building.

And you can make those savings again when it comes to replacing the floor. Due to the fact that the product is not stuck down using traditional wet adhesives, when the product is uplifted the material is not contaminated with the usual subfloor residue. As there is also no damage to the subfloor and adjoining walls, there are no repairs required, with associated further resources needed.

Altro’s adhesive-free floors excel in their environmental credentials. Sustainable and with 10% recycled content, meaning we use less of the earth’s valuable natural resources, Altro adhesive-free floors are 100% recyclable post-consumer. Waste is minimal as you do not need to use a damp-proof membrane (DPM) or adhesive products; thereby, reducing unwanted landfill content. As it’s 100% recyclable, the floor can be uplifted quickly and easily and any leftover floor can be used elsewhere. At the end of its life the floor can be recycled via a Recofloor collection point and regenerated into useful traffic calming products such as traffic cones.

Altro adhesive-free floors can be laid over existing sound substrates without applying adhesive. So, you can weld and walk on the floor the same day. Altro adhesive-free floors give a quick fit without compromising on performance.

Its unique formulation allows the floor to lie flat and perform like a traditional adhered floor without the need for an adhesive.

With Altro adhesive-free, double-sided, moisture-tolerant tape, the floor edges and joints are secured in place while being installed, coved and welded. With no adhesive, there is no drying time and no resulting odours.

When you are dealing with asbestos it is essential to deal with this in a safe way to avoid risk to health caused by inhaling the fibres. Installing a new Altro adhesive-free floor over the tiles encapsulates the asbestos fibres, and can be an acceptable way to manage the material.

The specially formulated studded underside emboss allows flooring to sit off the subfloor, allowing the floor to breathe, resulting in any moisture dissipating. It can be used with a new concrete floor at up to 97% relative humidity.

Allowing the subfloor to breathe, installations can be quicker and easier as no damp-proof membrane (DPM) is required. You can halve installation time compared with a traditional installation.

This technology gives you a natural, organic and environmentally-friendly drying method for subfloors, which has been rigorously tested to ensure sufficient ventilation of the damp substrate.

We know that our adhesive-free floors won’t let you down. But don’t take our word for it. We’d like to share some key test results with you, so you can rest assured that it will perform as stated for its lifetime.

Moisture Vapour Transmission Rate

Test: In-house test, developed by Altro, to establish Moisture Vapour Transmission rate

Methodology: A piece of adhesive-free floor is placed between a container of water and a lid in a humidity- and temperature-controlled chamber, which simulates the positioning of the floor over a damp substrate. The water can only escape through the embossed air channels on the product backing. The water loss is monitored continuously during testing and a rate of moisture vapour transmission obtained. The test was also carried out on a traditionally adhered flooring sample for comparison.

Result: After two weeks of testing, the results show that the moisture vapour transmission rate of the adhesive-free samples was more than twice as fast as that of the traditionally adhered floor samples. Results also proved that water vapour escaped in a controlled manner through the embossed air channels on the product backing.

Benefit: The test proves that giving moisture the ability to evaporate through the building ensures that an adhesive-free floor is not at risk of the formation of water bubbles, which adversely affect the performance and / or aesthetics of the floor; visible proof that the escape of moisture vapour is controlled and efficiently executed.

Stud retention

Test: In-house test, developed by Altro, to check product performance and quality

Methodology: The test consists of two metal plates with a section of floor placed on the bottom plate. The top plate presses down onto the bottom plate to simulate tread. The force is equivalent to the tread of an above-average weight person of 90kg.

Result: After 500k steps and 24 hours of recovery, the sample kept >75% of the stud height.

Benefit: The test proves the moisture vapour passage will function for the lifetime of the floor as the studs will not collapse.

Tear Initiation

Test: ISO 34-1 Method A

Methodology: A machine tear measuring the average of machine direction (MD) and cross direction (XMD) indicates how much force is required to start a tear.

Result: Altro adhesive-free floors are as resistant to tears as adhered vinyl flooring.

Benefit: The test proves that our adhesive-free floors will not tear when dragging equipment / furniture or pushing heavy loads / trolleys over them and that they are suitably robust for high traffic and demanding areas or installations, where poor quality flooring may rip e.g. hospital corridors, universities, hotels, busy working areas etc.

