A Deck Flooring System for Year Round Enjoyment

With what has happened to the economy lately, many are staying in homes and businesses that do not have all of the accouterments that they would like in a newer venue. Thus, they decide to expand their real estate’s outdoor living space instead. Those with two or three stories to their commercial establishments are building decks for their upstairs business so that customers can enjoy the great outdoors in total privacy. However, constructing wooden decks with planking unfortunately does not transform the space below the deck into something useful, especially when it rains. If only one could have deck flooring that does not allow water to run through the gaps in the deck?

Imagine if instead, one could have yet another patio underneath, one that was dry enough to use when it rained, or perhaps have a hot tub below away from cold rainy weather? Some business owners use the space below as storage or perhaps a carport with a circular drive so that customers can be dropped off in bad weather and remain dry. But this can only happen if you can keep water from coursing through the cracks and fissures that a wooden deck presents.

A wooden deck also means that it will eventually warp, rot and crack, and need to be waterproofed constantly as well as stained or painted too. That means a lot of time taken away from the owner who would rather see customers sunbathing on that deck rather than watching workers work on that deck flooring. It also means that money will have to be spent over and over again to maintain the flooring of that deck.

There is a product available today though that saves the real estate owner from all that expensive maintenance and seemingly endless extensive repairs to that deck. That product is very easily utilized, will go up in only one day, and will thoroughly and completely seal that deck so that guests can enjoy both the top and below the deck!

Restaurants have been creating such decks for a long time with this product, and have created lovely dining areas on top and below the decks. Schools also have utilized this method, and country clubs love having the space under the decks for storage while the top of the decks are utilized by the country club members.

This amazing product that allows all of those examples is Silikal. You see, Silikal completely and totally seals the deck so that there are never leaks or water coming through the deck. Thus the area below the deck is always kept completely dry. Silikal is absolutely non-porous and is perfect for the extreme conditions found on a rooftop, as it is impervious to rain, snow, ice and it cannot harbor mold as decks often do. There is no downtime either if you have a venue or some other commercial venture. The flooring is tremendously easy to keep clean and even more importantly, it is a non-slip floor. Thus your help as well as your visitors can come and go without worrying about slip and falls with this amazing deck flooring!

Floor Restore: What to Consider Before Restoration

It truly does not matter what kinds of floors you now have. Accomplishing a floor restore to them is always a good idea prior to thinking about completely tearing them up and building new floors. Those who undertake removal and replacement often do not take into account the awful mess it’s going to create, the costs involved, besides the costs of getting rid of the debris which can run into thousands and thousands if the reason for the floor restore is that chemicals have gone through the substrate and perhaps even into the ground below!

If one is speaking of a wooden floor, then usually those who handle a floor restore will speak of sanding and refinishing the wood. This too, especially the sanding, can create a terrible mess if you are still occupying the premises. One of the newer means of taking care of wooden floors that need to be refinished though is called screening. Actually it is a machine that scuffs off the clear coat that remains on the floors at the moment. Often these machines are equipped with their own vacuums, which thus pick up the greater majority of the dust though not all of it. What usually follows is new clear top coating, however that needs to dry for at least 24 hours after it is put on, with heavy traffic needing at least 4-5 days for total curing. This is not good news for an active shop, as shops cannot close for that amount of time, and actually many offices and office parks cannot either. The solution? Read further.

Let’s assume now that the floor restore needs to be done to a flooring that is made out of concrete. As the wear and tear on the concrete has caused voluminous amounts of concrete dust to rise, the more the owner curses having a plain concrete floor. Actually the same solution is going to apply that the owner of the wooden floor above will use.

The best solution, no matter what kinds of floors you need to restore, is to utilize a product known as Silikal. Silikal, you see, can be put on top of any kind of floor, be it wood, concrete, or even tile and terrazzo if it’s not been broken. The best news for the shop owner is that a Silikal floor can be installed quickly and then the surprise comes. Once installed it can be used, including heavy foot traffic in only one hour! Being told that it cures that quickly surprises most people enormously.

By installing a clear coat of Silikal, the beauty of the floor below it comes through, such as the wooden floors mentioned above, but if you wish to have colors or even mimicry of all manner of stone floors, that too is possible with Silikal. With any kind of Silikal flooring there is no floor that will ever harbor bacteria or mold as it is a completely non porous, pin hole free flooring surface that also happens to be seam free.

Flooring for Concrete Slab Questions Answered

So you have a bare concrete slab. It is battleship gray, and even though it’s probably brand new, it’s still a distressing thing to look at, as there’s no life in it whatsoever. Thus you muse as to what flooring for concrete slab makes the most sense. There are a myriad of choices, that’s for sure.

First there is hardwood flooring for concrete slab. There are a plethora of hardwoods to choose from such as poplar, maple, cherry, oak, ash and birch. All of those are simply lovely, but the care that they will need probably is quite daunting, especially in a high traffic area. Besides, wood contains water, and it also sucks up water when one cleans it. It invites problems because of that, such as molds and bacteria, which eventually can cause terrible smells to emanate from a floor.

