Altro provide high-quality solutions across a range of flooring products and wall cladding for a variety of sectors.
Altro provide high-quality solutions across a range of flooring products and wall cladding for a variety of sectors.
Altro provide high-quality solutions across a range of flooring products and wall cladding for a variety of sectors.
Altro provide high-quality solutions across a range of flooring products and wall cladding for a variety of sectors.
Whether it’s a large hospital, care home or community healthcare centre, you can provide inspirational rooms that don’t just perform and look good but also take hygiene and the safety of your people, patients and residents seriously.
Whether it’s a commercial kitchen or a work’s cafeteria, a five-star hotel or a chain of restaurants and cafes, safety, hygiene, the ease and speed of installation and cost are all top of mind when working with our customers.
When it comes to social housing and home adaptations, the way a home looks is just as important as how it functions.
We partner with designers, companies and industry experts to provide floors, walls and doors solutions across a number of specialist sectors, each with particular challenges.
As the inventors of safety flooring, we pride ourselves on being able to create safe environments for a variety of areas, and transport is no different. We’ve been keeping bus and rail passengers safe for decades on both public and private transport.
Altro's technical services teams are here to help you, wherever you are. They have detailed knowledge of substrate technology and any possible issues that might arise. They can offer you solutions and information on different installation techniques. So, whether you are a contractor, architect, designer or end user, if you need them, please get in touch.
Altro Custom floors and walls allow you to design for areas where looks not only count, but can positively affect the views and even the wellbeing of the people who live, work or visit. Imagine classrooms with floors that look like grass or sand; Mexican restaurants with beautiful views of the Mayan Riviera on the walls, or a cutting-edge fashion shop with modern art running from floor to ceiling.
Altro's technical services teams are here to help you, wherever you are. They have detailed knowledge of substrate technology and any possible issues that might arise. They can offer you solutions and information on different installation techniques. So, whether you are a contractor, architect, designer or end user, if you need them, please get in touch.
IdeasBoard is your creative space to collect and share your inspiration and ideas.
In your IdeasBoard you can organise your content, create and share new collections and share.
Experience Altro floors and walls in real-time with Insta-space.
Effortlessly visualise shades and communicate design ideas using your own photo.
See Insta-space FAQs.
Visit our London, Manchester, and Glasgow Showrooms and also our Possibilities Studio here at Altro Letchworth. Be inspired, explore our samples, and meet with our consultants for design, technical, and specification advice.
Showcasing our services and solutions in a variety of real-world applications, our commercial flooring, walling and doorsets case studies display how Altro’s products can be used to address industry-specific issues across a range of sectors.
Jet-setting around the world, spreading knowledge of the correct fitting of Altro floors wherever he goes, even, one time, saving a nurse from a knife-wielding villain, armed only with a chair: it’s all in a day’s work for Regional Technical Services Manager, David Gatfield. In September of this year, David celebrates his 50th anniversary with Altro. “I had no idea I was going to stay this long,” he laughs. “But it’s been a fabulous ride.”
Nowadays David can be found whizzing around as part of the expert Altro Technical Services team, answering maintenance and installation queries and providing training all around the world. But this story starts in 1971 when, aged 19, David started an apprenticeship at what was then the Manchester Altro office. “Back then it was a small office over a cake shop. At the time I was doing tiling and wood-blocking, and I was sick of it! I’d never laid a vinyl floor before.”
David completed his first installation job a mere three weeks after he started: a job in a school in Preston. “My manager, the man who was teaching me, had been sacked, so I was sent to do this job on my own. I hid behind a row of bookcases and taught myself to hot weld on scrap pieces of flooring, and that was how I got the job done! It got passed, as well.”
David continued his apprenticeship until 1974 and then worked as a floor layer for Altro until 1978, when he joined the Contracts team as Contracts Supervisor and Estimator, letting customers know how much flooring would be needed for a project – and often fitting it, too.
“Back then we had the one product: Altro Safety Floor, and it only came in six colours. I can still name them – Pewter Grey, which we still use, Mushroom, Geranium Red, Cornish Blue, Moss Green, and Donkey Brown. We still sell it today: it’s Altro Classic.”
In 1982, the Contracts branch closed and David moved to Leeds, joining what would later become the Technical Services team, where his job was to travel around the north of England responding to issues and queries on installation sites.
“I met a lot of people who would show me an issue with their floor and say: ‘It’s impossible.’ It’s been my job to show them, in a constructive way, that it’s not.”
From 1982, David also started covering Europe, and in the 1990s went global.
“I’ve been flying off to all these wonderful places and just having a blast,” David admits. “One time, I flew to Indonesia to demonstrate how to weld Altro Walkway to the architects on the University of Indonesia build. Just off the basis of watching me weld a demonstration mitre, they specified Altro Walkway in white throughout the entire site. I suggested they might want to rethink the colour, since it was in the middle of a swamp!”
The list of countries that David has travelled to with Technical Services would put any sixth-form leaver’s gap year to shame:
David in New Zealand
David in Hong Kong
David in TaiwanEven within the UK, David has done more than his share of travelling. In fact, in his 50 years with Altro, David has had a total of 18 company vehicles. “That’s three vans, and fifteen cars,” David chuckles. “I worked it out the other day, I’ve driven about two million miles since I started here.”
So, fifty years, and two million miles on, how has the company changed?
“Altro has gotten more and more successful, and developed a fabulous range of products. But for me, what’s so great about the company is what hasn’t changed. The family ethos has been the same, ever since I started. Even working on the periphery of the business, in the satellite branches, I’ve always had the overriding idea that the business, Altro, was there for me. It’s more than a job, and I love the people I work with – I’m proud to be part of such a crack team! I wish I had another fifty years to give, I really do.”
With David’s anniversary coming later in the year, we’ve got our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to celebrate his terrific achievement face-to-face, however, in the meantime, Richard Kahn, CEO of Altro Floors and Walls, had this message for David:
“It’s such an achievement and commitment to work for any business for 50 years, it doesn’t really happen very often and we are so lucky that David has chosen to spend his whole career with Altro Floors and Walls. I am so very grateful for his contribution over those years. David is such a joy to work with, always so cheerful, passionate about his work, a real perfectionist, such a team player and so committed to the company. It’s also been so wonderful to see him transfer his many skills to so many overseas customers, we couldn’t have asked for more. Thank you David, so very much.”