Telegraphing

Test: EN 4918

Methodology: A castor chair test is carried out on a sample to demonstrate if there is any telegraphing of the pattern to the surface and any distortion of the surface when weight is dragged over it.

Result: Pass

Benefit: The test proves the durability and resilience of Altro adhesive-free floors to castor chair / wheeled traffic and that the structure and aesthetics of the floor are maintained without any compromise to aesthetics.

Altro adhesive-free floors offer up to 14dB sound reduction, which is great for noisy environments such as kindergartens and schools reducing disruptive noise transfer as excited young children or thousands of older ones move around a building. Within a hospital or care environment reducing noise in a ward or public area can aid patient recovery and enhance residents’ wellbeing. Coupled with up to 2.4mm thick options, an adhesive-free floor is an ideal choice for areas that need to look good while helping to give comfort underfoot; much valued for carers, nurses and teachers, who spend many hours a day on their feet.

The floor can be laid over a damp substrate up to 97% RH, removing the need to wait for the substrate to dry and saving labour and materials costs

With up to 50% time saving gained from installing an adhesive-free floor you can easily return your business to normal service within 24 hours; disruption and any anxiety to residents, patients and customers are dramatically reduced. A corridor within a hospital or care home is in constant use by foot and wheeled traffic. Closing down the corridor for a lengthy period of time is not an option, so by installing an adhesive-free floor the work can be completed quickly, even overnight, so that the traffic flow is uninterrupted and when you come to replace the floor covering after many years of use there is no floor preparation needed. Just lay, weld and walk on the same day.

With an adhesive-free floor you can keep your building warm and comfortable as underfloor heating can be kept on; this reduces impact from the work needed to be done, removing the need to hire expensive de-humidifiers or temporary heaters. And keeping the heating on will help dry out freshly plastered walls reducing the time needed to decorate and install surface fixings, giving a quicker return to service.

Lack of adhesive means no tacky areas and trafficking glue through a building plus the reassurance that without adhesives your subfloor or coving will not be damaged when the floor needs to be lifted or removed at end of life.

Adhered flooring uses contact adhesive, so to remove it you could damage not just the subfloor but adjoining walls too. An adhesive-free floor gives you no fuss repair and maintenance, with ease of access to the subfloor allowing you to readily identify and fix problems. In the case of an adhered floor, if you have a leaking pipe you would need to repair both subfloor and wall, the bonded floor would need to be re-screeded and possibly have a surface DPM re-instated; this would not be required with an adhesive-free installation.

100% recyclable pre- and post-installation via the Recofloor take back scheme saving your clients’ valuable time and money by being able to reuse the floor and reducing waste disposal costs

With an Altro adhesive-free floor installation there are no adhesive-related odours and therefore no need to close a critical area such as a busy hospital corridor or provide costly ventilation equipment for affected areas in an occupied property. You can achieve a quieter installation with no requirement to use and/or scrape glue, or hire noisy de-humidifiers or air quality equipment.

Yes. Underfloor heating can remain active allowing you to increase drying conditions throughout, without the added expense of temporary heaters; so that any fresh plaster on the walls will dry faster, reducing time and cost to the overall project. As underfloor heating can remain on, unlike with a ceramic tiles installation, you can save up to three weeks’ installation time, as you do not need to wait to reinstate the heating.

Our adhesive-free floors are durable and can tolerate medium to heavy-duty traffic. Altro adhesive-free floors hold as effectively as Altro floors installed using adhesive: no rucks, no movement. In fact, our award-winning Altro XpressLay adhesive-free has been tested with a 900kg drilling rig with caterpillar tracks, so a patient on a trolley will be no problem at all!

Our sustainable and movement-free floors have been tried and tested in some of the world’s most demanding locations including the Australian Parliament, listed buildings, global four-yearly sporting events and the Asian Games.

With over 10 years’ experience of working with our adhesive-free floors and having invented our international, award-winning Altro XpressLay adhesive-free, we are confident in our products’ durability. But don’t just take our word for it. Our case studies are testament to customer satisfaction, and with a 15-year life expectancy and 10-year guarantee on all our adhesive-free products you needn’t fear that an adhesive-free product will let you down.