Epoxy coatings are renowned for their durability and resistance and are commonly used in an industrial context. Nonetheless, it’s important to understand the options if you are considering investing in epoxy resin flooring for your residential, commercial or industrial space.
Floor Masters offers a wide range of resin flooring options and it’s important to decide which one suits your floor use.
How the Range of Epoxy Resin Options Has Flourished
The history of epoxy resins can be traced back to the 1920s — and, today, you can choose from a myriad of epoxy solutions that have resulted from decades of development and refinement in this field.
Each epoxy resin floor coating combines a base resin and a catalyst. We have 100% solids epoxy resin (it’s a liquid but nothing evaporates off allow curing) or the base can comprise either water or a solvent, with the latter giving the product a strong, distinct odour. In contrast, solvent-free systems for epoxy resin floorings are practically free of odour.
Would Epoxy Resin Be the Right Choice for Your Flooring?
Epoxy resin has both pros and cons, which might outweigh each other based on your specific needs.
Pros
- Epoxy resin is well priced – it’s not the cheapest resin, but it’s certainly not the most expensive.
- Epoxy can be applied quite thin for a light coating, or thick for added durability and impact resistance (varying the cost and performance).
- Epoxy has very good chemical resistance to a wide range of chemicals that would otherwise damage the concrete floor.
- We have a range of solvent free and waterbased epoxies with very low VOC’s (not harmful).
- We can add slip reduction additives where required.
- Easily tinted to a wide range of colours
- Epoxies generally have a hard surface and can show scuffs and scratches quite readily. – This can be overcome with a urethane or polyaspartic top coat.
- Epoxies generally allow one coat per day, require at least 2 days to cure before use and 7 days to develop full chemical resistance
- Epoxy floors can handle temperatures up to 60 Deg C – not suitable for steam cleaning, or thermal shock
- Epoxy floors that are exposed to UV light can turn yellow (lighter colours can change quite quickly) – UV absorbers can delay this, but do lose effectiveness..
We can discuss various flooring types with you to help you decide which one to opt for. You could find yourself tempted by polyaspartic resin flooring as, on the whole, it greatly outclasses epoxy resin in performance characteristics.
However, if you require your flooring’s finish to withstand heavy impacts, epoxy resin may be better suited than polyaspartic resin to meet your specific requirements.
Tips for Selecting the Right Epoxy Resin Flooring
We can help you to choose the right epoxy for your needs. We will ask you whether the flooring you’re considering for epoxy resin was recently installed or is affected by rising damp, as certain epoxies may not be effectively installed on moist substrates. We do special Moisture barriers in these instances.
We have a wide range of epoxy flooring options, from thick heavy duty self leveling epoxy, to decorative Metallic FX floors, non slip options for wet areas and production area floors.
If you’re finding it challenging to choose between our epoxy coatings or other resin flooring products, book an appointment for a visit to our showroom or office. Call Adam on 021 42 66 27 or Steve on 021 73 76 73.
