When working with Facilities Managers and industrial unit owners to develop a tailored package of resin flooring solutions for their heavy-duty spaces, there are – unsurprisingly – a number of questions that are typically asked.
Resin flooring can often seem daunting to those not dealing with the myriad technologies available day in day out, and ensuring their needs are met is of critical importance. When it comes to flooring, often of high priority in industrial spaces is the initial outlay, safety of colleagues and visitors and the maintenance requirements. In certain industries, topics such as SR1 flatness and ESD control are also often raised.
Can resin flooring achieve SR1 flatness?
An extremely flat finish can be critical in the finished goods or raw materials warehousing area of an industrial facility, where racking aisles may be narrow and stacked high. A slight deviation in the floor level could spell disaster for forklift truck operators attempted to retrieve goods.
Epoxy, polyurethane and MMA resin floor systems have a self-smoothing property and, provided their installed by an experienced applicator, are capable of achieving SR1 flatness, making them ideally suited to warehouse spaces.
Their seamless application also means that there are no grout lines or breaks in the floor surface in the driveways of warehouse aisles.
How can resin flooring help to protect against slips and trips?
Slips and trips are one of the most common accidents that occur in the workplace, and one of the reasons for this can be unsuitable floor coverings. With a staff body to protect, it is important to consider this when choosing a floor finish, as well as the service criteria that a floor will be subject to.
For example, areas subject to either wet processes, frequent spillages or those that employ rigorous cleaning regimes such as steam cleaning or hot water wash downs should take particular care to ensure an anti-slip finish when replacing floor coverings or coatings.
Liquid-applied resin floor systems are great to custom build any safety features that you require from your floor within your workspace, surface profiles can be tailored to include quartz, aluminium oxide, glass spheres or silicon carbide in order to enhance the slip resistance profile of the floor finish.
Are resin floors expensive?
Resin flooring can sometimes be more expensive in the short term than using other materials, this can be as a result of a potential increased cost of materials as well as the outlay for specialist trained resin contractors to install the product, but its durability alone makes it an extremely cost-effective option, as you won’t need to replace it for many years.
And, when you take into account other savings that you can generate as a result of selecting resin flooring, such as reduced maintenance, cleaning and energy costs, it makes sense that an investment now will continue to pay dividends in the long term too!
How do antistatic floors work?
Antistatic floor coatings create a preferred pathway for the flow of electricity to follow, keeping the electrical charge under control as the charge is drained to a suitable earthing point.
The floor coating contains conductive elements that transmit the electrical flow through the full thickness of the coating. It is then transmitted into through a copper earthing tape, onto which the resin floor finish is laid.
Think of the grounding point as a plug hole and the electrical charge as bath water. The water (electrical charge) drains over the resin anti-static floor and is removed via the plug hole (grounding point).
The rate at which an electrostatic charge is dispersed within and through the floor finish is controlled by the floor coating material’s electrical resistance, measured in ohms (Ω), and usually expressed in thousands (kilo-ohms or KΩ) or millions (mega-ohms or MΩ).
Conductive
Static conductive resin flooring is defined as having and electrical resistance of less than 1.0 × 10⁶ Ω (1 million ohms). These have a low electrical resistance, so electrons flow easily across the surface or through the bulk of these materials. Charges go to ground or to another conductive object that the material contacts or comes close to. Conductive materials have a surface resistivity less than 1 × 10⁵ Ω/sq, or a volume resistivity less than 1 × 10⁴ Ω-cm.
Dissipative
Static dissipative resin flooring is generally defined as having an electrical resistance of between 1.0 × 10⁶ Ω and 1.0 × 10⁹ Ω. For these materials, the charges flow through the material slowly and in a somewhat more controlled manner than with conductive materials. Dissipative materials have a surface resistivity equal to or greater than 1 × 10⁵ Ω/sq but less than 1 × 10¹⁰ Ω/sq or a volume resistivity equal to or greater than 1 × 10⁴ Ω-cm but less than 1 × 10¹¹ Ω-cm².
Looking for more on industrial flooring?
Vebro Polymers offers a number of seamless industrial resin flooring systems that have been designed to meet a whole host of service challenges faced in industrial and manufacturing facilities.
The includes a number of different epoxy and polyurethane resin flooring systems from the vebrores range, as well as a durable MMA quartz system from the vebrospeed range and a number of heavy-duty polyurethane concrete systems from the vebrocrete range for more demanding environments.
Learn more about Vebro Polymers’ range of industrial flooring here.
Any questions?
If you’re a Facilities Manager, building owner or responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of an industrial unit and you have your own questions about resin flooring, the Vebro team will be happy to help!
Contact the Vebro team in Manchester, UK by dropping an email to hello@vebropolymers.com.
