When it comes to areas of London that combine understated cool, a hip edge and old school charm, you’d be hard pushed to beat Kentish Town. The house we are talking about was built in a tight space in the heart of this North London district.

The building has been featured in Grand Designs, which is one of the UK’s most popular and longest-running property shows. Hosted by Kevin McCloud, a former theater designer with a truly dazzling collection of uterwear and a taste for sustainable, minimalist architecture, the show recently concluded its 17th season. And it was with the help of SikaBond®-52 Wood Floor elastic flooring adhesive that the house has been brought to life.

The 1,130 m2 house, which includes a lower floor that has been sunk 5,8 m into the ground and a ground floor that is made almost completely of glass, brings a touch of Hollywood glamour to a small suburb of London, creating a bright, open space.

SikaBond®-52 Wood Floor elastic adhesive

Of course, no choice of flooring would suffice unless used with a compatible fixing mechanism. SikaBond®-52 Wood Floor elastic flooring adhesive is a great choice as it can be used with any width board, is incredibly easy to apply and remains resilient.

As a one-component product it is ready for use and can be used for full-surface bonding on both solid and engineered wood floors – including strips, planks and mosaic or herringbone panels – from the most common types of wood to more problematic woods like beech and bamboo. Being solvent free, SikaBond®-52 Wood Floor is not only safer, but also has no odour, making it a much more pleasant experience for users.

Although buildings surrounded the house, being able to create a space that maintained a sense of privacy and softness was also of great importance to the client. One of the elements of SikaBond®-52 Wood Floor is that it reduces footfall noise, dampening sound especially when used in conjunction with Sika’s AcouBond noise reducing system.

Applied by gun or dispenser, the adhesive has excellent workability and possesses fast curing properties, which is ideal for projects like this where time is a serious  constraint. SikaBond®-52 Wood Floor has very high bond strength and can accommodate the natural movement of wood flooring of up to 600%, which is particularly useful when considering changing climatic seasons and just how much wooden floors need to move and flex in tune with the house and those using it.

"The floors could have been floated, but as a specialist distributor of Sika flooring materials for many years now, we understand the merits of SikaBond® wood floor adhesives and always strongly recommend this installation option to all of our clients. We know it will achieve a strong, long lasting finish and is a trusted and reliable product that provides peace of mind to users with outstanding performance and bond strength. With the floors being responsibly sourced through the sustainable management of forests, it was important to use an adhesive that would complement the environmentally friendly product and being solvent free, odourless and possessing an EC1plus emissions accreditation SikaBond®-52 Wood Floor is exactly that. " Peter Lazar, Managing Director of Source Wood Floors