Flooring for Concrete Slab Investigated

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.

Floor Water Barrier Systems & Why They Are Necessary

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.

LEED Floor System: A Small Part in a Big Picture

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.

Pharmaceutical Flooring Offers New Solutions to Old Problems

Pharmaceutical Flooring: Where Flooring Matters

If you picture in your mind what a pharmacy looks like, and then zero in on the floor of said pharmacy constructed in your mind, the pharmaceutical flooring would be rather special. It would be scrupulously clean, gleaming in fact. The corners would harbor no dirt whatsoever and there would be no chinks in its armor preventing any dirt from entering the floor to the substrate. In fact that floor would meet or even exceed the necessary FDA and USDA requirements.

If truth be told, that floor would be chemically resistant to all manner of chemicals, be completely anti-slip to all foot traffic, and would even be resistant to forklift traffic. This means that the flooring items would not allow a break in the important bond found on that flooring to permit dirt, microbes or anything that else that might interfere with it being dust free and totally clean. Silikal fits all of these high demands for pharmaceutical flooring.

It is particularly hygienic since it is seamless, in addition to being non-porous. This is an important fact as germs and bacteria have nothing to attach to. Thus this joint-free flooring will have a high gloss to it, a finish that will completely eliminate all crevices and cracks found in other flooring. Now all the cleaning crew of that pharmacy needs to do is to easily clean it to decontaminate it. Now, that’s fighting bacteria at ground level!

The technical properties of Silikal mean that there are no VOCs whatsoever in the product, thus there are never any fumes to deal with. Its high durability means that your pharmacy can be open 24 hours a day without having to deal with toxic cleaning solutions, that’s how easy the cleanup will be with Silikal. High durability also means that you won’t be out of commission for expensive repair work either that can destroy or mar the sterile processing environments that you work so hard to maintain in your pharmacy. In addition, Silikal is anti-static as well. This permits highly sensitive electronic apparatus to fully operate without disruption of that pharmaceutical environment.

Pharmaceutical flooring extends to pharmaceutical warehouses as well. Thus Silikal is completely ideal for such industrial flooring. Therefore Silikal floors are very commonly utilized for industrial concrete pharmaceutical warehouses. Silikal is proud to say that the floors that have been installed in such pharmaceutical warehouses have stood up magnificently to the frequent cleaning as well as the known harsh sanitizing agents used for such cleaning. Silikal is exceedingly proud to say that there are no contaminants that can enter a Silikal floor.

If and when you decide on pharmaceutical flooring, do remember that Silikal is the only product that utilizes “enhanced” MMA. That’s what makes Silikal completely unique with regard to flooring for pharmaceutical locales.

Self Leveling Floor Underlayment: A Below Deck Dream

Self Leveling Floor Underlayment Finds Purpose In Old Floor Restoration

Often people think that the only kind of underlayment there can be is the padding that goes under a carpet, but in essence that’s what an underlayment does and that’s where it got its name from as it lays under something else. There are some concrete floors that are very severely damaged, thus prior to laying a floor down over it, something has to be done to make it stable enough to receive some floor treatment or other. Often a shotblaster becomes the proper solution to those larger problem floor conditions. A shotblaster is a mechanical machine that literally shoots various sized shot at the flooring so that eventually the floor is basically flat and debris free as possible all ready to receive a self leveling floor underlayment. The shotblaster has its own vacuum system, thus clean up of debris is nominal at best.

As you can imagine having a self-leveling floor underlayment is of extreme importance. At least the self-leveling part of it is. Basically in a liquid form, a self-leveling floor underlayment will seek its own level, much as water does, so that when dried or cured, it creates a completely flat underlayment.

There are definitely exceptions though to having to use a self leveling floor underlayment which could save a tremendous amount of time should an underlayment found to be unnecessary, not to mention the cost that could be saved. For instance, when you have Silikal come to you to give you an estimate, they may well respond that instead of using an underlayment, that instead their product known as SILIKAL® R 62 resin may be utilized instead. This Silikal product is actually a reactive, slightly elasticized resin that can actually be utilized for self-leveling coatings. This then can actually bypass the underlayment process entirely, saving a great deal of time, energy, and cost.

The above named Silikal product is actually characterized by good quality flow properties. Do take note of the word elastic in the description. This is extremely important when using the product on wooden floors that could conceivably move ever so slightly when weight is put on them. By being slightly elasticized this will not cause the resin to break at any time. This kind of advanced product is what has made Silikal rise to be at the very top of flooring products as you can well imagine. Their constant laboratory tests have made their products the best in the world.