Warehouse Floor Painting - 01785 819800
Warehouse Floor Painting
Why paint your warehouse floor?
Safety. Ensuring that pedestrian walkways, forklift trucking aisles, crossover points and work stations are all clearly delineated aids the safety of personnel and visitors.
Box outlines with single directional hatching should be painted at fire exit doors to ensure that they are not blocked with plant, materials or equipment.
Where safety underfoot is compromised because of liquid or powder 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 machine leak an anti-slip finish is generally not required subject to prompt cleaning up.
Warehouse Floor Painting
Clearly Defined Pedestrian Walkways
Operational Benefits – colour coded floors help to co-ordinate all activities from Goods In to Despatch. An organised workflow where pallets, raw materials and finished goods can be placed and stored correctly is essential. Quarantine areas can be clearly marked out and marshaling lanes or storage bays clearly defined.
Light reflection – a painted warehouse floor with a gloss finish will reflect more light than bare concrete. This provides greater visibility in your warehouse promoting safety and reducing the need for auxiliary lighting.
We can restore the most eroded of floors, repair cracks and spalled joints as well as damage from years mechanical or chemical abuse.
Aesthetics – one of the primary reasons to paint your warehouse floor is the vibrancy and colour that it produces.
Dust– one of the primary reasons to invest in warehouse floor painting is to reduce dust. Sources of dust include not only the floor but also packaging and pallets as well as any airborne dust coming in via open roller shutter doors and loading bays. Dust is not only an inconvenience but can contaminate packaging and is potentially a health hazard, an issue that can be ‘googled’ for further information. Painting your warehouse concrete floor will eliminate the floor as a source of dust.
Employee morale – clean, glossy epoxy resin flooring impact on employee morale and customer confidence. It creates a more enjoyable workplace environment than one that has dull, dirty or bare concrete floors.
Ease of cleaning – polyurethane & epoxy resin floors tend to be easier to clean. Bare concrete floors attract and hold dirt whereas a resin floor paint will provide a barrier that makes clean-up faster and easier. Painting your floor also help keep them dry and safe and reduces the cost of sweeping and scrubbing.
Protection from wear – concrete floors coated with polyurethane or epoxy resin floor paints will last longer than uncoated concrete. Vehicle traffic, particularly when combined with other factors, can wear away the cement matrix of concrete slabs and expose the aggregate. An epoxy resin floor paint will protect the concrete.
Warehouse Floor Painting
Clean, Bright Working Environnment
Warehouse Floor Painting
Clean, Bright Working Environnment
Successful Warehouse Floor Painting
Inadequate preparation, poor mixing and poor application by inexperienced operatives are the main reasons that epoxy resin floor paints can fail.
In many instances it transpires that a combination of two or more of these factors are in play.
Epoxy resin flooring has its own British Standard (BS8204-6) and the industry has a range of NVQ’s covering all stages of laying synthetic resin floor finishes.
Employing a professional warehouse floor painting contractor, preferably a member of the Resin Flooring Association, will ensure that your project is surveyed and undertaken by an experienced industrial warehouse flooring contractor.
At Industrial Floor Treatments (Stone) Ltd our operatives have extensive experience and all works are undertaken in full compliance with the relevant regulations and manufacturers instructions.
We are members of the Resin Flooring Association and subscribe to their Codes of Practice that require high standards of operation, management, technical service, training, health & safety and business integrity.
The Resin Flooring Association were instrumental in the creation and development of BS 8204-6 that governs the resin flooring industry and we adhere strictly to this standard.
The principal elements of a successful application of epoxy resin floor paint or screeds are:
Preparation
Product selection
Product mixing
Product application
Preparation Works
for Warehouse Floor Painting
The correct method of floor preparation is critical to the success and durability of warehouse floor paints.
Floor paints must have a good surface to ‘stick’ onto – this is a combination of being able to penetrate and ‘wet-out’ the pores of the concrete and also having a profile that the paint can grab onto.
Most new concrete floor slabs are finished off by power floating or power trowelling to create a smooth dense surface.
Painting straight onto this type of surface will inevitably lead to poor adhesion with the coating flaking and peeling off because there is neither penetration into the pores nor an adequate profile for the paint to grab onto.
Our principal method of preparing new concrete floor slabs is captive grit blasting, often referred to as shotblasting or vacublasting.
Captive grit blasting is virtually dust free and works by firing fine metal shot at high velocity onto the floor. This removes the glaze from the surface, creates a fine texture and opens up the pores in the concrete. Up to 1,500m2 of floor can be prepared in one working day.
The captive grit blasting system comprises of three components, these being a 3 phase 63a lorry mounted generator, a blast unit and a heavy duty vacuum or dust collector – the dust collector alone weighs almost half a tonne!
The whole system is enclosed and being a dry process produces a warehouse floor that is ready for immediate painting.
On occasion we prepare a floor by diamond grinding, particularly when it has thick layers of previously applied paint that will not be removed by captive grit blasting – the thick paint simply acts as a sponge and absorbs the impact of the matal shot.
Again we utilise a similar set-up but substituting the blast unit with a diamond grinding unit. This is a slower sytem than captive grit blasting, up to 500m2 per day, but produces the best result when faced with multiple layers of paint that has been applied over many years.
