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[E282]Epoxy Concrete Floor Coatings

by Harvey Chichester, Har

Lifting and peeling paint from epoxy coverings, coatings and seals are too often the end product of efforts to dress up a garage, shop or basement. A lifting and peeling problem is worse than having no finish at all. The eyesore of blisters, peeling, and chipping of a floor gone wrong is testimonial to a failure in preparation. Fortunately, after 40 years of development technology in flooring, one should no longer rely on raw materials like muriatic acid (Hydrochloric) to clean and prep your floor. Applicators now realize that an ?acid etch? using a simple raw muriatic acid is no cure all. Integrated systems for preparing concrete properly can now avoid disasters that leave garages looking worse than before they were coated.

Preparation is everything when applying finishes. You can only expect a surface to stay in place if its substrate is permanent. Obviously, if the substrate crumbles or moves, your surface will move with it. Today, after 40 years of application experience, flooring experts have developed application preparation procedures that help minimize the risk of substrates moving. New floors are especially vulnerable and require extensive preparation. New concrete is dusty for the first few years while the latents of concrete on the surface are kicked, walked, or driven off. Those latents must be removed before quality epoxy topcoats are applied or the topcoats will move with the latents as they break free from the substrate.

Blasting away part of your floor often leaves corn rows cut into the floor due to over lap, and will need to be filed. Blasting often just brings you down to a new level of contamination. It is often better to clean 100% of the surface using chemicals that are designed to work together in an integrated system to assure a clean, solid surface. When you wash your clothing your detergent uses a change in pH to help release soils. Water softeners and rinse agents are blended into laundry detergents, dish shops and even shampoos to assist the pH change in releasing soils and contaminants.

Cleaning first with a high pH or alkaline degreaser attacks oil and grease contaminants while moving the floor pH higher. Next slamming your dirty surface with a low pH acidic cleaner attacks minerals, rust and other particles, makes your pH jump 10 points or better to shock contaminants loose from substrates. The acidic cleaner should have detergents, rinse agents and water softeners blended into it so you know that it is formulated to do the best job possible. It is vitally important to bring your pH back to normal 6.5 or 7 pH after cleaning, with a scrub rinse. Have you ever run your finger across your car after pressure washing only to find it still has a thin layer of road film on it? Surface tension holds even high pressure from penetrating many films. You need to break the surface tension with contact during all three steps of cleaning. The more aggressive the contact the better for removing concrete latents, small particles of concrete that are ready to break of to become that endless dust coming off unquoted concrete floors.

Rotary scrubbers, similar to what a school custodian utilizes, can be fitted with stiff bristle brushes using carbide chips imbedded in flexible nylon bristles to scrub your floor. The bristles dive into mall pours, cracks, and holes to help strip away fragile cement particles that are softer than the exposed carbide chips. These scrubbers should be used for your alkaline cleaning, your acidic cleaning, and for your final rinse cleaning. Scrub rinsing stops the chemical action of your cleaners and provides a liquid medium to bring your floor pH back to neutral and flush contaminants and residual detergents away. Once dry (1 to 4 hours) you are ready for your coating, paint, epoxy or seal.

Epoxy flooring is weather-resistant, and unharmed by rain, snow, oil, and flooding. This resistance is due to the fact that epoxy coatings, unlike paints, come in two parts. When mixed, a catalyzing process changes these two parts from a liquid to a permanent solid. In contrast, paints are carried in water or solvent bases that evaporate to leave the finish. If you reintroduce one of those carriers to the surface, the paint often is able to re-dissolve back into a liquid state.

Even though painted garage finishes are formulated to resist dissolving into their carriers, under stress they can be susceptible to blistering, peeling, and chipping. But water and most solvents have no effect on sealed epoxy surfaces. Epoxy flooring goes on at the job site and requires no seams, creating a continuous membrane that seals what is above from what is below. These epoxy surfaces have been used in food processing plants for over 50 years now. Mold, mildew and other contaminants cannot penetrate the epoxy membrane, and wash off easily.

One should not rely on retail store clerks to help with a floor that will be used for 10 to 20 years. Factory-direct kits of materials including step-by-step instructions and a 24/7 help line are now available online. With these resources, anyone can put a quality floor down in their garage that will last for decades. Like a car finish, you may get some scratches and marks, but also like a car finish, a little touching up can keep those finishes looking great for decades.

