The Carrick is a magnificent 300acre luxury resort developed by De Vere on the shores of Loch Lomond, among the hills and streams of Scotland's first national park. At its heart, a fabulous Clubhouse offers the very best in leisure facilities: stunning lagoon-style swimming pool; world-class spa; steam room; saunas; plunge pool and more.

Throughout, the watchword is luxury, with only the very best of materials used: the finest timbers; the most beautiful slate and, throughout, tiling to Olympian standards.

After the work of architects, designers and specifiers in creating the dream, delivering it was the responsibility of The Tiling Company. Its job was the fixing to walls and floors of some 4,000m² of porcelain tiles, limestone tiles, mosaics, pebbles and more, in a variety of tile sizes, types, colours and combinations.

Colin Anderson, associate with original design co-ordinator G.D. Lodge, said: “We were delighted at the interior specification created, completely in tune with our original concept. The Tiling Company has turned that vision into reality.”

As a snapshot of the project, it fixed in the pool area 600 x 600mm honed porcelain wall tiles, laid in panels, with 30 x 30mm fine porcelain mosaics as a feature band. These were complemented by 50 x 50mm glass mosaics on feature walls, with 600 x 300mm non-slip floor tiles for the pool surround.

One challenge was that no two areas presented the same situation, offering different surfaces, working environments and materials. Every one of the many thousands of tiles, mosaics and pebbles was fixed with a BAL adhesive, normally either BAL Single Part Flexible or BAL PTB Flexible.

Chris Hutton, area manager north for The Tiling Company, said: “This was never going to be simple. The challenge lay not in the tiling itself, requiring the normal fixing processes we have been using for years, but in the complexity.

The many different materials involved ranged from polished porcelain to natural stone, to be laid on surfaces from plasterboard to plywood to walls.”

With the floors, laying on a sand/cement screed was straightforward, with a levelling compound used as necessary. A high degree of setting out was needed, due to a combination of the site geography and the project’s scale.

The majority of floors bonded continuously through room-to-room on all levels, requiring co-ordination of fixers’ activities with those of other tradesmen working simultaneously in the same areas. This was eased by regular use of BAL rapid-setting adhesives, to minimise out-of-bounds times for floor areas. To illustrate the scale, The Tiling Company typically had ten people on site, regularly working seven-day weeks.

Willie Boyce was project manager for the main contractor, Rok Building.

He said: “When large numbers of people from different organisations work simultaneously on a project, each with their own aims, success depends upon the highest degrees of professionalism.

It is especially true of those creating the flooring, influencing the ability of others to access areas and carry out work.

This was an object lesson in what can be achieved when speed and accuracy of work is combined with excellent communications.”

Excellent relationships with other parties became crucial when specifications were changed to meet site conditions. One such case occurred in an area where ceramic tiles had been specified originally. The extent of falls required and the amount of cutting involved made this unfeasible so, following discussion with the design teams, pebbles were used instead.

In another case, the original sauna area specification was for ceramic tiles; a better result was achieved with the agreed use of mosaics. John Patience is managing director of Spa Developments, the interior designer for the project.

He said: “When you specify the materials for a luxury project, you mandate the best available products, such as BAL adhesives. You know, however, that the final result will be largely influenced by the contractor charged with turning the concept into reality. Through our regular liaison with The Tiling Company, we realised that the project was in the safest of hands.”

The final word on The Tiling Company’s achievement should go to the client.

Daniel Hodson is golf & leisure operations director – DeVere Collection.

He said: “In offering the ultimate in leisure, we insist that every aspect of the guest experience is of the very finest quality. The tiling is stunning throughout and contributes powerfully to the overall ambience.”

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