Shotblasting Concrete Floor
98% Dust Free
No Preparation – Poor Adhesion – Failed Coating
Smooth dense power floated concrete – no preparation
Pumatect Epoxy Resin Floor Paint
Heavy Vehicle Workshop Environment
Epoxy Resin Floor Painting
Classic Car Workshop
Warehouse Floor Painting
Product Selection
BS8204-6 categorises floor paints into Type 1 (Floor Seal) Type 2 (Floor Coating) and Type 3 (High Build Floor Coating).
Floor seals (Type 1) are up to 150 microns (0.15mm) in thickness.
Floor coatings (Type 2) are up to 300 microns (0.3mm) in thickness.
High build floor coatings (Type 3) are up to 1,000 microns (1.0mm) in thickness
Our warehouse floor paint of choice is Pumatect high build epoxy resin floor coating, a Type 3 product.
Pumatect was developed by Yorkshire based Resdev Ltd in the 1980’s and has a proven track record throughout the UK and overseas.
It is manufactured to order and in accordance with ISO 9001. Every batch is tested before release and control samples retained for 12 months.
Pumatect is an industrial grade heavy duty epoxy resin floor paint designed for application in areas that are heavily trafficked.
A two pack system combining a liquid epoxy resin base and hardener, Pumatect has excellent chemical and abrasion resistance and is ideal for areas of heavy footfall, regular pallet/pump trucks and frequent forklift traffic.
It is available in a wide range of colours and has a thickness equivalent to 12-14 coats of leading single pack floor paints.
Pumatect has a smooth gloss finish and is applied in two coats, usually on consecutive days.
Areas of up to 1,000m2 can be prepared and applied over two working days with a third day for curing which means that the floor is ready for light traffic on day four and heavier traffic on day five.
Application and curing temperatures are important because the curing of epoxy resins is retarded at low temperatures.
The ideal slab temperature for application is between 10-20oC although it can be applied down to 5oC.
Warehouse Floor Painting
Mixing Epoxy Resin Floor Paint
Correct mixing of the epoxy resin warehouse floor paint is the single most important task when applying any floor coating. Incorrect or inadequate mixing will cause the floor painting project to fail.
Work Station
The work station should be located close to the point of exit, clearly defined and taped off from other trades. Plastic sheeting should be laid onto the floor over an area sufficiently large enough to provide three separate and distinct sections.
Section 1 is storage of the unmixed materials where the lids are removed and the epoxy resin base and epoxy resin hardener containers laid out ready for mixing.
Section 2 is the physical mixing station where power drills (mains and/or battery) will be used to mix the epoxy resin floor paint. This will have cardboard on top of the plastic sheeting to absorb drips and spillages and replaced as necessary.
Section 3 is a storage area for empty epoxy resin floor paint containers.
Packaging
In most cases epoxy resin floor paints consist of two elements, a base resin (often pigmented) and a liquid hardener. The ratio between the two components is critical and the packs should never be split.
Other thicker epoxy resin systems (screeds) will also have a third component with a blended powder filler that may or may not be inert.
Read the Instructions
No matter how often we have applied any particular epoxy resin floor paint or screed it should be standard practice to re-read the instructions to ensure that any changes in packaging or mixing are taken into account.
Mixing the epoxy
We use an electric or battery operated slow speed drill and paddle mixer to thoroughly mix the epoxy resin base and epoxy resin hardener components. This ensures that the chemical reaction occurs fully and uniformly. Unmixed epoxy resin paint will not cure properly when applied and is likely to create no more than a sticky mess on the floor.
Mixing Epoxy Resin Factory Floor Paint
mixing with electric paddle mixer
Pumatect Epoxy Resin Factory Floor Paint
Squeegee Application of First Coat
Pumatect Epoxy Resin Factory Floor Paint
Backrolling after Squeegee Application
Factory Floor Painting – Application
BS8204-6 categorises floor paints into Type 1 (Floor Seal) Type 2 (Floor Coating) and Type 3 (High Build Floor Coating).
Floor seals (Type 1) are up to 150 microns (0.15mm) in thickness.
Floor coatings (Type 2) are up to 300 microns (0.3mm) in thickness.
High build floor coatings (Type 3) are up to 1,000 microns (1.0mm) in thickness
Our factory floor paint of choice is Pumatect high build epoxy resin floor coating, a Type 3 product.
Pumatect was developed by Yorkshire based Resdev Ltd in the 1980’s and has a proven track record throughout the UK and overseas.
It is manufactured to order and in accordance with ISO 9001. Every batch is tested before release and control samples retained for 12 months.
Pumatect is an industrial grade heavy duty epoxy resin floor paint designed for application in areas that are heavily trafficked.
A two pack system combining a liquid epoxy resin base and hardener, Pumatect has excellent chemical and abrasion resistance and is ideal for areas of heavy footfall, regular pallet/pump trucks and frequent forklift traffic.
It is available in a wide range of colours and has a thickness equivalent to 12-14 coats of leading single pack floor paints.
Pumatect has a smooth gloss finish and is applied in two coats, usually on consecutive days.
Areas of up to 1,000m2 can be prepared and applied over two working days with a third day for curing which means that the floor is ready for light traffic on day four and heavier traffic on day five.
Application and curing temperatures are important because the curing of epoxy resins is retarded at low temperatures.
The ideal slab temperature for application is between 10-20oC although it can be applied down to 5oC.