The Professional Association for Tiles and Natural Stone (FFN) held its first online expert seminar at the Central Association of the German Construction Industry on March 18, 2021—on the topic of “Mega Formats.”
In this expert training session, the members of the technical committee aimed to inform the more than 70,000 tile setters represented by the association about the opportunities and risks involved in working with large, thin ceramic slabs. To this end, master tile setters Marco Sass, Titus Wolkober, and Markus Ramrath (who is also a master stonemason), along with Dunja Salmen, an attorney specializing in construction law, and explained both the excellent future prospects and the remaining pitfalls of this fascinating material.
“No building material has changed as dramatically in recent years as the tile,” says Marco Sass. “Given the market advantages, this is a blessing for our industry,” adds Titus Wolkober. And yet, mega-formats behave like the “diva” of tiles—sometimes being quite temperamental, warns Markus Ramrath. Dunja Salmen adds: “Only optimal contract drafting for mega-format orders can protect the tile setter.” The FFN has therefore initially drafted a “sample notice” that is free of charge for members. And now the trade association will sit down with several willing and capable tile manufacturers to work out secure terms for all parties involved.
After all, while damage can always occur despite the best possible precautions—all speakers agreed on this—if the cause is not a mistake by the installer but rather excessive stress in the material, then the tiler should have the opportunity to file a complaint regarding that particular tile shipment. And according to an MPA study commissioned by the association, the stresses leading to uncontrolled behavior of the material affect about 0.5 percent of all large-format tiles. In such cases, further processing is virtually impossible. For the remaining 99.5 percent, however, the advantages—such as large-format, few joints, easy maintenance, durability, and much more—were key. To provide long-term support to installers, the organizers promoted the new profession of tile fabricator, who pre-fabricates the large slabs using waterjet technology, thereby transferring the majority of the processing risk from the construction site to his machine shop.
