Industrial Flooring

March 30, 2008

There are many factors to consider when choosing the proper industrial flooring for your company. Safety is one of the top concerns among factories and other business that employ large numbers of employees.

The type of industry you are in will of course determine your options in industrial flooring. You have three basic types of industrial flooring to consider. Epoxy flooring, Acrylic Flooring, and Urethane Flooring.

Epoxy flooring is one of the most popular industrial flooring choices among many companies. Epoxy flooring offers high durability and does not emit an odor. Other advantages to epoxy flooring are the ability to resist chemicals and abrasions.

Acrylic Flooring is used by many companies as well. Acrylic industrial flooring is fast curing usually less than 1 Hr. Acrylic type flooring surface is temperature insensitive and cures at -20F. Acrylic flooring also offers strength with resilience for long term use. You can find it in a low glare matte or satin finish making it attractive as well.

The final industrial flooring choice is urethane floor coatings; this is popular for companies that deal with extreme temperatures. Urethane flooring surfaces are extremely heat resistant. They also offer the durability and high strength as do the other flooring surfaces. This type of industrial flooring is also chemical resistance.

When it comes to industrial flooring you have many choices of material to choose from. There are mats, epoxies, sealers, paints, and more. The main thing behind choosing an industrial flooring material that is suitable for your needs depends on the type of work that will be performed in the room the flooring is being installed. This article will look a few types of materials for industrial flooring that you might choose.

Where Does It Go?

You will find industrial flooring in hospitals, auto repair shops, schools, fire stations, factories, restaurant kitchens. Each flooring situation may require a bit different material that will handle the elements of that situation. Most industrial flooring is designed to resist stains and moister. Some are better than others to handle wear and tear of everyday life.

Go With Industrial Flooring Style

When you think of industrial flooring you do not have the same mid set as when you are remodeling a home. Style and elegance may not be words that come in the same sentence as industrial flooring, but they can be very slick looking. Many companies pride themselves on the beauty if their industrial flooring finished product look.

Industrial Floors

Many businesses are using a building that has possibly been around for awhile or seen better days. You can paint the walls, refinish them in many different type of choices, or even use wall paper in some cases. Cement floors are common and when it comes to changing the look of the floors, industrial flooring has a wide variety to choose from as well. Isn’t it awesome to live in a world with so many choices. Basically, the sky is the limit concerning choices to make about everything, but in the flooring industry we have come a long way baby as the saying goes. This article will talk about how to dress up an old floor or protect the new one you may have with industrial flooring.

Industrial flooring is used to protect the existing flooring that is there, which in many cases is concrete or some other type of porous material. Many industrial settings use materials that can be harmful to the normal flooring. It can cause damage, or stain, or even develop a permanent odor to it over time. Industrial flooring will not only give the place a new look, but depending on the type you choose, it can be fire proof, odor proof and even resist oil stains. You can get flooring that will resist cigarette and soldering burns and even industrial flooring that resists odors and bacterial germs that would be used in the medical field.

There are many different types of industrial flooring to choose from. Some forms you simply mix together and paint on, or there are some types of industrial flooring that are like a mat and you simply roll it out. You can use the matting type in just about any situation as it is not only simple to install, but it can easily be removed. This type of industrial flooring can be used in trade shows and conventions for booth flooring. There is vinyl flooring that rolls out and meshes together to look virtually seamless. You can even use this type of industrial flooring in your own garage floor at home to protect it.

There is a type of industrial flooring to fit any need out there. There is flooring available to be used in pet kennels and veterinary clinics, garage and automotive type settings, hospital and health care settings and they even make an anti static industrial flooring for places that use explosives. You can even double layer the matting type for more cushioning and comfort if you have to stand or walk a lot on the job. There are many colors and styles to choose from so your options for industrial flooring are many, and besides protecting the floor, you can have a contemporary dressed up look as well.

Polyurethane Resin

Although there are many metal foams made up of solid metals like aluminum, their high price prevents them from being used in normal household constructions Commonly used foams are plastics, which are primarily made up of polyurethane and polystyrene. Most of these materials are low density elastomers, polymers and other materials with various porosities. Foam building materials are characterized by their high density, tensile strength and thermal conductivity and dielectric strength. They are used in roofing membranes, insulation, pipe covers, vapor barriers, crack suppressant membranes and as installed flooring protection.

Polyurethane is polymer with bubbles produced at the time of foaming from one polyols and one isocyanate — usually TDI (Toluene diisocyanate). There are rigid and flexible polyurethane foams available.

The most simple and common process to manufacture foams is by adding water to the liquid precursors of polyurethane. Water will react with the isocyanate of TDI. This will result in the production of carbon dioxide, which can create relatively uniform bubbles that harden through the polymerization process producing solid foam.

One other important polymer used to make household foams is polystyrene. Most polystyrene foams are made by adding little amounts of volatile materials known as blowing agents. The commonly used blowing agents in the past were CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons). Other agents like acetone and methylene chloride have replaced this.

