Fast Drying Factory Floor Painting - 01785 819800

Sunday 4pm
 Second coat & line marking complete
Floor back in service by customer at 10pm

Fast Drying Factory Floor Painting

Many manufacturing plants operate seven days a week and some twenty-four hours per day which means that the opportunities to maintain and upgrade the floor finishes are limited by time constraints.

Traditional epoxy resin floor coatings work on a cycle of:

preparation – first coat – overnight curing – second coat – overnight curing – hatching & lines – curing for a further 1-3 days dependent upon temperature

This puts the floor area out of commission for a minimum of 3 days plus curing time of at least one full day in the summer and two to three days in the winter months.

We were recently asked if it was possible to undertake repairs, prepare and paint a section of a factory floor commencing at 8pm on a Friday evening and guaranteeing that the floor would be available for use at 10pm on the Sunday night.

The overall floor area was in excess of 500m2 with the scope of works consisting of the following:

• Remove existing floor paint by diamond grinding in all areas
  
• Diamond saw cut around edges of 9 local repairs, break out and reinstate with epoxy resin mortar
• Apply two coats of high build resin floor paint in forklift area – colour Red
• Paint walkway leading from office area to welfare facilities with two coats of high build resin floor paint – colour Green
• Apply two coats of high build resin floor paint in bonding machine area – colour Blue
• Apply two coats of high build resin floor paint in all other areas – colour Grey
  
• Paint edge lines to delineate edges of walkway and all colour coding changes – colour Safety yellow.

Using standard epoxy resin floor paints this would have required at four working days with a further two days for curing.

By using a rapid curing resin floor paint we commenced works on Friday at 8pm and completed at 4pm Sunday with the floor being available for use at 9pm Sunday.

The workforce and management were highly impressed by the speed of application, curing and quality of workmanship and anticipate phase 2 following on shortly.

So why paint your factory floor?

Safety. By ensuring that pedestrian routes, forklift trucking aisles and machine surrounds are all clearly delineated to ensure the safety of personnel and visitors.

Box outlines with single directional hatching should be marked out at all fire exit doors to ensure that they are not blocked with plant, materials or equipment.

Where safety underfoot is compromised because of liquid spillages an anti-slip finish should be considered. This is generally deemed a requirement where a slip potential will arise on a regular basis and can be anticipated.

Where an unforeseen accidental spillage occurs such as a rare or occasional machine leak an anti-slip finish is generally not required subject to prompt cleaning up.

Operational Benefits – a colour coded floor helps to co-ordinate all activities. An organised workflow where plant and equipment can be placed and stored correctly is essential.