Floor coating: Great way to make your floor colorful

 

In such a competitive scenario, Industries are more concerning about raising the quality production.  Industry pundits are committed to deliver best quality product to their customers because they don’t want to lose the customer to divert attention towards similar product offer by other manufacturers.  Henceforth, they always keen to improve the quality of production to minimize defects and money loss occurred due to manufacturing flaws.

Industries have already given face lift to their manufacturing units and equipped them with advance machinery to improve quality of product. There are also various method can help to improve the quality of production besides atomization and robotic machinery. In this aspect, improvement of floor condition is essential part to provide ambient working environment and aesthetics of shop floor.

(Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Floor coating improves the visibility and gives ideal look to deadly looking concrete floor. It creates operation friendly environment, where operation people can carry out the job hassle-free.

Below few important points which give floor coating advantage over normal cement concrete floor.  

• Floor coating improves light level and brightness thus easy operation on complex job.
It gives uniform stability to floor and can withstand under heavy machinery and medium vehicular movement.


Floor coating is ideal choice for those industries, which adhere to keep the floor hygienic and dust free. It is easy to upkeep the housekeeping as dust; small particle can be wiped away easily.


No need to stick to the single colour offered by concrete floor, select among several available colour and pattern. It is therefore, useful designating the places for machinery and gangways.


Floor coating itself is long lasting product and can sustain up to 10 to 12 years in ideal condition.


Floor coatings are water, skid, abrasion, chemical and thermal shock resistance.

 

Epoxy Coating

Epoxy coating is rigid, tough and can sustain under heavy load, therefore preferred for commercial and industrial sector. You can choose epoxy coating for wall, floors and other surfaces such as tanks, slabs and material stock floors. It is mix of epoxy resin and application does take less than 72 hours coating 3 different layers including final coat of epoxy.

Epoxy coating is widely adopted product, which can sustain under heavy load and better quality can be achieved by maximize the thickness of layer. However thickness depends on the use of flooring area as oil spillage, chemical contamination and abrasions may ruin the coating if thickness of flooring will not maintain as per requirements.

Polyurethane Coating

PU based is another type of coating application, which is cheaper than epoxy coating. It is suitable for non-commercial flooring such as office floor, flats and home. Same as epoxy coating it is apply in three different layers but you cannot achieve greater thickness using polyurethane flooring. It is not as effective as abrasive and chemical resistance coating than epoxy based coating.

It definitely perk up your home flooring experience as it is available in many colours and provide great sustainability to wall and flooring. PU coating not only offer glossy look and smooth finish, but help you to maintain floor cleanliness as sticky stains can be cleaned easily.

Floor coating is advantageous as it requiring simple efforts to maintain and upkeep, even normal sweeping activity and cleaning with water will keep the coating look great for many years.   

Tremix Flooring

Tremix flooring is a special type of flooring mostly being done in the industrial sector. It provides better wearing and tearing properties. It is generally used for industrial purpose, where rigid surface necessary for machine foundation, light load carrier vehicle and light weight cranes. Generally the mix of concrete used for Tremix is 1:1:5:3 (1 cement: 1.5 sand and: 3 stone aggregates), mostly rich mix of 1:1:2 preferred for better wear and tear. In this flooring necessary reinforcement provides depending upon the thickness of the flooring, whereas the thickness of concrete is decided from 100 to 200 mm over PCC (1:4:8) and well prepared  stone soling base ranging from 230 to 300 mm. In industrial flooring PCC base should be kept up to 100 mm and same as floor concrete 150 mm, may be satisfactory for heavy duty areas such as warehouses, garage and machine shops.

Tools and materials required

All Mason tools and tackles required to available at site. However some special tools required as follows;

1. Vacuum de-watering Pump
2. Floater machine
3. Tremix skin4. Double beam screed vibrator  

Material shall be as per specification such as Mix 1:1:2 and floor hardener. 

Flooring Procedures 

• Prepare the sub-base by watering and ramming, properly ensure no loose material are left. Level the surface and lay 230 mm to 300 mm stone soling/boulder soling layer of 150 mm shall be provided and compacted properly.

• Floor slope should be maintained in PCC work, which shall be laid above the stone soling. Thickness of PCC shall be kept 100 mm.

• Tremix has to be done in panel and each panel shall be of 3.5 meter and appropriate reinforcement bar shall be laid in layer of two or one keeping the concrete cover of 50 (it may differ as per standard). 

• Vacuum de-watering machines are useful, which removes excess water from the top layer of wet concrete without removing the cement of sand particles. This is done soon after concerting, ramming or vibrating with screed vibrator, and levelling first round troweling, when the concrete is fresh.  It will not only increase the strength of the concrete but also increase abrasion resistance of the floor, also it is always good if hardener to be used to increase abrasion resistance of floor while using floater machine at the time of finishing the floor surface. Shrinkage cracks are also minimized by using this system.

• Further to avoid shrinkage cracks and increase the abrasion floor hardener and polyurethane fiberes are to be added to concrete in small amount. The quantity of the fibers and hardener shall be prescribed by the manufacturers.

• Casting of concrete flooring in panels to avoid shrinkage cracks and work as expansion joints, it is slow and time consuming process, specially when large area are to be floored.  The concrete lay in panels without construction joint, then after panel joints shall be cut with help of cutting saw after 7 to 10 when concrete is not fully hardened. The gap so created is filled with poly sulfide or sealants.