First timer and newish to tiling ...saw on the recent poll a massive 85% voted BAL as the best brand of adhesives and grouts, what makes it better than all the others?
:huh2:
To be honest it's probably down to their marketing strategies. Though their investment in chemistry has paid off although a few of their products can be matched these days in quality from other names I feel personally.
They certainly are number 1 in the UK for the tile market. They're the Heinz of adhesives.
They used to offer free tiling courses and even pay for the accommodation for those on the course so they can show people how to tile using BAL gear. And it really was case of "get your BAL bucket and fill it with BAL water and dip your BAL sponge in it and then grab your BAL float and apply the BAL grout on the BAL wall you've just BAL tiled" lol. And clearly that paid off as now we just can't stop saying the bloody name.
Others have tried to pull off such a scheme but haven't had such success. Now BAL charge for their courses too though it seems unfair in my opinion as they don't support the industry from an NVQ point of view. And they're pushing tilers out that wont be able to work on site in 2010. And there's only 21 months to go now for those tilers to get passed.
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To add to the above.
Topps Tiles are BAL's biggest account, with no other account being close to it. If Topps dropped BAL, BAL would really suffer. (And it reflects in their annual kick-backs)
No other adhesive manufacturer relies on such a contract I believe, and if any other manufacturer every got that contract you can be sure that before long they'd be selling the quantity to invest in the chemistry which in turn churns out good products which means they sell, they profit, and then they invest in the marketing - and you'd find that poll we took would change a bit.
BAL are only big in the UK though.