Commercial and industrial buildings such as malls, offices, warehouses, five-star hotels, airports, and reception lounges require very durable floors that are not only resilient but also aesthetically pleasing. Property managers and business owners looking into remodeling old, dull, and lousy-looking commercial floors into amazing wearable surfaces are often faced with the task of choosing the right material like commercial epoxy floors for their floors.
If you are in this dilemma and need to make a decision, you must ask yourself questions. Better still, you should involve a flooring expert like Paradigm Concrete Finishes to guide you through the process. What repair choices do you have? What are your options when it comes to repairing products? What are sealants, stains, and epoxies? Read on to find out.
Commercial Floor Repair Products
Sealants
Sealants are highly viscous liquid substances used in constructions in filling openings such as joints and preventing the passage of sound dust, air, and even water. They are also used in repairing cracks. Sealant properties include permanence appearance, corrosion resistance, flexibility, and strength. Here are the commonly used sealant types in construction.
Water-based latex
This whitish substance has ease of application, minimum odor, and, best of all, is water-soluble. It is therefore popular for residential construction. You can use water-based caulk to fill in spaces around door frames and baseboards. Ensure enough warmth when applying this kind of latex because it requires 40-50 degrees to cure under dry conditions.
Acrylic
Acrylics are UV resistant and therefore suitable for high exposure areas such as radiation facilities and exterior applications. Although they do not shrink, they lack ease of application and cannot stand much movement.
Silicone
Silicone as a sealant has excellent dynamic, active movement capability, excellent heat resistance, and adhesive abilities. You can use them for air sealing and weatherproofing purposes. They are therefore suitable for exterior flooring applications. A silicone sealant may punch holes into your but perform well in durability.
Polysulfide
Flexible under low temperatures with UV resistance capabilities, polysulfides are the best choice for underwater applications such as swimming pool floors. They have a high level of VOCs, are expensive, and last between 10-20 years.
Stains
Staining is an ideal way of adding color and aesthetic appeal to an otherwise dull flooring. They offer various colors, shades, textures, and tints, thus creating an overall decorative look.
Acid-based stains
While other stains, such as penetrating and film-forming stains, depend on color pigments to change concrete decorations, acid stains rely on minerals. A chemical reaction between acid stains and minerals that make up concrete eat into your surfaces, resulting in a natural marble appearance. They are a bit expensive compared to other stains. Follow safety precautions when applying them to avoid injury and ruining your floor.
Water-based stains
Water-based stains have water as a solvent. They do not chemically react with your floor. They are divided into two categories, namely film-forming and penetrating stains.
Film-forming stains are the most common since they have been around for the longest time. Like paint, these stains form a coat or thick layer over the surface of the concrete. In this way, they add color to your floor. However, they flake and fade over time due to traffic, exposure to chemicals, and vagaries of weather.
The second type of water-based stains is penetrating stains. As their name suggests, they enter the pore within your floor and join together with the concrete. They do not form a coat on the surface like the film-forming stains. As opposed to film-forming stains, these stains don’t fade. The water-based polymer bond enables them to dig deeper into the concrete and become flake resistant. What’s more, water-based stains are available in a variety of shades and tints ranging from bold solid colors to pale and light translucent colors. Being user friendly, you can come up with new colors by mixing different stains.
Epoxy floor coating
Epoxy is a coating made up of two components or a combination of two different compounds found in paints, plastics, adhesives, and other materials. Epoxy has a chemical structure of short-chain polymers with an epoxide group at the end. Epoxy resins are excellent for repair because they can bond to different materials and even previously cured materials.
Epoxy resins are widely used in repairing concrete floors. What makes epoxy resin popular is that it can penetrate deeper into cracks and form a strong bond that binds the two sides together than normal concrete mortar. You can use an epoxy coating to cover your floor if it has many cracks. Here are different types of epoxy floor coatings.
Mortar Coating Floor Epoxy
Mortar coating epoxy is the strongest epoxy coating. It is, therefore, suitable for heavy industrial areas. You can also use it to repair cracks in other epoxy floors if you want to add a different epoxy coating layer.
Water-based coating floor epoxy
This type of coating spreads thinly and lacks 100% durability and resistance. It is user friendly because it does not emit poisonous fumes like its solvent-based counterpart, which is often included in DIY kits. Due to its ability to penetrate the porous surface, water-based floor epoxy is used as a primer or sealer over grease-free concrete surfaces. It is, therefore, suitable for repairs. Apart from giving the concrete a glossy and smooth surface, this epoxy floor coating provides active protection gains stains, chemical reactions, and abrasions.
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