Beautiful FloroBuild Flooring Installation by Hubbard & Associates, Inc. of NC.

Every manufacturing operation presents unique challenges that call for precise flooring solutions. In addition to adding visual interest to industrial facilities, warehouses, or factories, industrial epoxy and other high performance resinous floor coatings can help improve workers’ productivity, as well as support their health and safety.

Like many design and engineering decisions, site conditions play a key role in the type of floor coating that should be applied. For instance, food and beverage production plants, storage facilities, laboratories, and pharmaceutical plants require high performance and sanitary floor surfaces that are easy to clean and resist abrasion, staining and deterioration from chemicals.

Why Choose Epoxy Floors?

Benefits of applying epoxy coatings and other high performance flooring in industrial manufacturing facilities include:

Chemically Resilient: Well-designed epoxy floor coatings and other resinous finishes can survive exposure to strong chemicals, solvents and exposure to extreme pH. This is ideal for manufacturing facilities that may use such substances on a regular basis. Depending upon formulation, once the high performance coating components cure, the resulting solid polymer surface can be incredibly strong and prevent chemical and physical breakdown. Safety: Epoxy and other resin-based finishes have customizable skid-resistance to help prevent slips and falls. Some offer static control properties and most have a “self-extinguishing” fire rating. By nature, resinous flooring does not promote the growth of harmful mold, however additional antimicrobial additives, such as FloroSeptic can help further inhibit the spread of pathogens. These and other factors will help uphold both the safety of your employees and your structure. Cost-Effectiveness: Concrete floors coated with resinous finishes, such as epoxy, last longer and resist substantial wear, thus saving facilities money and allowing managers to devote resources to other aspects of the business. Time-Saving: In most cases, epoxy flooring and other resinous systems can be installed relatively quickly, reducing or, depending upon scheduling, even eliminating lost production time. Inexpensive and Easy Cleaning: Once concrete has been properly prepared and coated in a high quality resin or epoxy floor covering, it is no longer porous. That means dirt, chemicals and other substances remain on the surface and the floor is easier to clean. Lack of grout lines means quicker sanitation and fewer man hours scrubbing. Plus, many resinous finishes, such as Florock Floors, never need waxing. Visual Appeal: Florock offers a wide variety of floor coatings in an array of colors, patterns, and even customized logos to fit each facility’s specific style. Brightness: Many of our customers prefer a high-gloss option for coatings, which can enhance lighting due to reflection. Light-colored floors can also help brighten the space and occupants’ mood. Easy on Forklifts and Vehicles: A properly coated concrete floor has a safe, monolithic surface, free of unevenness, cracks and potholes. This helps keep forklift loads level, vehicle suspension systems and tires intact. As the result of well-selected epoxy or resinous floor, the money and time spent maintaining and repairing truck loading equipment can be greatly reduced. Eco-friendly: Epoxy and other resin-based flooring can be a green option for your business, eliminating the installation cut-off waste of tile and rolled goods. Facility managers like knowing that the majority of today’s liquid flooring components contain zero VOC, and that products from leading manufacturers contain no heavy metals. In addition, Florock is formaldehyde and phthalate-free, offers recycled glass aggregate blend options and furnishes recyclable packaging for many products. The infrequent replacement and sheer long-term durability of epoxy flooring and other fluid-applied alternatives add to their environmentally-friendly benefits.

FloroCrete RT with FloroSpartic 5 topcoat, expertly installed by Floorcare USA of WI, cleans up quickly and easily, even in extreme environments.

Epoxy flooring and other seamless commercial, industrial and institutional systems provide durable surfaces that are not only attractive, but also very simple to maintain. With just a few steps, keeping a facility’s resinous or epoxy flooring investment in top condition is easy and inexpensive. A regular schedule of routine sweeping and occasional light scrubbing will help preserve the floor’s striking appearance and excellent performance for many years.

These include everything from smooth high gloss surfaces, monolithic satin finishes, stippled “orange peel” effects, and slip-resistance ranging from extremely mild to more aggressive profiles for areas with excessive grease or oil.

Depending upon the formulation of the protective resinous or epoxy flooring topcoat, as well as the level of skid-inhibiting aggregate, cleaning and maintenance procedures may vary. However, the basics apply to all.

