Terrazzo Flooring Installation in Kenya

Kenya’s most underrated floor

Terrazzo is far more common in Kenya than in most markets and it deserves to be. Laid properly it is effectively permanent, the terrazzo floors in Nairobi’s older public buildings are decades old and still serviceable, and it can be reground and repolished rather than replaced.

It is also seamless, cool underfoot, and takes almost any colour of chip and matrix.

Divider strips are the whole craft

In-situ terrazzo is a cementitious screed with stone chips, and like any cementitious screed it moves and shrinks. Divider strips (brass, aluminium or PVC) control where it cracks.

Set correctly, at doorways, at changes of direction, and in bays sized to the mix, the floor is stable for decades. Set carelessly, or left out to save money, the floor cracks randomly across the middle of a room and there is no repair that hides it.

We set out the strips before any material is mixed, and we will show you the layout first because it is visible in the finished floor.

The process

1. Slab preparation and levels checked
2. Divider strips set out and fixed
3. Terrazzo topping laid and compacted
4. Cured: this cannot be rushed
5. Ground back in stages with progressively finer grits
6. Grouted to fill pinholes, then final polish
7. Sealed

Grinding is the messy part. It is a wet process and it needs the space empty, so on a renovation we schedule it before anything else is finished.

Cost

From KES 1,600 per square metre laid and polished, with no separate material cost: the material is part of the laying. That compares favourably with mid-range tiling once labour is counted, and it lasts considerably longer.