Terrazzo flooring in supermarkets

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Phil you should be careful...in my experience a tingle can sometimes lead to a mingle!

Pebbs

Ooh I'm blushing now Lynn.:drool5::lol:

 

[tony4173]

Phil pretty much has it spot on here.I used to work for the biggest terrazzo company in the country as a labourer for terrazzo men. There were 2 labourers to 1 tiler because that is how physically hard the job is.

The tiler would set out the job with the help of a site engineer to get the correct levels and pattern set out.Then it was back breaking work all day.

If we didn't have ready screed mix we would have 1 labourer on the mixer (mixing screed all day) and 1 labourer and 1 tiler on the "line". The concrete floor was covered in a mixture of Bal Bond and water and swept all over with a brush to keep the floor wet but not saturated.
The mixing labourer would wheel barrow the screed in piles as you were working backwards. The other labourer would be on the "shovel" shoveling the screed down from 1 end to the other spreading the screed bed for the tiler.The tile line would be about 40 tiles long (300mm tiles)

The tiler used a screed lat to get the perfect bed for laying the tiles, and spread from one end to the other behind the labourer shoveling in.
We had big blue tubs which we mixed 8 buckets of water to 4 bags of cement (slurry) stirred with a mixing paddle. The labourer took half a bucket of the slurry and poured it along the screed bed from one end to the other. He would then put the tiles down for the tiler to tap down with a rubber mallett. The tiler used a string line like brickies do to get the tiles levelish, some tilers used very very strong sea fishing line as the string lines had a habit of snapping when they got wet.

The grouting we mixed the same way as the slurry 2 buckets of water to 1 bag of "white" cement depending on how big the area is. Big squeegies were used like brushes to spread the grout and fill the joints and this was done through out the day until the joints were full.

You would then have your polishers who did the grinding and polishing with terco machines to get a glass like finish.
As far as doing 400 meters a day ? nah i don't think so matey. more like between 150 and 200 meters a day with out any hold ups on site.

All in all its a back breaking very physically demanding job and warrants more money than the workers get. We got payed 60% tiler 40% labourer of the total price work.