Durall Industrial Flooring offers no-cost, no-obligation quotes for its fully customized kits of materials, including all preparation materials and procedures, for installing industrial quality epoxy or urethane coatings at www.concrete-floor-coatings.com. These beautifully sealed and easy-to-maintain floors come in over 20 colors. The floor finish can be gloss, flat, or satin and may be easily accented with decorative chips. Additionally, the floors may be skid-resistant like emery paper, yet still be easy to sweep or squeegee.

For photo examples and more detail, visit www.concrete-floor-coatings.com
For more information, contact Harvey Chichester at harvey@durallfmg.com
Phone: 800-466-8910 or 952-888-1488 (24/7)

Many heavy industrial settings, including paper warehouses, steel and other heavy-weight or high-traffic applications suffer from shaking concrete floors. The source of the vibration is most often caused by rolling equipment crossing expansion joints cut in the concrete when poured. Cement contractors place these expansion joints in the floor in order to allow for the shrinkage that occurs in the concrete slabs as they cure. The joints are also helpful if the slab experiences major temperature changes.

Bridges, highways, and sidewalks may expand and contract considerably. Most modern buildings, however, are climate controlled with temperature variations within a 10-15 degree range. As a result, these expansion joints are more of a problem than a solution.

Flexible caulks have been used in expansion joints to help transition between the slabs yet allow for some movement. Unfortunately, that movement can become a problem and cost if frequent or extensive.

A better solution is to epoxy the slabs together with 100% solid epoxy and color quartz. The epoxy-quartz filler levels the rut between slabs, thus eliminating the vibration, wear, and structural damage that would otherwise be caused by moving equipment. The quartz-epoxy mix withstands test strengths of 22,000 psi.

A recommended first step in the application process is to set a masonry blade on a skilsaw at 1/4 to 1/2 inch and run it down the expansion joints, cleaning both sides. Flexible chalk will melt out of the joints during this operation. Once the joints are cleaned, color quartz is swept into the joints until slightly lower than flush with the floor surface. Clear or colored 100% epoxy is then poured over these joints until saturating the quartz and rising level with the floor. 12 hours later the joint will need to be re-inspected and topped off.

Often these joints have openings at the bottom and some epoxy may leak through. The wetted color quartz will remain and block leak-through on the second application. It is important to come back to the floor between 10 and 12 hours later to scrape off excess epoxy. Too long a wait and the epoxy becomes hard to shave; too little setup time and the epoxy may be tacky or sticky. Using a 4-inch razor scraper with a long handle allows each side of the joint to help guide the scraper and provide a smooth, even filling over the joint between the slabs. If done well, the rolling equipment may never notice joints again and the floor life will be extended with reduced need for maintenance and repair.

The cost of filling deep holes and badly eroded floors can be reduced by using color quartz and a filler and wear inhibitor. Mixing 100% epoxy with color quartz to 28 lb. per gallon gives a trowel mix with a peanut butter consistency. This mix can be placed in holes using a trowel or putty knife. Small vertical surfaces are best filled by using a heavy rubber glove and applying the mixture by hand with a rubbing motion.

One floor coating manufacturer that has taken the lead in joint repair is Durall Industrial Flooring of Minneapolis, MN. Durall is the only industrial flooring manufacturer that also makes over 500 specialty cleaners, allowing them to produce special preparations of cleaners and application systems designed to assure optimum flooring adhesion and wear results.

Photo examples of the joint sealing process are available at www.concrete-floor-coatings.com/photos/jointsealer

For more information, contact Harvey Chichester at harvey@concrete-floor-coatings.com

Phone: 1-800-466-8910 or 952-888-1488 (24/7)

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Article Source : Pg. 10

Harvey Chichester has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home Improvement, Management and Install Flooring. Durall Manufacturing, Bloomington, MN, is the only industrial flooring manufacturer that also makes over 500 specialty cleaners. Durall's 40 years of flooring chemical manufacturing experience has produced a special preparation of cleaners and an applicat. Harvey Chichester's top article generates over 9900 views. to your Favourites.