Skip to content

Unit: Commercial vinyl

LMFFL3302A: Install commercial vinyl floor coverings
LMFFL3303A: Install resilient floor coverings using custom designs and decorative finishes

Section 3: Borders, features and coving

Types of coving


Image for slide 1
Audio for slide 1 (mp3 |6|KB)
Coving is the process of turning up a sheet at the perimeter to provide a continuous surface between the floor and wall, or floor and other vertical surfaces.

It's often used in commercial buildings, hospitals and schools, especially in areas where hygiene is important or a watertight seal is necessary.

hearing icon
Image for slide 2
Audio for slide 2 (mp3 |6|KB)

When the field material is used as the cove, the process is often called:

  • flash coving, because the coving is 'flashed' up the wall, or

  • integral coving, because the cove is an 'integral' part of the sheet.
hearing icon
Image for slide 3
Audio for slide 3 (mp3 |6|KB)

Types of coving

Australian Standard 1884 describes three types of cove:

  • preformed,

  • border, and

  • pencil cove.
hearing icon
Image for slide 4
Audio for slide 4 (mp3 |6|KB)

Preformed cove

When a cove former or fillet is used to support the sheet at the floor and wall junction, the cove is called preformed, since the amount of curve is set by the fillet piece.

We'll look in detail at the process used to install preformed coving in the next lesson.

hearing icon
Image for slide 5
Audio for slide 5 (mp3 |6|KB)

Border cove

A border cove uses a separate piece of sheet material which is joined at the floor to the field material.

The border piece can be the same colour as the field material or a contrasting feature colour.

Linoleum coving is generally installed in this way. We'll cover the installation process for border coving in the unit: Linoleum.

hearing icon
Image for slide 6
Audio for slide 6 (mp3 |6|KB)

Pencil cove

Vinyl sheets with good flexibility can be installed with a pencil cove.

The field material is flashed up the wall, in the same way as with preformed coving, but there is no cove fillet involved.

Instead, the material is simply pushed into the junction between the wall and floor with a stair tool.

AS 1884 specifies that the radius of the curve for a pencil cove must be a maximum of 5 mm. To help achieve this tight radius, the material is warmed with a heat gun to make it more flexible.

hearing icon


Learning activity

Audio 7 (mp3 |6|KB)

The curve at the bottom of a cove is sometimes described in terms of its size and other times in terms of the radius of the curve. For example, a common size for a cove former is 25 x 25 mm, which refers to the height and width of the piece when it's in position.

But a pencil cove is required to have a curve of no more than 5 mm radius.

Can you explain what this means?

If you have trouble remembering what a radius is, go back to the 'Area' lesson by following the link below.

hearing icon

Area (Making measurements)