When choosing between
types of commercial flooring it’s easy to focus entirely on your immediate needs. However, that may be a mistake considering the long-term costs. Different types of flooring require various levels of maintenance, and some will ultimately have a much higher TCO than others. In most cases, your best choice will likely be the one that’s more affordable to maintain, yet durable and compliant. There are many factors which affect long-term maintenance costs. We have provided some of the more pertinent considerations when budgeting for future floor repairs.
There are plenty of factors to consider when building
or renovating a grocery store, supermarket, deli, or similar business. You have a lot of compliance regulations to adhere to, plus you have to create a space that’s safe and attractive for visitors. In these situations, it’s easy to overlook matters like flooring – but you shouldn’t.
Too often we see grocers who have made the wrong decision in flooring simply because they “thought” it was the more cost-effective system – using vinyl tiles that started becoming damaged within a matter of months. Repairing the flooring in an active store ends up costing more for the store owners in repairs and downtime and, in extreme situations, can result in lawsuits from patrons who have fallen or become injured due to a broken floor.
Often overlooked yet fairly prominent in the manufacturing
space, casket production facilities adhere to strict compliance when it comes to industrial flooring. There are several different areas within a casket manufacturing plant including receiving bays for lumber and materials, production spaces, shipping areas, and the typical lavatories, lockers, break rooms and office spaces. And with so much of the labor requiring employees to be on their feet most of the day, it’s important that an industrial floor system provides a safe working environment to avoid any on-site incidents.
Flooring in any retail space will need to stand up to a lot of abuse, but the flooring in a liquor store has unique stressors that can take its toll on the integrity of the floor. A liquor store owner needs flooring which is not only budget friendly but will also be able to last for many years with minimal maintenance – no matter what the products or the customers might do to it.
For many liquor store owners, the solution is simple: concrete topped with a resinous coating, such as epoxy. Epoxy resin can stand up to all the demands of a liquor store, while providing a flooring surface with the potential to last decades.
When engineering a cancer diagnostic center and similar clean rooms you must consider the hygienic and compliance that starts from the ground up.
A medical clean room must be capable of being completely sterilized to provide a safe and usable floor that both patients and staff can walk upon without incident.
There are only a handful of flooring types that are even capable of meeting these – and polyurethane flooring is among the best.
A concrete layer topped with polyurethane coating can easily meet the needs of clean rooms and cancer diagnostic centers, while fitting within tight hospital facility budgets.
One of the most important decisions municipalities face when renovating or developing new construction, is the type of flooring to install for buildings and grounds. A cost effective solution that fits the government’s budget and will last longer under substantial stressors is typically sought which is why more towns and municipalities look to concrete and resinous coatings to get the job 
done.
A resinous floor coating, made of substances such as epoxy, MMA, or polyurethane, meets all those criteria easily. Resinous coatings are extremely strong and durable, while creating a single continuous flooring surface that is easy to clean. However, with numerous options still available, it’s hard to know which one is the right solution.
The flooring within a fire station needs to be able to withstand intense stressors, but without ever inhibiting the activities of the firefighters and their equipment. That can be a difficult task to achieve. Fire station floors will see heavy traffic, as well as the near-constant movement of weighty vehicles, bulky gear, and mobile equipment. The floor needs to be able to withstand hard item drops without incurring damage.
It’s a tall order, but one that is necessary for ensuring the safety of the firefighters, as well as the community. Flooring solutions ideal for fire stations includes resinous coatings. A concrete floor coated with either epoxy or urethane will be able to serve a fire station without fail for longer than other systems while remaining easy to maintain.
There’s no “one size fits all” solution to flooring for educational buildings. Schools and university floor solutions must be engineered specifically to fit the use of the space – only then can you create an environment that protects students and visitors and stands the test of time.
Black Bear partners with colleges and universities to develop and install resinous systems and concrete coatings for different areas on campus. Each floor is reverse-engineered for optimal results based on the individual stressors of the space. Continue reading this blog post to learn about some of the top areas of flooring for educational buildings that we often work with:
No matter the application, a flooring solution needs to be durable – and those on a college campus are no exception. In fact, collegiate flooring takes quite the beating. With countless students, faculty, and guests walking on them every day, you need a truly robust floor that can stand up to some of the most aggressive stressors. This is particularly true for science labs and classrooms of specific study taking place with hostile elements. The harmful agents are amplified with the addition of chemicals and heavy equipment often found in these buildings. Fortunately, there are science lab flooring solutions which can stand up to even the level of abuse which can be expected of a college science lab – such as concrete coated with polyurethane.
There’s a lot more to creating a perfect concrete flooring solution than simply hiring a quality concrete contractor. Concrete is a great basis for virtually any kind of commercial or industrial flooring, but that is only the starting point. The right contractor can guide you through the choices to be made and help ensure you receive a floor which will meet all the demands of your business, while also looking nice.
Here are some of the key aspects to consider when laying down a concrete flooring solution.