Sweep Daily

As with any surface in an public setting, coated concrete floors will gather loose debris and dust. Make sure to sweep resinous flooring well at the end of each workday.

Wash Weekly

When washing resin-coated concrete floors, whether using a mop-and-bucket or soft bristle mechanical scrubber, employ a dilute solution of warm water and mild detergent cleaner. Note that strong acidic substances, such as vinegar, or highly alkaline cleaners, such as ammonia, are neither recommended nor needed. And depending upon the floor type and composition, these extreme pH liquids may actually damage the topcoat.

If required, give extra care to areas subject to heavy traffic, hard rubber wheels or any type of machinery that leaves marks.

Remove Abrasives & Contaminants Promptly

Any abrasive particles should be swept or vacuumed up as soon as possible. Liquid contaminants should be removed by mopping or light scrubbing using the solution described above. Make sure to rinse thoroughly with clean water, multiple times if needed.

Guard Against Staining

Epoxy and resinous flooring is available in a broad spectrum of high performance protective finishes. Proper selection for a specific facility takes the operation’s daily activities and chemical use into account. It is therefore unlikely that a carefully chosen and properly installed resin-based floor system will get damaged by everyday spills. However, prompt cleanup of liquids is a good practice for both the sake of the floor, as well as occupants’ safety. In the event that a substance does leave a shadow or stain after cleaning, it’s best to consult your flooring representative rather than immediately proceeding with untried cleaners.

Optional Occasional Buffing Refinish if Necessary

When a resinous or epoxy floor nears the end of its useful life, it can be professionally refinished with the same look relatively quickly. Alternatively, an entirely different type of fluid-applied flooring system may be installed over the existing material. The selection is unlimited!

Floropoxy ESD, correctly installed and grounded by National Engineering of FL

As electronic devices become more powerful, facilities have experienced a greater need for static control flooring. Consider this excerpt from an article published in the July/August 2014 edition of Facilities Engineering Journal:

“A person walking across an insulative tile floor can build-up static electricity resulting in electrostatic discharges (ESD). When a hand touches a doorknob, it can take 3000 to 3500 volts to feel a sudden shock. In 1971, Intel’s 4004 microprocessor equaled about 2300 transistors. At the end of 2008, Intel’s Dual Core Itanium 2 smashed the 2 billion transistor equivalency barrier.

In 2011, Astronaut Buzz Aldrin commented that today’s hand held smartphone has more processing speed than NASA’s Apollo 11 guidance system computer. Hand held touch screen phones are much faster, with colossal memory in comparison to the lunar bound Apollo 11 computer.”

Without the proper static control flooring and epoxy coatings, any facility that deals with active electronic equipment and components, volatile gases, powders, liquids, or other substances may be exposing themselves to adverse ESD-related events.

Minimize the Risks of ESD

Our proven static control flooring and coatings provide the additional safeguards you need to help protect your employees and your facility. They’re frequently chosen by industries such as:

Semi-conductor and electronics Aerospace and avionics Data centers and mission critical operations Pharmaceutical plants and biotechnology labs Healthcare, hospitals and medical research Automotive and other high-tech manufacturing

We occasionally receive inquiries from customers regarding the static control capabilities of unsealed concrete. There are several potential problems with the presence of an untreated concrete floor in static risk environment. Most of these issues lie in lack of control over the floor’s properties, for example:

A facility’s Safety Manager may test the concrete and get a result deemed acceptable (resistance in the range of 1.0 x 106) However, this result can be greatly altered as people move across the floor. In many instances, the body voltage generation test over bare concrete flooring will fall outside the allowable range. In general, tests for body voltage generation are better indicators of floor performance in a critical space. The moisture content of concrete can vary greatly over time. Since the electrostatic resistance of concrete strongly depends upon its moisture content, ESD tests of concrete slabs can vary from day to day, from rainy season to rainy season. And more recently poured slabs will generally have lower resistance than decades old concrete. Uncoated concrete flooring, due to sheer size, layout and internal metal reinforcement is difficult to ground properly, even if moisture could be completely controlled.

The bottom line? A properly installed and grounded static control epoxy floor coating (as part of a facility-wide safety program) can help alleviate these issues.