When polyurethane foams are required in soft form, they are mixed with resin. These soft foams are generally heavier than rigid foams. Forcing a pressurized gas, usually nitrogen or carbon dioxide, into the polymerizing mixture, produces large amounts of polyurethane and polystyrene foams. Some surfactants are also used for reducing the surface tension of foams, which are mainly silicone-based.

The machinery used to produce polyurethane foam depends on the application of foam. The most commonly used machinery is a spray foam gun, which are available in different sizes.

Epoxy Flooring

When you are faced with the wide range of choices of flooring materials, it can be difficult to decide what flooring material will be best for your home and your family requirements. Epoxy flooring can be something you may want to look into before you make any final flooring purchases.

The advantage of using epoxy flooring is that when you utilize epoxy, you can be assured that you are using a product that will give your flooring greater strength and resilience. Even if your family is known for their rough and tumble behavior, epoxy flooring won’t let you down with its superior performance.

Epoxy flooring is most often used in an industrial setting. You can install epoxy flooring in places like a finished basement, your garage or your outdoor deck. When you use epoxy flooring for those tough areas, you can rest assured that not only will the surface look good for a long time, but will take wear and tear like no other flooring material.

The key to successfully install your epoxy flooring for maximum performance is in the preparation of the surface where you want to lay the epoxy flooring. The best surface to lay epoxy flooring is concrete, but you can install epoxy flooring over surfaces that include wood and steel as well.

The performance of your epoxy flooring will be directly affected by how you prepare the surface. You will reduce the life of your epoxy flooring if you prepare the surface where you wish to install it improperly. When you prepare the surface correctly you will ensure that your epoxy flooring will adhere to the surface to prolong the life of your epoxy flooring.

Before you decide on buying an epoxy flooring system, you need to be sure that where you want to install it will not be compromised by an abundance of water or moisture. Epoxy flooring doesn’t work well in areas that are constantly damp or are at risk for flooding. You can do some research online to find out all you will need to know to decide if epoxy flooring is right for your intended usage. You will find no shortage of data when you browse epoxy flooring online.

Epoxy Floors

What are the comparable differences between Epoxy-Coat Cycloaliphatic epoxy and other type of epoxies? The most important differences between floor coating epoxies are listed below:

A. Epoxy-Coat is a 100% solids epoxy. This is a term used to describe the volume solids in a coating system. It is what is left over after the product dries. 100% solids yields 100% dried material after the coating fully dries. 50% volume solids yield 50% of the thickness after the coating fully dries. Most epoxies are 30%-40% volume solids. If you wish to compare the thickness after dried application between Epoxy-Coat and normal epoxies you would need 2.5x the gallons to equal exactly the thickness of 1 gallon of Epoxy-Coat.

Epoxy-Coat is a Cycloaliphatic epoxy. What is a Cycloaliphatic epoxy? It is a type of epoxy. Just like there are types of automobiles that perform differently (and vary in costs) so do epoxies. Not all epoxies are the same. If you wish to apply a high performance floor coating you would want a 100% solids epoxy (to achieve a thickness suitable for proper aesthetics and durability), a high abrasion resistance, a product that would be resistant to yellowing or fading over time, high gloss, highly chemical resistant, impact resistant, 0 VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) for low odor and safety in application in odor and VOC sensitive environments. Most floor coating epoxies are not Cycloaliphatic 100% solids. They are the most expensive to manufacture. They can cost up to 4x the amount of other epoxies to manufacture. Epoxy-Coat is the same quality of epoxy as is used in the most demanding industrial / commercial floors. In fact approx. 60% of industrial / commercial floors use a less quality Aliphatic 100% solids epoxy in their applications.

Epoxy garage floor paint is an excellent project to undertake because it will help protect your floor from stains and deteriorating. It will also give your garage a fresh new look like that of a showroom. Another benefit is that it could save you money over the long term because it could reduce the need for major floor repairs later. You may notice that auto shops paint their floors for this very reason.

Epoxy garage floor paint is a tough protective coating that you paint onto concrete. It is meant to resist grease, oil and chemicals that would damage or ruin regular paint. It is quite easy to clean and is available in several different colors. People are very happy with the look of the floor once it has dried after application. It will keep the floor looking good for years to come.

Not all concrete floors will keep a coating of epoxy garage floor paint. A concrete floor must be prepared properly and it is not an easy job. One way to test whether your floor is suitable for this job is to tape a plastic bag to the floor for approximately twenty-four hours. If moisture appears under the plastic then you cannot coat the floor with epoxy.

If there is no moisture then you can begin the prep work before applying epoxy garage floor paint. Remove all the oil spots and degrease the floor. You will have to etch it with a mild acid and scrub it thoroughly. It will require a lot of rinsing as well. This portion of the job will take you an entire day depending on how many spills are on the floor. The next day you are going to fill in the cracks and apply the first coat of epoxy. If all goes well then the second coat can be applied the next day.

Epoxy garage floor paint should be applied when the weather is good too. The temperature should be between sixty and ninety for peak epoxy drying and curing. Before heading out and purchasing the first epoxy you find, speak to a professional at the local home renovation center or hardware store. The more information you get on this project the better.

Industrial Flooring

Comments

Recent Post

Archives