Flooring Systems

A resin base coat, vinyl flake thrown into it until the surface will take no more, then a clear topcoat over the top. This is what each layer is for, what the system asks of the concrete underneath it, and the honest account of where it wins and where it does not belong.

A pigmented resin coat carrying metallic particles, moved while it is wet so the pigment separates into depth and movement, then locked under a clear topcoat. This is what the layers do, what the slab has to be, and why the least repeatable floor on the market is sometimes exactly the right answer and sometimes the wrong one.

The whole stack goes down in a single session, which is why it gets specified for buildings that cannot close. The same short windows that make that possible remove every pause in the day, so nothing can be checked between coats and nothing can be fixed. This is what that trade actually costs.

The material levels itself. It does not level your floor. That distinction decides whether this is the right specification or an expensive way to reproduce every dip in the slab, and it is the first thing to settle with a client who has read the name and drawn the obvious conclusion.

The simplest build in the library and the hardest one to make look right. Every other system has a broadcast or a pattern to hide behind. This one gives the eye a uniform field, so the slab, the mixing, the application, the repairs and the wear all have something to be measured against.

The floor for the parts of a building where hot water, steam and cleaning chemicals hit the slab every day. It is not a better epoxy. It is a different material that moves with the concrete when the temperature swings, and it asks for a different installation in return.

Grind the slab, then seal it. The simplest finished concrete floor there is, and the one most often quoted without anyone saying which sealer they mean. That choice decides how it looks, how it wears and what it costs to keep.

A barrier coat is one layer. The system is everything from the test to the topcoat, and a gap anywhere in it is where the moisture comes through. This is the build-up, in the order it goes down.

A thick epoxy film chosen to take traffic and abuse for longer. The label promises thickness without saying how much, so two quotes that both read "high-build epoxy" can describe very different floors. The number that matters is on the data sheet and in the quote, not in the name.

The same epoxy that coats a floor can be loaded with filler and poured as a slurry, or packed with graded aggregate and troweled as a mortar. What changes is not the chemistry. It is how much of the floor is resin, how it goes down, and whether the job is to cover the slab or to rebuild it.

The grit sequence gets all the attention, and it is only the middle of the system. A polished floor is decided at the pour and on the mock-up, finished by how the joints, repairs and color are handled, and kept by what happens after handover.

Nobody can say whether a floor is chemical resistant until someone says which chemical, how strong, how hot and for how long. The resin comes last. This page is the system around it: the exposure, the chart, the build, and the details where these floors actually fail.

The cook line, the dish area, the walk-in and the dry store all want different floors, and most kitchen floor failures come from treating them as one. This page picks the system for each zone and covers the things only a kitchen asks of a floor.

A warehouse floor is judged by forklifts, racking and the dock doors, not by how it looks on handover day. This page decides what the floor is for, picks a system for each zone, and covers the details that only a warehouse asks for.