If you own a warehouse or are a property manager of a warehouse, you understand all too well what can happen when things go wrong and how your operations can be disrupted. Disruptions caused by workplace spillages or forklift crashes can cause thousands of dollars of losses to your company daily, or even worse, an accident that injures a worker.
If you’re encountering issues with your flooring that are causing you loss-heavy disruptions (for example, a crack in your existing concrete caused a forklift to get stuck and lose its load, sending produce crashing to the floor), it’s time to consider warehouse epoxy flooring.
What is Warehouse Epoxy Flooring?
Warehouse epoxy flooring is among the latest trends in protective, durable workplace flooring options for warehouses. Warehouse epoxy flooring is a protective coating made from epoxy resin, a cured resin substance made from prepolymers (base) and polymers, creating a curing agent that hardens once applied to a surface.
This hardened substance is perfect for warehouses, garages, and workshops and is also used in decorative woodworking to create coffee tables with a river-like effect. Factory epoxy flooring provides a cheaper floor-protection method than repairing wooden or cracked concrete flooring and is the perfect option for warehouses with plenty of foot and vehicle traffic.
Why Do People Prefer Epoxy Flooring For Warehouses?
Warehouse flooring receives a lot of foot and vehicle traffic throughout the day. From workers coming and going to forklifts transporting pallets around, thousands of pounds of weight glide across a warehouse floor every day. Concrete flooring can crack, usually after a workplace accident where a pallet has been dropped. It is also naturally porous, allowing water and other liquids to flow into these tiny pores, creating the possibility of health hazards.
Despite thinking you’ve cleaned up a chemical spill, small elements may linger in the concrete. Unlike concrete or wood, epoxy floor is non-porous, making it much easier to clean up spillages. Additionally, epoxy flooring is generally more durable than wood or laminate flooring, making it a fantastic option for long-standing warehouses.
The Benefits of Installing Epoxy Flooring In Your Warehouse
Installing a floor epoxy coating on your warehouse floors has many benefits. These include.
Durability
One of the primary benefits of installing epoxy floors in your warehouse in Australia is the durability of epoxy resin. Because warehouse epoxy flooring is up to the task of supporting heavy foot and vehicle traffic, you’re extending the life of your warehouse flooring, as well as the life of your equipment.
Cost-Effectiveness
Epoxy industrial flooring is a cost-effective solution to maintaining the pristine look of your warehouse flooring. While repairing concrete and wooden floors can be expensive, epoxy floors provide a cost-effective protective solution. They save you money in the long term at a rough cost estimate of $25.00 per square metre and a simple and quick installation process.
Safety Enhancements
In a workplace like the warehouse, the safety of employees is paramount. If you follow this ethos, warehouse epoxy flooring is a no-brainer. It’s a dust-resistant, anti-skid and anti-slip material, meaning your forklift tyres will have better grip than on other flooring types. It’s also anti-corrosive and non-porous, meaning spillages will be easy to clean up completely.
Easily Cleanable!
Scrubbing concrete or wooden floors for minutes or hours at a time isn’t good for your cleaning team’s backs or your pocketbook. As a non-porous material, warehouse epoxy flooring is far easier to clean up without resorting to harsh chemicals that may add to the already-harmful chemical cocktail on your floor! Simply apply warm soapy water to most basic spills and easily scrub them up off your epoxy resin floor.
Why You Should Hire SWEF For Your Warehouse Epoxy Flooring
SWEF prides itself on providing the highest-quality epoxy flooring for our client’s warehouse needs, regardless of size, scale or project requirements. Here are a few reasons SWEF should be your first choice for your warehouse epoxy floor solution.
Customisability
Unlike other types of flooring, epoxy floors are much more easily customisable. Whether you want a large central logo on your new epoxy floor or are considering installing parking or pallet location demarcation lines, this can be done easily with epoxy floors.
Our creative design team will work with you to create an attractive, intricate epoxy design that is carefully installed ontop of your existing flooring to provide a memorable, ultra-visible logo that will be the centrepiece of your warehouse. Or, we can provide an ultra-visible lined safety featurette to enhance workplace safety.
A Quick Install Minimises Downtime
While it may be undesirable to close your warehouse to install your epoxy flooring, with our installation method, you won’t necessarily have to! This depends on the scale and demands of your project, but it is possible to install warehouse epoxy flooring in stages. However, if you go down the route of a total installation in one go, expect to be out of the warehouse for 36 hours to allow for a second coat and complete curing.
How We’ll Install Your Warehouse Epoxy Floor
After your floor’s sizing has been measured, other specifications have been outlined, and the project has been given the green light, it’s time to install your new warehouse flooring.
First, we’ll scrub your concrete surface clean, removing debris so that the epoxy resin will adhere more easily to the surface. We’ll use a degreaser or a solvent-based cleaner to ensure the surface contains no additional oils.
Next, we’ll sand down the area and pressure wash it to remove any additional debris before letting it dry overnight. Then, it’s time to install your epoxy floor! We’ll wash the floor with 950ml of muriatic (hydrochloric) acid for every 4.5-6.5 square metres. This involves mixing the acid with three parts water before the wash begins and then waiting till the acid stops bubbling (usually after about 15 minutes).
We’ll then wash the surface with baking soda (240ml) and water (3,800ml) to neutralise the acid on the floor. Then, we’re ready to begin installing epoxy! We’ll mix our epoxy resin material and paint it onto your flooring. This process can take several hours, depending on the size of your warehouse flooring. Using epoxy paint ensures that there’s not too much epoxy on your floor, which can be problematic as the resin cures.
The curing process for one coat of epoxy resin is usually 12 to 24 hours. We recommend an additional coat, adding approximately 12 hours to your downtime. While we try to minimise your downtime as a warehouse, quality is our priority.
As warehouse epoxy flooring installation experts, we pride ourselves on providing a fantastic product that lasts for years to come. Whatever your project needs, whether basic or decorative, our creativity and commitment to the best-quality epoxy flooring product on the market. We also offer garage and workshop flooring. Contact us today for a quote for your warehouse, no matter the size or your creative or safety needs!
