Floor Paints & Sealers

Speed up coating times with good preparation.

Often businesses including busy garages need the floor available “straight away”. You might be setting up a brand new facility or refurbishing an existing building, downtime costs you money, so getting the floor down quickly is essential.

New builds often have bare concrete floors that typically takes up to a year to cure properly depending on how thick it is. Concrete cures from the top down so it’s possible to start using the floor before then but it is a good idea to cover it with a protection, especially if there will be heavy traffic, you need to move heavy duty machines in or will have high levels of forklift traffic.

When refurbishing an existing building floor, preparing the surface to make it ready for an epoxy floor paint can be time-consuming and expensive. Oils, dampness and chemicals all need to be dealt with to prevent floor paint and epoxy delaminating which may need mechanical preparation.

These processes generate a lot of dust and can take weeks to complete, however, the use of a fast drying oil-tolerant epoxy primer, specially manufactured for contaminated concrete will speed up the process.

There are many types of floor paint that can be used in a commercial and industrial environment, but do you know the difference between PU and epoxy flooring?

At first glance, polyurethane flooring (PU) and epoxy floor paint can seem very similar. Both are types of resin floor paints after all. But when you’re selecting a flooring solution for your business, whether its a factory floor or you are painting warehouses with bare concrete it’s important that you choose the right one.

Before you start worrying about the aesthetics of your floors, you need to ensure you choose one that can handle the demands that will be placed on it.

As far as possible, try not to make your decision on what industrial floor paint to buy based on cost alone. We recently pointed out that choosing the wrong heavy duty floor paint or coating for your needs because you’re trying to save a bit of money will often end up costing more in the long run when you factor in repairs, and potential replacement flooring further down the line.

Read our full blog ‘Do you know the difference between PU and Epoxy flooring?’ to find out more.

Polycote offers a free site visit service to determine what heavy-duty coatings are needed. This can be in person, virtually or via a call, whichever suits you and your business.

Our first task is the thorough examination of the condition of the concrete. Regardless of whether the concrete being old or recently poured. Both types of concrete need the correct and proper preparation before durable floor paint can be installed.

In order to make sure of a successful application of industrial floor paint, the wood or concrete substrate must be in good condition. This means free of unevenness, contamination and cracks as these flaws will prevent the epoxy floor paint from adhering to the surface/forming a good bond.

If the concrete shows evidence of one or more of these conditions, the installation team will include the correction of the defects in the preparation process. Depending upon site conditions, as well as the type of flooring to be installed, the team of specialists will use mechanical means, such as shot-blasting and/or diamond grinding, this will open the pores of the concrete surface in preparation for the primer and floor paint.

Polycote has a team of approved installers, all with years of experience installing the high-quality range of Polycote floor paints.

When choosing an industrial floor paint solution, your available budget will play a part in your decision-making process. It’s important to note that the price of any industrial floor paint includes more than just the cost of materials and installation.

Some environments demand regular cleaning, either for aesthetics or to meet hygiene standards. It is important to check the heavy duty floor paints of choice has the ability to withstand regular contact with cleaning chemicals.

An epoxy resin flooring system can also give concrete surfaces an easy to clean, seamless surface that won’t harbour germs, unlike rubber floor coatings that will not tolerate regular contact with cleaning products.

With countless long lasting interior and exterior concrete floor paint systems available to give the best solution suitable for your facility floor, success of the epoxy floor paint relies heavily on the information that the facility manager provides to the flooring specialist.

The more information provided about the floor, the better understanding the specialist will have, the more accurate the solution. Parameters of the budget, facility access and turnaround time are also important to the discussion, as are facility maintenance practices and life expectancy of the flooring.

We can then decide if a floor primer is required, if it needs to be water based, solvent free or a single pack epoxy resin. We have a huge range of floor products from high performance high gloss finish coatings to durable anti slip floor paints. We are confident that once painted your floor will perform to the standards required.