An old beat up industrial floor.
We were contacted by Cyalume of Bound Brook, NJ to basically rebuild an old industrial floor that had taken years of beating. Holes, soft concrete, spalling, old cement cracking off. Many years of getting drained with oil, chemicals and acetone had brought this floor to its knees. We had to come up with a solution that would stand the test of time with the amount of abuse this floor would take, as well as take into consideration the budget.
The industrial epoxy flooring solution we provided
Cyalume creates many different chemicals and raw materials for pharmaceutical and other markets. They would require industrial epoxy flooring solution that would stand up to daily caustic washes, acetone and alcohol spills and high heat steam cleaning procedures.
We were able to custom tailor a combination of two type of industrial epoxy flooring. The first was a high build top coated with a polyaspartic top coat for added chemical resistance.
The second application was for areas where lots of high heat steam washing as well as acetone and alcohol would be on the floor throughout the day. For this we decided to install a cement urethane system designed to withstand thermal shock from steam washing as well as high tolerance to chemical spills.
Preparation of concrete floor
Preparation for this nasty of a floor is tedious and time consuming. We hand ground under all of the tanks and production stations where our concrete grinder could not fit. All of the edges had to be pitched towards drains so we built new cement ramps in areas where concrete was failing and or non existent.
All holes, spalls and loose concrete had to be prepped and patched for a smoother surface. Cracks were chased and filled with epoxy crack filler. Ramps were grinded down to create less stress when forklifts would be traveling over and entire substrate ground down with our large concrete polisher.
Entire area was vacuumed twice for a clean installation of the industrial epoxy flooring soon to come.
Industrial Epoxy Goes Down
For this system we double primed the very porous industrial floor with wb epoxy so we would not have any bubbling (which proved very effective as we had none.)
The next day we arrived and installed a thick 25 mil coating of dark gray epoxy to the entire surface. the ramp recived a light broadcast of quartz for added slip resistance of fork lifts during wet conditions.
On the third day we installed a specified polyaspartic top coat with added slip resistance to provide a more chemical resitant flooring material to complete the installation.
Industrial Urethane Cement Installation
Under one of the station and in a separate room where heavy steam and chemicals are used daily, we installed our Industrial Urethane Cement flooring.
The existing concrete floor was much cleaner and easier to work with, allowing us to spend 2 hours grinding 1500 sq ft of flooring. After vacuum, we began installing the wb epoxy primer.
Immediately after turning tack free, we installed a cement urethane top coat with a broadcasted sand for added grip. Turn around on this type of flooring is 4-6 hours for light traffic.
