All that glitters is gold: A client in Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia, had the facade of a business building decorated with 51,000 mosaic tiles made of gold leaf. The exactly matching color of the PCI Durapox® Premium Multicolor grout perfectly rounded off the extravagant gold mosaic look and enabled grouting even at low temperatures.

At the inauguration in May 2020, a murmur went through the rows when the curtain fell and revealed the shining golden facade of the business building in the middle of the Neuss pedestrian zone. Invited guests, numerous passers-by as well as the press and television attended the ceremony which owner Georg Wentges hosted on a red carpet in front of the building. He wanted to leave something lasting for the city, the 80-year-old explained, and was visibly pleased with the successful golden facade. In just six weeks, the craftsmen had completed the unusual installation project. The 51,000 mosaic tiles of gold leaf are protected by glass made from recycled Italian wine bottles. This is to make it impossible for thieves to remove the gold from the mosaic tiles.

Grout in golden yellow shade

The company, Fliesencenter Wurth in Solingen, consulted PCI Augsburg GmbH for carrying out the tile laying work. PCI application engineer Stephan Leistner, PCI service engineer Christian Kollmeyer and PCI technical consultant Henning Uebach provided support in planning, product selection and processing. The company used the frost and weather resistant reaction resin mortar PCI Durapox® NT Plus to lay the mosaic.

Among other things, the extremely high adhesive tensile strength of the adhesive was to prevent the valuable mosaics from detaching from the substrate. Regarding the grout it was important to find the right color shade. This is because the joints have a decisive influence on the overall appearance and effect of the facade especially in this unusual object. A case for PCI Durapox® Premium Multicolor: The epoxy resin grout launched by PCI at the beginning of 2020 is available - as the first grout on the market - in hundreds of colors.

Color selection with digital color reader

"The enormous color selection of the PCI Durapox® Premium Multicolor grout is impressive and enabled us to find exactly the right shade to match the gold mosaic," says Sascha Wurth, owner of the tile center, and adds: "This was perfectly achieved with PCI Colorcatch Nano." PCI's digital color reading device provides the right color selection easily, quickly and reliably: It measures the color of the flooring surface - whether smooth, textured or patterned - and visualizes the matching color harmonies in seconds. "PCI Colorcatch Nano works together with the PCI app MULTICOLOR. This enables us to provide our customers with professional advice and show them completely new design options. We have been working with the new color reader for months and achieve high customer satisfaction with it," says Wurth.

Construction progress despite low temperatures

In addition to the huge color selection, the high level of convenient application of PCI Durapox® Premium Multicolor also scores points. Thanks to its smooth consistency, the epoxy resin grout can be applied as easily as a cementitious mortar, with just one hand and without special tools. The washing behavior also corresponds to that of cementitious mortars. No residual haze remains in combination with PCI Durapox® Finish. The fact that PCI Durapox® Premium Multicolor can also be applied at low temperatures was another benefit when grouting the gold mosaic tiles. "We would have had to wait until it got warmer when using conventional grouts. With PCI Durapox® Premium Multicolor we were able to complete the work and keep to the schedule," says Sascha Wurth and also praises the excellent service and support of the entire PCI team: "The support during planning and processing was very valuable for us. We will rely on PCI also for future projects."