How to Choose an Industrial Floor

When considering new flooring for your industrial space, there are many different factors to account for.  Warehouses, airplane hangars, electronics factories, and commercial kitchens may have very different specific requirements, but they all need a floor that can withstand the demands of everyday life in your industry.  Some of the most common factors that clients use when selecting a floor are:

• Overall installed cost (not just material cost!)
• Durability against the specific stressors in their particular environment
• Aesthetic appearance and overall attractiveness
• Special requirements for installation (minimizing downtime, fumes and ventilation, dust)
• Projected lifespan

For our industrial customers, we typically install one of these three main types of industrial floors: epoxy coatings, polished concrete, and rubber.  Each flooring type has its strengths and weaknesses; choosing the right floor for you requires a careful look at both!

Epoxy Coating Pros:

• Can be seeded with silica to provide a very anti-slip surface
• Service lifespan can be customized via the applied thickness of the epoxy
• Depending on the epoxy, can handle extremely heavy-duty traffic (e.g. parking decks)

Epoxy Coating Cons:

• Sensitive to substrate condition – sometimes significant prep work is required
• Sensitive to environmental conditions during installation (moisture, temperature, etc.)
• Installation requirements aren’t flexible (e.g. time required for curing)

Polished Concrete Pros:

• A “lifetime floor” – no finish or surface to wear off or wear out.  It only gets more polished with wear over time!
• Incredibly durable – it has all the hardwearing properties of concrete because it is concrete.
• Very environmentally friendly – no chemicals, adhesives, solvents, or waste.

Polished Concrete Cons:

• High initial cost – polishing concrete requires expensive diamond grinding and polishing pads.
• Finished appearance is directly related to the quality and condition of the starting surface.
• Limited varieties in appearance.

Rubber Pros:

• Integral sound-deadening and anti-fatigue properties.
• Huge variety of colours, textures, and styles.
• Flexible installation needs depending on the specific product chosen.

Rubber Cons:

• Tiles and rolled goods necessitate seams in the floor.
• The lightest-duty option – selected products can withstand forklift traffic.
• Shorter overall lifespan than some other options.

Making the right choice for your industrial space is a tough decision, but we’d love to help!  Give us a call today to discuss your project and needs.