07 Jun Floor Coatings for Commercial Spaces
Epoxy Floor Coatings for Commercial Spaces: How to Choose the Right Solution
Assessing the Space:
A great way to give a commercial space a new, fresh look is to freshen up any areas that look worn and old. This includes patching and sealing cracks, spalls and any other damaged floors and then applying a fresh coat of epoxy flooring. For a general purpose, unleased commercial spaces this is a great way to make it appear more appealing to prospective tenants.
For commercial spaces that serve a specific business type there are several options for epoxy flooring. Retail spaces may like a decorative look with a trendy metallic epoxy. Warehouses or multi-use facilities could benefit from a solid color epoxy to help brighten spaces and make them more dust free and easier to clean. Kitchens would need a food grade approved flooring surface and ideally on that will hold up to grease spills, heat fluctuations and is easy to clean and maintain. For commercial spaces that trend towards a more industrial business there are epoxy flooring options that will hold up better to hazardous chemicals and heavy machinery.
Five Common Commercial Spaces to use Epoxy for Flooring
Another aspect of commercial spaces is the looking at the facilities maintenance of commercial spaces. There are many common areas that require regular maintenance to keep the buildings running smoothly and make them desirable to tenants.
- For hallways, lobbies, entrances and restrooms, decorative mosaic epoxy, quartz epoxy or polished concrete are great options that look durable yet look nice.
- Loading docks are a high use area and are prone to damage from trucks and forklifts.
- Traffic coatings or a sand filled industrial epoxy system are great options to keep the concrete in good condition, provide waterproofing to lower levels if required, and help prevent slip and falls if it’s wet or snowy out.
- Parking Garages need traffic coatings or a sand filled epoxy depending on the situation. If there are levels beneath the garage a traffic coating provides waterproofing as well as slip resistance and concrete protection. For on grade concrete parking structures a sand filled epoxy is the best choice.
- Mechanical rooms require a flexible, waterproof coating and traffic coating systems are the perfect choice for this.
Color and Design Options
For most “back areas” like loading docks, garages, and mech rooms gray is the most commonly used color. It’s color neutral and blends with the other concrete surrounding these areas. The areas the general public will see like entrances, hallways and restrooms we have many decorative options available: polished concrete, flake blend systems, metallic and quartz epoxy. We offer several standard blend options of the most popular colors, and custom blends can be made upon request.
Durability and Maintenance
Can the right epoxy coating increase the lifespan of the flooring and reduce maintenance costs?
Yes! Everyone knows that regular maintenance of everyday things in your life, like car maintenance, will keep things running in tip-top shape longer. The maintenance of commercial space is the same way. Tenants and prospective tenants will look at the condition of a building to determine if it’s the right situation for their business. Maintaining concrete with epoxy before it starts to show extreme wear and damage will lower your long-term maintenance costs and extend the life span. When it comes to existing epoxy floors, daily cleaning of sweeping and mopping will keep the floors looking new and help them to function in the way they were designed.
Choosing the right contractor
There are so many possible needs for a commercial building, and no two buildings are the same. A downtown skyscraper is tackling completely different scenarios than a concrete block multi-suite retail space. The budgets, timelines, and needs of each tenant are unique. It’s important to work with an experienced and knowledgeable flooring contractor to assess the wide array of needs of commercial property management. One aspect of our assessment process is picking the right flooring system, but just as important is to come up with a project management plan so that we can get the work done in a timely manner while minimizing this impact on business.