West Coast Epoxy installs protective coatings for concrete floors throughout Northern California, including Folsom. Although that is a wide area to cover, it’s not the kind of “large” we’re talking about in this article. What we want to discuss is the huge amount of concrete in larger buildings like warehouses, industrial complexes, manufacturing floors, storage facilities, and penitentiaries. There are many such facilities in the Folsom area alone, especially since the town is located right next to Highway 50 and only a handful of minutes from Interstate 80. Because of the reliability, durability, and cost effectiveness that a concrete floor provides, it is nearly always the foundation of choice in places like these.
Isn’t Concrete By Itself Enough?
Despite being so resilient, concrete eventually develops chips and cracks, especially when exposed to weather, intense temperatures or constant heavy duty use. Large scrapes or gouges in the surface become tripping hazards. Also, the porous nature of concrete allows liquids, powders or gases to stay in your concrete. Over time, an accumulation of these substances increases the deterioration of concrete, compromising its integrity — and possibly the health of workers or your manufacturing processes.
Protecting Concrete Floors with epoxy
When you install an epoxy coating over your concrete floor, it creates a sealed barrier over the pores, seams, cracks or chips in your concrete. Any spills from liquids or powders or gases cannot affect your concrete, and even temperature has less effect. Epoxy coatings also provide a layer of armor against cuts, scrapes or gouges. By protecting your concrete floor, epoxy increases the expected lifetime of your concrete surface.
Protecting Your Product
The molecular cohesion of epoxy allows it to keep its integrity while absorbing energy from impact, spreading the energy over a wide surface. This means things like walking feet, tires from heavy vehicles, wheels from carts, or even falling tools and containers will not damage or compromise your floor as they would with unprotected concrete. It also means a dropped tool or box of product is less likely to suffer damage. Likewise, spills are easily contained since they cannot get through to your somewhat porous concrete floor and jeopardize its integrity or appearance.
Protecting People
Epoxy coatings have the option of including anti-slip finishes. With this coating, shoes and feet get a better grip. This is clearly beneficial if liquid spills are likely in your facility, like breweries, care facilities, or aquariums in Folsom. If your building has sloped floors or ramps, an anti-slip finish protects your business, workers, and even your customers from slips and falls, providing a safer environment. With the use of added colors, granules, micas and patterns, your epoxy coating can show borders, lines and arrows to direct individuals towards safety and away from harm.
Granted, larger concrete floors are not the only ones to benefit from epoxy coatings. A home garage, a restaurant kitchen, or a retail showroom — any concrete floor benefits from an epoxy coating, just as much as a large warehouse or industrial facility. Regardless of the size of your concrete floor, West Coast Epoxy offers a variety of options. Visit our gallery for examples of our work. When you’re ready to improve your concrete floor, give us a call or schedule an appointment online for a free consultation.