The ever-burgeoning Advanced Flooring Systems provide the Irish and UK market with the complete industrial and commercial flooring package.
Established in 2007 by Adrian Rafferty, the Co Armagh-based company has achieved rapid growth through the completion of many successful past projects throughout Ireland and the UK.
Operating across a number of sectors – Pharmaceutical, Commercial & Retail, Food & Beverage, Hospitality, Automotive, Education, General Warehousing and Sports & Leisure – they provide a range of market leading services: Industrial Flooring, Commercial Flooring, Car Park Deck Waterproofing, Podium Deck Waterproofing, Bund Lining, Surface Preparation (including equipment hire) and Joint Sealants.
“I started out on my own with a few guys I used to work with at a company that unfortunately went belly up,” Adrian recalled. “We’ve grown from strength to strength since. We’ve seen our turnover grow year-on-year. Last year, for instance, there was a big spike in work and we doubled our turnover. We’re on target to achieve something similar this year.
“We are currently working on some very prestigious jobs, including a 12,500 sq m car park at Point Square in Dublin. We enjoy a lot of repeat business and that’s as good a sign as there is as to the quality of our workmanship.”
The aforementioned Point Square is Dublin’s premier retail and office complex located in the heart of the city. The facilities include a large and popular city centre multi-storey car park operated by Euro Parks.
The client required a new high build grip car park flooring system to replace a previous system which had become extremely slippy under foot in wet conditions. With years of experience providing the complete car park flooring solution, including high build systems, top deck and basement waterproofing, the client turned to AFS.
Advanced Flooring System has had the privilege to work with a large range of customers including major blue chip companies, local authorities, building contractors and end users. Their current list of satisfied clients includes the likes of Coca Cola, Shell, Lagan, Kingspan and John Sisk, to name but a few.
Adrian and his team of nine employees, which includes his wife Katherine who is also a company director, pride themselves in being different from other flooring contractors due to their wealth of industry and technical experience and also by being the approved applicators for Sika, Flowcrete, MC Building Chemicals, Resdeve, Dow, Larsens and MPM.
This allows them to specify the correct system to suit their customers’ requirements – not the suppliers.
Before applying any flooring system, the correct method of preparation is essential to achieve a bond between the substrate and the new floor system. Advanced Flooring Systems ensure the correct method of surface preparation is carried out at the beginning of all their flooring systems.
To achieve this, their highly training Surface Preparation division utilizes a wide range of in-house preparation equipment services including shot blasting, floor grinding, scabbling, scarifying and hot compressed air system.
Their specialised and highly trained team offer their clients over 25 years of industrial and commercial flooring experience. With access to their own in-house equipment including vacuum shot blasting, single head diamond grinders, triple head diamond grinders, 3 phase scabbler, hand held edging equipment, they are available to work on projects across the country at short notice if required.
“Some of our guys have 25 years’ experience in the industry while we have taken on some young guys in the last couple of years which is a good sign for the industry. I spend most of my time out on the road, chasing work, so it’s important that there is a strong bond of trust between management and employees.”
As regards Health & Safety, all of the team are inducted in the technologies and materials to complete their projects. “We’ve invested heavily in the business in the last few years with new vans and new equipment. This is a long term project,” Adrian added.
So why choose AFS? Prospect clients should consider the following factors: they are a market leader across the UK and Ireland; they offer a wide range of specialised services, their curriculum vitae includes numerous successful projects delivered from private owned companies to the world’s largest blue-chip companies; they have a dedicated installation and surface preparation divisions (no sub contacting); they boast highly trained teams and last, but by no means least, they are an approved supplier of all the main contractors.
We’ll leave the last word to Adrian…
“It’s all about offering the customer value for money and quality work from our point of view. You are only as a good as your last job in this business. If you do something wrong, you have to go back and put it right even if that comes at a loss because your reputation is everything.”
Advanced Flooring Systems
9 Greenfield Court
Armagh
BT60 1NL
Tel: +44 (0) 28 3751 8789/+44 (0) 7709 349 048
Fax: +44 (0) 28 3751 8789
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.advancedflooringsystems.co.uk
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, August 2018, Vol 4 No 7
