OR WALL COVERINGS

Description

Technical Field

This invention relates to a set or kit of material and tools for the laying of floor and/or wall coverings. Background Art

In sales areas, finding and retrieving the tools and materials needed for the laying of floor or wall coverings, particularly in the case of mosaics, often means that the installer or buyer has to access different shelves where the tools and materials are located, which in turn means having to move physically from one part to another of a sales area and spending a certain amount of time looking for the articles required, without excluding the risk of forgetting something which later makes it difficult or inconvenient, if not impossible, to carry out the work.

That is especially true in self-service sales areas of large shopping centres. Indeed, the distribution of shelving over vast areas may mean covering non- negligible distances between one set of shelves and another. Moreover, it is not unusual to have to wander about in circles among the shelves in search of the products needed, added to the fact that the less expert a buyer is, the smaller the likelihood that he or she will get the right answers and advice from sales staff.

Another drawback that may be encountered, especially by non-specialist buyers, is the difficulty of ascertaining with a reasonable degree of accuracy the amounts of certain consumer materials necessary for laying a mosaic. This leads to the risk of procuring quantities which are either insufficient or excessive for actual requirements. In the first case, the disadvantages are having to interrupt work and wasting time obtaining further supplies. The disadvantages in the second case are due to unnecessary expenditure and the inconvenience of having to store unnecessary material or disposing of it through special waste collection services, with all the complications that this involves.

Summary of the Invention

The aim of this invention is therefore to overcome these disadvantages by providing a set or kit of material and tools for the laying of floor and/or wall coverings very conveniently, in a minimum of time, without wasting money or materials and well up to standard, even if the work is done by non- specialist, do- it-yourself enthusiasts.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The technical features of the invention, with reference to the above aims, are clearly described in the appended claims and its advantages are apparent from the detailed description which follows, with reference to the accompanying drawings which illustrate a preferred non-limiting example embodiment of it, and in which:

- Figure 1 is a transversal cross section of a first set of materials and tools for the laying of a floor or wall surface covering of a building;

- Figures 2 and 3 are transversal cross sections of the set of Figure 1 through the section planes defined by the lines Π-Π and ΙΠ-ΙΠ, respectively;

- Figure 4 is a transversal cross section of a second set of materials and tools for the laying of a wall surface covering of a building;

- Figures 5 and 6 are transversal cross sections of the set of Figure 4 through the section planes defined by the lines V-V and VI- VI, respectively;

- Figures 7 and 8 schematically illustrate the set of tools necessary for laying a surface covering with grouted joints;

- Figures 9 and 10 schematically illustrate the set of tools necessary for laying a surface covering without grouted joints. Description of the Preferred Embodiments of the Invention

With reference to the accompanying drawings, the numeral 20 in Figures 1 and 4 generically denotes a set of materials and tools, that is, a specialist kit for the laying of floor/wall coverings.

More specifically, the kit 20 is designed to facilitate the laying of mosaics on building structures such as floors and walls, or to facilitate, simplify and speed up certain key preparatory operations, from finding and obtaining materials and tools in the right quantity, to the installation work itself.

Figures 1, 2 and 3 illustrate a first embodiment of such a kit 20 which essentially comprises a container 2 which contains the following, at predetermined positions: at least one tile 3 to be installed, having a predetermined surface area, and adhesive means 4 for installing the tile 3 on the floor/wall surface to be covered.

The container 2 is preferably embodied by a box 6 of cardboard or equivalent packaging material, having the shape of a flattened parallelepiped and 5 provided with a series of internal compartments - 7a,7b,7c,7d,7e,7f,7g,7h,7i - shaped to house and securely hold the following in stable, predetermined positions: the tile 3 to be installed, in particular in the form of a mosaic, the adhesive means 4 and other specific tile laying tools and accessories, these tools and accessories described in more detail below, also with reference to Figures 7 to i o 10.

The tiles 3 to be installed - in particular the plurality of tiles held in a stacked condition in a compartment 7a and 7b of the box 6 of Figures 1 to 3 - preferably have a total surface area of one square metre. In other words, the box 6 contains a quantity, or a corresponding plurality, of tiles, each of which is

15 composed of respective mosaic tesserae 3a and which is suitable and commensurate to cover one square metre of building structure surface, compatibly with the chosen application configuration to be installed in every specific case.

The adhesive means 4 included in the kit 20 are present in predetermined quantities, suitably measured to suffice for the surface area of the tiles 3 to be

2 o installed.

The reference to a surface area of one square metre of floor/wall surface to be covered and the measured quantity of adhesive materials optimally commensurate for that surface area allow do-it-yourself users, however inexpert, to determine in a quick, easy and sure manner the right quantities of materials that

25 must be available on site to cover a generic structure, since all a user needs to know is the area of the building structure concerned, in particular a floor rough or a wall or other building structure to be covered. The exactly predetermined quantities of all the materials required make it possible not to purchase more material than is actually needed, thus avoiding unnecessary expenditure and

30 without creating storage problems or contributing to forming waste, which is, moreover, special waste, over and above what is strictly necessary, with all the consequences arising out of the correct disposal of such waste.

