Industrial Epoxy Flooring in Evansville

Hard forklift wheels grind a floor down, and dropped pallets chip it. A rolled epoxy that is fine in a showroom wears through in a busy aisle. For heavy traffic, ask about a thicker build or a troweled mortar system. The gap between the two is large:

• Rolled 100% solids epoxy: 10 to 30 wet mils per coat
• Troweled urethane mortar: 3/16 to 1/4 inch (187 to 250 mils)

Ask how the saw-cut joints will be filled, too, so wheel edges don't chip them.

Chemical resistance is product-specific, not a property of "epoxy" in general. In one major manufacturer's floor chemical-resistance chart, brake fluid is marked not recommended for several of its epoxy coatings and acceptable for others in the same family. That chart's "OK" rating covers spills cleaned up within 72 hours, not standing exposure. Give the installer a list of what hits the floor, with concentrations, and ask for the matching chart rows in writing. Battery charging rooms (sulfuric acid) and solvent wipe-down stations are the usual trouble spots.

Docks take truck tires, dock plates slamming down, and whatever the trailers carry in. OSHA requires safe clearance for aisles at loading docks where powered equipment runs. In winter, brine and slush come in with every trailer, and the floor by the door swings between outdoor and indoor temperatures. Ask for a textured finish here (anti-slip floor coating explains the options). Where the coating runs past the door into sun, the topcoat needs to be UV-stable; patio and exterior coatings covers why.

Electronic parts can be damaged by a static discharge of under 100 volts, while a person only feels a shock at about 3,000. ESD floors drain that charge to ground. They are sorted by electrical resistance, measured under ANSI/ESD STM7.1:

• Conductive: below 1.0 × 10⁶ ohms
• Static-dissipative: 1.0 × 10⁶ up to 1.0 × 10⁹ ohms
• ANSI/ESD S20.20, the electronics-handling standard, caps floors at 1.0 × 10⁹ ohms

Many ESD epoxies only work when staff wear ESD footwear. Ask for resistance readings on the finished floor, not just the data sheet, and find out where the ground points will be.

OSHA's materials-handling rule says permanent aisles and passageways must be "appropriately marked." Its safety color code sets the colors most plants use on the floor:

• Yellow: caution and physical hazards such as tripping, falling, striking against and caught-between points
• Red: fire protection equipment, danger and emergency stops

Ask whether the lines go down before the final clear coat or on top of it, and how they get touched up later.

Freezers are the hardest rooms to coat because resins need warmth to cure. One flooring manufacturer puts the floor for polyurethane installs at 40°F and for epoxy at 60°F. Below 40°F, a methyl methacrylate (MMA) system is the option. Ask whether your cooler has to be shut down and warmed, or whether the installer will use a cold-cure product.