Finding the Right Flooring for your Animal Clinic

Flooring for an animal clinic or veterinary office is often terrazzo or some other kind of very hard durable flooring. There are a plethora of reasons for this, not the least being that it must be monolithic, which means that it is all one piece, so that absolutely nothing can permeate it or worse yet find its way beneath it.

Today though, the high cost of terrazzo has made it almost impossible to consider for animal clinic flooring. Part of the high cost is of course, that it is exceedingly labor intensive. After all preparation is labor intensive, but once it is poured into place, then it has to be polished, and that is what gives it its distinctive smooth surface. To save costs, today there are even terrazzo tiles available, but the tiles have unfortunately developed a problem with them, and that is that any tile floor of any kind utilizes a medium called grout to tie together the tiles. Grout is unfortunately not monolithic and worse yet grout is regrettably permeable which means that water and waste can seep through it, and can leach beneath the tile to create a wondrous site for growth of bacteria and smells.

Terrazzo also has other reasons to not be used for animal clinic flooring. For instance one must utilize special pH-neutral cleaners which unfortunately are extremely expensive. Then too, terrazzo must be resealed annually always using an acrylic-based sealer. This too raises the cost of having a terrazzo animal clinic flooring. On the pro side, not only is it beautiful, but terrazzo is also considered one of the very first products to be environmentally friendly, for it is made of recycled products and natural materials. It never emits any volatile organic compounds, referred to as VOCs. VOCs after all have both many short term and long term adverse health effects because it is a breathable gas.

And so, animal clinic owners tried to find a type of flooring that was comparable with terrazzo. At last they found one that is actually better than terrazzo. That product is Silikal.

Silikal, you see is also beautiful and offers tons of designs, textures, and styles and also even offers logos in the flooring if desired, geometrics and an abundance of different graphics. Like terrazzo, it is all in one piece. Remember the word monolithic? Silikal is not only one seamless floor coating, but is also urine resistant, anti-slip, and easy to clean.

Silikal is also completely VOC free, it will never ever emit any volatile organic compounds not even when it is being laid, thus no short term nor any long term adverse health effects. Silikal is considered a “green” installation as well and therefore is environmentally friendly. Further, Silikal has earned the OK from both the USDA as well as the FDA for food establishments, thus you know that it is acceptable for the animals coming to your animal clinic.

Silikal utilizes enhanced MMA (methyl methacrylate), which ensures nothing but absolutely nothing will ever seep into or through the animal clinic flooring, and it will not be discolored by animal urine or feces. It will never require resealing either, for Silikal is renowned to be a lifetime flooring.