In the first embodiment of the kit 20, described here, reference is made to the laying of covering tiles on a surface prepared in a traditional manner with

35 plaster or cementitious mortar. In that case, for defining the correct combination of materials required, the adhesive means 4 contained in the kit 20 are conveniently in powder form in a tin can 18 placed inside the box 6 in a well-defined position next to the tile 3, held securely in place by the interaction of a compartment 7c formed in a lid 19 of the box 6 with the top of the tin can 18.

By mixing the adhesive powder 4 with a specified quantity of water, it is possible to prepare a suitable mixture to be spread on the setting bed for the covering tile.

The provision, in the set or kit 20, of adhesive means 4 in anhydrous, powder form has the advantage of guaranteeing: the unalterability of the materials, even if stored for a relatively long period of time; the stability of all the rheological properties connected with their adhesive function; and the reduced unit weight of the kit 20, which makes it easier to handle without excessive strain.

The first embodiment of the kit 20 being described preferably also comprises a set of tools including (Figure 7) instruction means 9 describing step by step the correct installation procedure for non-expert users - the instruction means 9 resident, in a multimedia format, on an electronic medium 10, embodied preferably by a CD ROM contained in a dedicated compartment 7g in the box 6.

The set of tools in the first embodiment of the kit 20 also comprises disposable protective gloves 16 of latex and means 11 and 12 for applying the adhesive between the tile 3 and the wall/floor surface to be covered, said means being preferably embodied by a trowel 12, preferably a toothed one, and being housed in a compartment 7i of the container 6 of Figure 1. The kit 20 also includes a sponge 17 - housed in a compartment 7f - used to wipe or clean the tile 3 to be installed or to facilitate its installation, both during and after laying it.

To form regular joints between the floor/wall tiles, the first embodiment of the kit 20 also includes tile spacing means 13 in a number calculated for one square metre of tiled surface area, according to the size of each single mosaic tessera 3a. The spacing means 13 are also located in a dedicated compartment 7e of the box 6.

The kit 20 further comprises finishing material 8 (grout) in powder form for surface finishing the covering tile 3 after it has been installed, and the respective application means 14, which comprise a rubber trowel 15 housed in a specific compartment 7h.

A variant embodiment of the first kit 20 is illustrated in Figures 4, 5 and 6. The substantial differences between this variant and the kit 20 of Figures 1, 2 and 3 are the fact that the parallelepiped shape of the container 2 has a smaller top surface area but is higher and the tin can 18 is located on top of the tile 3. Also, the sponge 17, the CD ROM, the toothed trowel 12 and the rubber trowel 15 are arranged vertically on each side of the tin can 18. Lastly, the container 2 has a handle 21 for carrying the kit 20.

Figure 8 shows a further variant embodiment of the kit, labelled 40, where a box 6 contains a set of materials and tools needed to lay one square metre of surface of tiles, for example to cover existing ceramic or marble floor or wall surfaces. In this case, since the adhesive means 4 are embodied preferably by a sheet of adhesive material, there is no toothed trowel 12 in the set of tools of the kit 40.

In a third embodiment 60 of it, the kit is designed for laying the tile without grouting on a surface prepared in a traditional manner with plaster or cementitious mortar and comprises the set of tools shown in Figure 9. In this case, a suitable box 6 of cardboard contains a set of tools which, unlike the one shown in Figure 7, does not have either the spacing means 13 or the rubber trowel 15.

In a fourth embodiment 80 of the kit, designed to glue the tile, without grouting, on top of existing covered surfaces such as ceramic or marble floor or wall coverings, the box 6 contains, in addition to the square metre of tiles 3, as in the other embodiments, the two-sided adhesive sheet 5 and the CD ROM, as shown by way of an example in Figure 10.

The invention described above provides a solution to the problems mentioned in the introductory section hereof, basically relieving the user of all the preliminary operations connected with preparing the combination of tools and materials needed for laying the floor/wall covering.

Moreover, the invention relieves the user of any preliminary operations in terms of estimating the necessary quantities of materials. Lastly, it also provides non-expert users with working instructions. Thus, in addition to making operations easier, quicker and less expensive, it allows work to be performed well up to standard even by non-expert do-it-yourself enthusiasts who would otherwise find it difficult to master the techniques needed to obtain results of satisfactory quality.

The invention described is susceptible of industrial application. It would be obvious to one skilled in the art that several changes and modifications can be made to the invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, described in depth above. In particular, one skilled in the art could easily imagine further embodiments of the invention comprising one or more of the features described herein. It will also be understood that all the details of the invention may be substituted for technically equivalent elements.