Industrial Flooring Guide
Importance of Craft, Quality, and Knowledge in Industrial Flooring
Due to industrial flooring requirements, it’s essential to use certified and experienced industrial floor installers with technical expertise, and who work with the best products the industry has to offer. Industrial flooring specialists are craftsmen, and they use state-of-the-art equipment and floor tooling to exceed the highest standards. They should be certified with multiple manufacturers of premium products and knowledge to create and install long-lasting custom floors that come with a warranty. Solutions can be as versatile and unique as your production facility, equipment, processes, and outputs. Industrial floors provide compressive strength, chemical resistance, and a wide range of thermal shock protection capabilities that meet USDA, FDA, CFIA, and OSHA standards. Your industrial floor expert must take the time to discuss your requirements in detail and then explain the benefits and drawbacks of multiple products and manufacturers. Look for these performance qualities in industrial floor coatings:
abrasion-resistant
impact-resistant
chip/flake resistant
corrosion-resistant
anti-slip
antibacterial
antimicrobial
antistatic
hygienic
long-lasting
An experienced, certified industrial flooring specialist will help you decide on the best solution by evaluating your facility and requirements and installing a floor that provides you with exceptional long-term performance and value.
Materials for Heavy-Duty Use
Floor coating systems vary according to the specific requirements of each facility, but they fall mainly into these categories.
Epoxy
Epoxy is a resin comprised of 1- part epoxide resin and 1-part polyamine hardener. During the application process, the epoxy cures for a minimum of 24 hours. Once cured, epoxy flooring produces polymer structures that give it tremendous strength and lasting durability. This type of floor coating is non-porous and installed for high impact facilities where optimum performance is the top priority. Highly resistant to chemical spills and abrasion, epoxy floor systems are often used with decorative chips or colored sands to achieve an infinite array of color schemes or patterns.
Epoxy floor coatings are much more challenging to install than home DIY kits and require a professional coatings installer with experience in the industry. There is a vast difference between epoxy paint and an actual industrial-strength epoxy coating. Epoxy paint (for the DIY consumer) is essentially latex paint with a small amount of added epoxy for increased durability. This product is best left for light-duty, light-traffic home projects, and is never an appropriate choice in industrial settings. Most industrial coatings products are 100% solids and are a multi-component resin system with a short pot life. They require technical expertise during the floor preparation, mixing, and application process. The result is a stunning, high-performance, seamless floor that is hygienic, durable, and easy to clean.
There is a wide variety of specialty epoxy coatings to produce a custom flooring solution at your facility. You will find epoxy floor systems in just about every industry due to their superior benefits. Your professional floor coating installer can design your epoxy floor to be skid resistant, hygienic, electrostatic dissipative and conductive, and much more, depending upon your requirements.
Epoxy & Urethane
Epoxy and urethane floors have an additional urethane layer on the top surface that is seamless and acts as a seal to resist moisture and heat. Epoxy and urethane floor systems are a common industrial flooring solution for the food and beverage industry.
Urethane Cement
Urethane cement is a combination of a polymer binder (urethane) and fillers (cement and aggregate). Polymer concrete is another name for urethane Cement, and this floor coating system can be self- leveling, roller applied, or trowel applied. Urethane cement coating systems are well known for their chemical and temperature resistance and tolerate high moisture, which allows them to be installed directly onto concrete. They provide wear-resistant, durable, and seamless floor finishes that are easy to clean. Urethane cement flooring systems are ideal for the demanding service conditions in the food and beverage industries, industrial, pharmaceutical, and healthcare environments.
Polyaspartic
Polyaspartic coatings are a relatively new technology for concrete floor coatings. Initially developed in the 1990s to protect steel from corrosion, they are now being used to protect industrial facilities’ concrete floors. , Polyaspartic coating systems were initially developed with low VOC, and today they are low or zero VOC.
Polyaspartic coatings possess nearly identical properties as the best two-component aliphatic polyurethane coatings. They are long-wearing and abrasion, scratch, chemical, UV, and impact resistant. In contrast to epoxies and polyurethanes, polyaspartic coatings provide faster drying time, and the high film builds, allowing for a much quicker return to service. They also resist stains and slightly higher temperatures than other types of coatings.
On-Call, Superior Servicing
Servicing is the most critical aspect of your epoxy or polyurethane industrial flooring solution. If something goes wrong during the install—if the floor preparation is incorrect, if mixes are inaccurate, or coatings improperly cured between coats—your floor and its longevity will be compromised. Knowledgable industrial floor specialists control the process and provide a consistently superior installation on every project. Due to the costs and inconvenience of shutdown time, specialists need to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. They must have the labor and materials available at a moment’s notice, so you never have to wait for them. Experienced industrial flooring experts will be ready to work around the clock during planned shutdowns and respond within 24 hours to flooring project requests due to unforeseen facility emergencies or green-lighted projects. A successful project will use flooring experts ready at a moment’s notice that work with industry-leading products and that have technical expertise along with substantial experience to produce a custom flooring solution that endures.