How do you install terrazzo flooring?

It depends entirely on the process, and this is where the five types separate most sharply. Precast is dry-laid and jointed. Cement-bound is laid wet over the substrate and ground back to it. Epoxy is a coating. Poured terrazzo is placed in layers over a divider grid and ground twice. Porcelain is a tile and follows tile rules.

Reference photograph of a terrazzo surface, s04. Not a photograph of our goods. — What a batch looks like before it is laid. Aggregate distribution is decided here, not on site.

Reference photograph of a terrazzo surface, s55. Not a photograph of our goods. — A laid floor in a domestic room. Every seam and divider is a decision made during installation.

Reference photographs. They show the material and the finish; they are not photographs of goods we made, and the colour on screen is not a colour-match.

The figures, and where each one comes from

Process	Fixing	Joints	Who does it
Precast	dry, on bedding	movement joints required	specialist
Cement-bound	wet, bonded to substrate	movement joints required	tiler
Epoxy	coating over prepared substrate	saw cuts only	resin specialist
Poured	wet, into a divider grid	divider grid does the work	terrazzo specialist
Porcelain	thin-bed tile	standard tile joints	tiler

Why the processes are not interchangeable

The wet processes are ground back to the substrate, which is why the substrate is part of the specification rather than the base of it. A ground floor is a floor and its subfloor, taken as one thing. That is also why a movement joint cannot be omitted from a long run: a floor that cannot move will crack at the first seasonal movement, and it will crack where the joint should have been.

What these figures are, and what they are not

This is a description of method, not a fixing instruction. A terrazzo floor installed against the wrong substrate or without a movement-joint plan fails, and no page can carry a drawing for your building. We supply the material and we will tell you what it needs; the installation is done by a terrazzo specialist and we will say so rather than imply otherwise.

Measured data sheets and test reports

If you are specifying this

These are the forms we actually supply for this question, with production photographs where we have them:

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