Industrial Flooring Preparation Methods
Resin flooring is one of the best and most versatile industrial flooring solutions available. It has many properties which makes it attractive to a wide range of industries.
Professional resin flooring installers will agree that the first stage of installation, the floor preparation stage, is one of the most important if you want the job done correctly. This is key to having a floor which is long-lasting and successful. It wouldn’t be great if the floor began to come away after only a couple of weeks – and inadequate floor prep can be the cause of this. Industrial flooring needs to be able to withstand intense conditions for a good while.
Which method of preparation is best to use for my floor?
You shouldn’t need to worry about this too much yourself, but educating yourself to check the job is being done correctly is never a bad idea. Different problems with the concrete substrate will require a different method – some only slightly scratching the surface, whilst others are more intense methods.
Hot compressed air must be used when the concrete substrate has been subject to a large oil spill or contaminated with oil in some way. The hot compressed air will burn away any oil remaining on the surface, and will also draw out any oil which has sunk in. Just after, a solvent-free and low viscosity epoxy resin primer that is formulated to be oil tolerant would need to be applied.
Sanding is a very light method of floor prep which would be performed with an angle grinder or floor sander. This would be used where the floor is just having a re-coat or only requires a very light resin coating.
Diamond grinding is a machine which can suit a wide variety of substrates – ranging from very soft cement to hard concrete, so they super versatile. They are used to strip away old layers of flooring and clean up any sections which have been contaminated by oil.
Shot blasting is more aggressive than the other options stated previously. The scratch profile it leaves is quite deep and is perfect for a high-build resin flooring system, like one you would find in an industrial unit. Shot blasting can only be performed on a very high-quality concrete, as a floor which is not up-to-scratch can risk becoming damaged.
Shot blasting is considered the industry-standard level of floor prep and is the most widely used. This is because it results in the most long-lasting floor.
Scabbling or planing is a method which uses a collection of steel tips that peck away at the concrete substrate. This creates a very course scratch profile, best for resin screeds.