Then one might consider flooring for concrete slab made of vinyl, and if cushioning is a worry, vinyl even comes with cushioning. Vinyl causes its own problems too though. There is the adhesive that is used, some of which cause allergies. There is the fact that there are seams, and when you have seams, you can let in dirty water and cause the same problems that hardwood had. Vinyl installation might benefit from installations of a membrane. You’ll know what it is when you see it, for it is dimpled, usually a dull heavy duty gray color. Its purpose is to keep your floors dry and thus act as a vapor barrier. That raises the investment for you to use vinyl though, so keep that in mind.

Next you might consider placing tile. Now, tile requires grout, and unfortunately grout is not waterproof either. Ultimately there will be weathering on that grout, and eventually it will allow dirty water to introduce itself under the tile as well, and that’s due to the grout. This can lead to costly tile repairs without even receiving the full life of the new tile floor!

The very best flooring for concrete slab is of course Silikal. When you read about vapor barriers nothing but nothing does the work that Silikal does. The reason is because when Silikal is applied to a concrete slab it totally works its way inside the concrete, and then it makes a complete seal. Not even a pin prick will allow any water or wetness to penetrate Silikal.

That means too that no dirty water can infiltrate under Silikal either. It is a totally seamless floor surface. In addition the floor is completely safe, as it is an anti-skid floor. That’s important where there might be water on the floor, or other substances that might occasion a slip. The Silikal floor will “cure” or “harden” all within one hour of when it was laid. In addition, the floor will be quite simple to keep clean, no matter how messy those working on it tend to be.

A Floor Water Barrier System for Life

When some floors are cleansed, they are not really cleansed because they do not have a floor water barrier. Instead the dirty water seeps under the floor when it creates havoc. What kind of havoc? Well, things like molds and also all manner of bacteria. There it festers and grows, and the next day possibly more dirty water gets in there, just feeding the mold and bacteria. After a bit, odors seem to rise from the floor, even though it looks as clean as can be on the top, but the odors are seeping from under that floor. Remember the havoc? If the floor we are speaking of is in a restaurant, it’s even worse because now the floor is harboring little pieces of food waste, such as tiny little pieces of meat and fish and rotten eggs. Things could not be worse if we tried, right?

Well, perhaps after all, that particular floor could be in a gym where human sweat is deposited on the floor and guess what? It too seeps under that floor that has no floor water barrier. Now, we are really disgusting. You all know what a gym smells like, right? Ugh!

Those responsible for cleaning those floors have worked all in vain, because there is no way that they can stop that dirty water from slipping under the floors they have tried to clean. Owners may even fire their cleaners, or spend huge amounts of money trying this cleanser and that cleanser, but the problem just keeps getting worse and worse.

What they need to do is to contact Silikal. Silikal will come to the establishment, whether it’s a restaurant, office space, or a grocery store and they will test the floor, only to find out that there are minute little cracks in it, or even pinholes that are allowing the dirty water to get underneath whatever their flooring is. Silikal will then give the owner of said establishment an estimate on a new Silikal floor. The owner will hear all about why Silikal will solve his problem.

You see, Silikal is a complete floor water barrier. There is no water that will ever seep under a Silikal floor, no matter what. At last, that floor that brought forth so much havoc will be able to remain totally hygienic. This means that there will no longer be those awful smells coming from the floor. In the gym, there will no longer be human sweat seeping to the underneath floor area, thus it too will smell great. The cleaning staff will be overjoyed, as the floor will now be so very easy to keep clean and fresh smelling.

How does Silikal do all this? Understand that Silikal is a state of the art, totally and completely seamless reactive resin floor system. There is no other flooring like it. What Silikal puts down is a completely pore free monolithic surface.

A LEED Floor System Sets The Standard

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and one gets points on the LEED rating system for various things that are in the list of their system such as building reuse, recycling, utilizing regional materials, using rapidly renewable materials, using low emitting materials (such as low VOC or no VOC LEED flooring). VOCs are Volatile Organic Compounds. There are a tremendous amount of ways to earn points on the LEED rating system and an excellent example would be perhaps restoring an already existing concrete floor with a LEED Floor system.

You see, demolition would create a tremendous environmental impact, and so would the new construction of that concrete floor. Thus the restoration would be very environmentally friendly. By creation of a low or no maintenance floor, probably means that there will be no dangerous chemicals ever utilized to clean it and there will be no VOCs released either. The U.S. Green Building Council is the one under whose organization LEED points are given out. So, although a given project may not qualify for certification, as only new construction can do that, a project such as flooring will definitely qualify for points!

One of the LEED floor system proponents is of course Silikal flooring. After all, since Silikal flooring is a no VOC flooring, that makes them green, and thus LEED accredited. The various LEED credits go to those who actually select their products which means that Silikal flooring is not only superior in function as well as beauty, but it is also considered great for the environment. VOC are not “green” since VOCs are known to produce a breathable gas during flooring application that has been rated as being very dangerous to humans. As amazing as it may seem, the Silikal vessel and waterproof boat floor coatings actually meet the requirements of LEED credits too, and so do the Silikal antibacterial floor coatings!

As you can see Silikal has been extremely busy getting it’s coatings for concrete as well as existing substrates approved by the U.S. Green Building Council so that its products can lead to LEED points. After all in every way possible, Silikal is a thoroughly “green” company which believes in being as “green” as possible. Silikal also strongly believes in healthy human products and thus will do whatever is possible to present “green” products such as a LEED floor system. Using Silikal products will provide you with the ultimate satisfaction that you are actually helping the world community to build a better environment.