What to Know About Epoxy Floorings
Seventy-five years ago, Dr. Sylvan O. Greenlee designed a molecule with a combination of unique properties. He described it as a syrup liquid at room temperature and is the material that makes floor coatings as durable as rock. This discovery was liquid epoxy resin. Dr. Greenlee obtained a patent for this work in 1948, and many grades of these resins made their commercial debut.
Epoxy is now one of the most favored floorings for all kinds of floors and can be used on any substrate. You can use it on a concrete floor, on a steel floor, or even on wood or another firm base that needs to be dry and moisture-free. It is a flooring that can withstand the heaviest of traffic. This makes it a perfect flooring for factories, warehouses, garages, and even airplane hangars. We often use the flooring for sports areas, in homes and public buildings, and other areas that see constant heavy foot traffic.
Epoxy is available in many colors and with many additions that can give custom-designed floors that are unique. Different colors make it easy to color-code floors depending on their usage and have proved very helpful in factories and other places. The cross-linking of the molecules in the epoxy resins makes the flooring impermeable to air and water intrusion. It also has a high resistance to corrosive materials and chemical attack, making it highly effective as a fire retardant.
We can combine epoxy resins with other materials so that they have a better performance. For instance, adding silica sand to the flooring can make it skid-resistant while still giving a beautifully textured floor.
Epoxy floors are easy to maintain and need nothing more than just sweeping or vacuuming floors clean and then mopping them down with water. Floors will then never look dirty and keep their smooth and shiny appearance at all times. Installing this flooring can require significant investments, but this flooring benefits more than pay for the initial high costs. Epoxy coatings, when properly applied, will give a coating that has an adhesive power of 1500 pounds per square inch of flooring, even when continuously exposed to heavy loads.
Epoxy floor coatings come in a two-part mixture of resin and hardener that can be rolled onto floors in multiple layers to create seamless stretches of floors. The blending of these two separate components, resin, and hardener, must be done carefully. We then apply the blended product to the floor before it hardens. You can also get epoxy floor coatings that are metallic or pre-tinted.
Want more information? Take a look around our website for some beautiful examples. You can pick and choose your colors and design. Call us at (713) 365-0444 for a FREE quote.
