Heritage

Interfloor is built on a rich British manufacturing heritage which includes a number of UK and world firsts and two of the UK’s oldest brands: Duralay and Tredaire.

Dating back to the 18th century, Interfloor can trace its roots back to the earliest hand weaving companies which have evolved into the modern flooring industry which currently employs over 6,000 people and generates over £950m.

During the 1940s, when wall-to-wall carpet became the “fashion”, a Lancashire-based weaving company named Durie & Miller (dating back to 1789) made its first foray into the flooring industry with felt underlay for carpet squares. It wasn’t long before the team (including a member of the original Miller family) came up with something truly innovative – the world’s first crumb rubber underlay. The Duralay brand was born; destined to become a world-class system for flooring installations.

Meanwhile, a Scotland-based company was also doing exciting things with rubber. In 1958 underlay brand Tredaire made its debut at the 1958 Carpet Fair in Earls Court and quickly reached sales levels sufficient to pave the road from Dumfries (where the company was based) to London every year.

Brands with similar heritage and pedigree include Hush Puppies and Pizza Hut, both established in 1958 like Tredaire, while Andrex (and its famous puppies) date back to the 1940s just like Duralay.

Fast forward to the 1980s, considered by many as one of the ugliest periods in interior design trends, but it was a boom time for Duralay which grew to become Europe’s largest underlay manufacturer and then, with global aspirations and a significant investment programme, the world’s first universal underlay manufacturer with both rubber and sponge underlays in its portfolio.

In 2002, the Duralay and Tredaire brands were brought under the same roof at “Interfloor”. (For a short time, Interfloor also owned the now world-famous Hunter boots brand, which has no less than two Royal warrants!).

Now Tredaire® is synonymous with luxurious underfoot comfort and is well established as the number 1 consumer brand in the UK. Duralay® provides hard-wearing underlays, ideal for the contract market, and a range of specialist underlays for the underfloor heating, double stick and hard flooring segments.

A consistent theme in both brands’ marketing has been support for the stockists and retailers. Back in 1963, Tredaire ran a dealer competition to win a Morris Mini-Minor!

Since then, there has been no stopping Interfloor’s global ambitions to spread the word about the benefits of underlay for flooring installations.

In the mid-1990s the company took a stand at a Dubai trade exhibition with the aim of introducing the local markets to the British methods of carpet installation involving the use of underlay. Up until that time carpets sold in this region were mainly plain in colour and of the high pile tufted “velour” variety sourced principally from the USA and Belgium. No underlay was used, indeed it was deemed to be unnecessary given the thickness of the carpet pile. Interfloor’s approach resulted in ever-increasing numbers of customers demanding to have their carpets installed using the “British method”. Interfloor’s international achievements and success were rewarded in 2016 at the inaugural UK Export Excellence Awards when the company won two high profile categories: ‘Innovation in Exporting’ and ‘Exporting Excellence in MENA’.

Today Interfloor exports to over 400 customers in over 70 countries. Most of the world’s best-known hotels as well as numerous mosques, cinemas, casinos and airports regularly use Interfloor underlays, while homeowners across the UK continue to trust Interfloor’s trusted and proven brands which have a heritage and history that represent British manufacturing at its best.