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PICS International Rescue - Rue de Luxembourg, Brussels, Belgium
Over the last two decades we have established a vibrant Export division and have established a number of successful distributorships across Europe, and further afield.
The PICS distributor in Belgium is a Dutch company named Pressplate, a company with whom we have been trading for more than 10 years, and who have enjoyed considerable success both in Holland and Belgium.
Pressplate have specialized in large commercial installations and these are normally planned well in advance. However, during the summer of 2000, at short-notice, Pressplate were given the challenge of installing 4000m² in 21 days on the Rue De Luxembourg in Brussels; we were delighted to hear of this success and immediately made arrangements for the supplies and materials required by Pressplate to be shipped to Belgium.
Under normal circumstances local contractors would have been used for the installation, however, due to a combination of factors, it transpired that local labour was not available. There being a very brief window of opportunity to complete the installation, Pressplate were facing a massive logistical problem. How could they complete the job without the skilled specialist labour to do it?
Pressplate contacted us to see if we had any bright ideas that might help them fulfil their commitments and we immediately set about the task. Within 7 days we had made arrangements for a team of 6 men, from our good friends at Traditional Paving in Oxford, to be in the Belgium Capital to carry out the installation.
Thankfully the project was completed on time and to exacting standards. The client expressed his gratitude to Pressplate for a first class project.
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Sefton Council - COLOURTOP - Holding Back The Seas
When Sefton Council started out on a project of regeneration for the coastal promenade of this North Western Borough they came up with the interesting idea of depicting the phases of the moon on coloured paving – everyone agreed the draft plans submitted by their artist would lift the area greatly, but they were faced with the difficult problem of "How Do We Do It?"
So, they had the drawings and the idea but were unsure of how best to proceed, and no wonder – after all, this was an area that would have to withstand vicious weather conditions with 110mph winds howling in from the adjacent Irish Sea, 30 ft waves pounding on the surface, not to mention millions of foot traffic (during more clement conditions!) over the forthcoming 20 years. To meet Sefton Council’s requirements it needed to look great, be easily maintained, hold its colour and be extremely tough and hard-wearing.
It quickly became apparent that high trafficking paints were not a viable option so a more radical solution was required.
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Golden Trowel Awards 2009 - Variety is the Spice of Life!
The 5th Golden Trowel Awards were held at the Concrete Society in Camberley, and the judges got the opportunity to see an exciting selection of the variety of decorative concrete projects undertaken during 2009. As always this years' entries were only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the range and scope of work we see as we travel around the country visiting the network of installers, so if you have not shown off examples of your own quality decorative concrete work before, start thinking about projects to photograph and enter for the 2010 Awards!
This year we decided to make a Special Bespoke Project Award for the best example of a uniquely creative project as a fitting tribute to the memory of Dave “Tubbs” Allseybrook who sadly lost his life in a diving accident in Egypt earlier this year. Dave was well known and respected by many in the industry who have worked alongside him over 20 years, both in the East Midlands where he began with one of the original Paverprint franchises alongside Frank Murphy and more recently in the North East working with The Patterned Concrete Company and Tony Adams. Dave will be missed and remembered by many, and our thoughts are with his family at this time.
Our Special Award has been made to Teesvalley Drainage & Driveways for Lee Bouttell's hand crafted colourful garden recreation on a driveway in Redcar, which Lee created from concept to installation. A unique and cleverly undertaken project, so congratulations to Lee.
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PICS REPUBLIC OF IRELAND - Ray and Margaret Vidal
Ray and Margaret have been involved in the Pattern Imprinted Concrete industry for some 6 years, and during that time have acquired an enormous amount of experience, which enables them to fully understand the importance of 1/ customer service 2/ Value for money and competitive pricing 3/ quality products and their availability.
The warehouse in Mullingar, County Westmeath, is some 1200 square feet, and is able to store in excess of 60 tonnes of CSH with all the associated products making sure that the service they provide is second to none.
Ray intends to deliver your first few orders personally in order that you can put a face to the name, as well as share experiences and identify how else PICS Ireland can help you with your business.
Ray of course will keep you informed of all the new products and systems that may be of benefit to you.
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Picsbond - a "Dog friendly" different use!
Picsbond has been installed for many years as an attractive hardstanding. Picsbond is a resin bonded stone system, which provides a stone or decorative shingle effect without any of the normal disadvantages associated with loose gravel.
More recently however, Transform Paving of Liverpool has been asked by the local authorities to install Picsbond as a decorative cap for a tree pit capping material. One of the main reasons it is specified is to minimise the damage our canine friends do to the soil and root system around the trees!
Picsbond is installed at circa 50mm and generally 6-10mm stones are used for this purpose. In areas of high wear these larger stones may be capped with Picsbond using 3mm stones to produce a tighter, more closed and therefore stronger more durable surface.
The nature of Picsbond is such that it will accommodate tree growth and allow water to run through the highly permeable surface and thus water the tree. It looks great, there's no loose stones or dirt to kick around and the area around the tree will look neat and tidy at all times.
Due to its ease of installation and the many practical benefits of a Picsbond capped tree pit, further utilisation is planned for the future across the UK.
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Picsbond in Cyprus
Cyprus, or should I say, the Cypriots, have taken a big liking to Picsbond, our decorative stone overlay system.
Our distributor in Cyprus, who had historically been stocking, using and supplying our pattern imprinted concrete materials, saw a gap in the market for something a little different, to complement the existing paving materials used. He saw Picsbond as an ideal product to complement swimming pool and patio areas, alongside his pattern imprinted concrete business.
Initially a small show area was installed outside the offices at Paphos in July last year and since then many thousands of square metres of Picsbond have been successfully installed in Paphos and elsewhere throughout this Mediterranean island.
Picsbond has been used on many domestic paved areas in Cyprus as well as a number of areas which are open to the public, so if you’re holidaying in Cyprus later in the year, keep your eyes open and you may see some impressive Picsbond installations during your travels.
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KFC Drive Thru update
PICSPAVE has been the specified paving of choice on KFC Restaurant drive-thru lanes for many years. Following a successful period in the early 1990's when McDonalds used PICSPAVE for the majority of their developments, this successful formula has continued with KFC.
PICS have been able to nominate many local installation companies of choice around the UK and advise the teams to help ensure consistent installation quality, which means that PICSPAVE continues to be the natural choice for high traffic paving on the drive-thru lanes for many years to come.
KFC themselves continue to grow their brand, as their web-site states ;
"with over 750 restaurants in the UK and an annual growth rate of 15% KFC continues to be the fastest growing restaurant brand in the UK. During the last 5 years we have opened over 200 new restaurants and want to increase this level of opening even further over the next 5 years."
If you know of a new KFC development near you, do check out that it is on our schedule, and we can discuss the installation opportunities with you.
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Wonderful World of PICSPAVE - Disney
Since Andrew Goord started PICS in 1989 there have been many exciting projects to have captured our imagination but none more so than when we were contacted by the Disney Corporation and invited to tender for the supply of the specialist Decorative Concrete materials in the construction of its new Disneyland park in Hong Kong.
Disney's attention to detail is legendary and, as one can imagine, the testing was exhaustive, but after an initial meeting with Disney in Los Angeles in early 2003 and subsequent trial areas on site in Hong Kong later that year, PICS was eventually chosen to be the preferred supplier for the Decorative Concrete materials for the paving at Hong Kong Disneyland.
PICS worked closely with Ivan Chan and Disney Imagineering, the design team responsible for all the paving works throughout the site, to produce quality work to Disney’s high technical and design standards.
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