By Mark Housh

In automotive facilities, including dealerships, showrooms and commercial garages, repair centers, aesthetics and functionality can go hand in hand. The first impression of a beautiful shop or showroom floor give a good impression to repeat customers, potential customers, and vendors who may walk through the doors. Good looking floors can also show a clean and organized atmosphere. This can also improve the morale among the employees working in these facilities. Along with aesthetics, it is also imperative that the floors in auto facilities are functional. Besides the obvious foot traffic, these floors must also sustain the wear and tear the vehicles will place on them, and also the machinery and tools that may be dropped on the floor during work.

Epoxy floors are a perfect match for automotive facilities due to their high functionality, great durability, and beautiful appearance. Epoxy floors can also be customized to the client’s desire for a more functional automotive floor to a more decorative look with color chips or quartz aggregate. Epoxy floors can turn an ordinary concrete floor into a perfect complement to shiny and sparkling new vehicles. In addition, epoxy flooring systems offer incredible protection from chemicals, acid, oil, fuel and vehicle traffic that automotive facilities see on a day-to-day basis.

The right epoxy floor can transform an ordinary concrete floor into a luxurious surface with a beautiful finish that can set the tone of the room aesthetically, while also providing the desired functionality and protection. Increase the look of, not only showroom or repair center floor but also your services areas and walkways. NorthCraft offers several epoxy variations to meet the demands of any environment with top notch protection from acid, fuel, oil and the various forms of vehicle traffic that your floor might see. Trust us to outfit your automotive facility with a state of the art, super-efficient epoxy flooring that will both stand the test of time and augment the presentation of your building.

When you select the correct floor coating you can rest assured that it is going to withstand the abuse it will take daily. Depending on what type of area it is we can install different products. Some areas like a lobby that only gets foot traffic doesnt need the same floors as the parts department or the paint booth. In addition to the showroom and public areas of any automotive facility or dealership, epoxy coating systems can be installed in wash bays, body shop and repair areas, spray and paint booths and the automotive parts departments or any concrete floor. Because epoxy floor coatings are beautiful, durable and functional, there is no reason to install different systems throughout the facility. From showroom to work areas, think of NorthCraft recommended automotive epoxy flooring system as a one-stop shop.

Take some time and evaluate your situation and determine how much use and what type of use the floor will take and make appropriate choices when choosing your floor coating in any automotive facility.

Source of this article - https://northcraft-epoxy-floor-coating.com/

https://northcraft-epoxy-floor-coating.com/Epoxy-Articles-Tips/Automotive_Facilities_And_How_To_Choose_The_Correct_Coating/

By Robert E Long, Expert Guest Author, Lifetime Epoxy Floors
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Urethane mortar floors (a/k/a cementitious urethane flooring or urethane cement flooring) excel over epoxy floor systems in food & beverage plants for many reasons; this USDA accepted flooring material reduces downtime, is durable in hostile environments with thermal shock, and withstands heavy impact and damaging chemical agents. For new construction, urethane concretes can be applied to 10 day old concrete, thus eliminating the typical 28 day wait for curing concrete.

​Use of polyurethane cement mortar systems has now surpassed once standard epoxy floor coatings and vinyl ester flooring systems such as Tufco flooring, in these special need environments. Products such as Ucrete, Flowcrete, PurCem, and CastorCrete are gaining substantial market share. Tufco flooring has even developed a urethane mortar floor system. These floors may be found in industrial kitchens at food & beverage processing industries such as meat/poultry, dairy, seafood, bakeries, breweries and all beverage processing. Poultry flooring and brewery flooring endure some of the most severe conditions for industrial flooring. Urethane mortar flooring can even withstand years of hard service in these areas.

Compared to epoxy floors, urethane mortar flooring products have enhanced resistance to impact and abuse from dropped pots, steel parts and utensils in industrial kitchens and food plants. They handle repetitive scraping and scratching better than epoxy, acrylic and competitive systems. They are extremely beneficial in plant areas where steel wheels are used, such as bakeries. Urethane mortar floors are used as waterproof flooring, providing a "bathtub effect" in areas of the plant requiring a waterproof floor. They are non slip when wet, and provide a permanent non slip texture, due to the integral large, hard wearing aggregate, throughout the thickness of the floor system.

Cementitious urethane mortars have a similar modulus of elasticity and thermal coefficient of expansion to that of concrete. When applied over concrete, brick or tile, this prevents delamination when the flooring is stressed due to thermal conditions. These food grade floor materials withstand hot spills and repeated thermal cycling (hot washdowns, steam cleaning, etc.) without breaking down. In addition, moisture and cool temperature tolerance allows for installation on cold (above freezing), damp concrete surfaces, often found in operating food plants.

Cementitious overlays have very little odor, since there are no VOC's. This means that there is no risk to open food products. Urethane concrete mortars can be applied next to fully operational food processing areas, eliminating the need to shut down an operation to resurface the floor. One pass installation with no primer coat required, means that many floor restoration projects can be completed over weekends, with no costly production downtime. Additionally, urethane cement flooring has excellent all around resistance to chemicals used in food & beverage plants.

The most durable urethane mortar floor systems are typically trowelled, and are applied at ¼ to 3/8 inch thickness, and provide a seamless matte finish. These trowel applied urethane mortars have physical properties that are twice that of concrete. Self-leveling "slurry" systems were originally developed for contractors that were not able to install the urethane mortar floors. These systems typically applied a 1/8 to 3/16 inch thickness. They provide a heavy duty surface in areas which require a high gloss, urethane or polyurethane concrete top coat, maximum cleanability, and high aesthetics. Applications consists of screeding, broadcasting with natural quartz aggregate, and top coating. They are available with a novolac epoxy topcoat, which allows for installation in chemical storage areas, with concentrated spillages. These systems may also be finished with colored quartz or vinyl chips.

The original system, Ucrete HF, is an FDA type USDA flooring, USDA approved, trowel applied urethane, and is the original system (has been around for more than 40 years). It has withstood the test of time in the harshest environments. The trowelled ¼ inch system offers the highest level of durability with a lifespan of greater than ten years. The only drawback of urethane mortars, is that they are slightly more expensive upfront, than epoxy; however they offer long term performance and the maximum return on investment.

About the Author: Robert Long, VP of Business Development at EP Floors Corp., has over 25 years of experience in the industrial epoxy flooring business. He attends technical training seminars regularly, on the latest epoxy floor innovations, and has managed over a thousand epoxy and urethane flooring projects. For more information Robert may be reached at 1-800-808-7773 or by email at rlong@EPFloors.com
http://www.EPFloors.com Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Robert_E_Long/1684141
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