Start the New Year With a Firm Foundation at Your feet

Shutdowns over the festive season can provide businesses with refurbishment gifts to help them prosper once the holidays are over.

Processing and manufacturing centres can use the closure period this year to install a new floor finish with the minimum of hassle. An investment like this is a great way to boost a building’s potential for many years to come.

After extensive use floors can become damaged and unsightly due to the demands placed on them. These can include heavy physical impacts, high temperatures, corrosion from oils and sugars, chemical attacks, challenging hygiene requirements and even having limited windows of time to refurbish and repair.

Alan Dean, Flowcrete UK managing director, said: "Usually a floor is the part of a building subjected to the most stress and strain - taking far more weight and movement than other parts of the structure.

"Therefore, it is important a building has a robust platform underfoot to cope with the day-to-day demands placed on it.

"That means a floor finish that can withstand factors such as wheeled traffic from fork lift trucks, trolleys and other machinery in use, resistance to any chemicals that might come into contact with the surface and any impacts that might be encountered too.

"Extremes of temperature also need to be considered.”

In many commercial and industrial environments any loss of integrity could lead to potential health and safety problems such as bacteria build up and slippery surfaces. Refurbishment solutions from Flowcrete can give floors a new lease of life by providing robust, hygienic and colourful platforms.

Mr Dean added: "A correctly specified floor will provide a safer, brighter, hard-wearing environment, and aid safety on site, helping to reduce the chances of slips and trips and supporting a well-structured workflow program with the opportunity to introduce lineage and marked out walkways within the floor design.

"Crucially, once applied, a properly specified floor will also last for the long term, meaning that the refurbishment of surfaces does not need to become an annual event, ensuring environmental and economic benefits.”

Specifiers can find out more about how they can improve their floors over the Christmas shutdown with the online guides produced by Flowcrete UK. The different grades of resin flooring are discussed in the guides, allowing decision makers to come to an informed choice about which is the right type of finish for them.

Included are the facts and figures that illustrate the problems Flowcrete can help to overcome. For example 35,000 slips and trips are reported each year, a workplace danger that can be drastically reduced with a floor finish designed to reduce this risk.

The guides also detail the benefits to an organisation of the innovative Flowfast finish that uses advanced MMA resin technology to significantly speed up refurbishment projects.

Only two hours after application a Flowfast floor is ready to withstand the rigorous demands of manufacturing. This limits the required downtime, saving businesses time and money whilst providing them with a new, hardwearing floor that they can get to work on the same day.

Additionally this floor offers a good level of slip-resistance and because it is seamless it is easy to clean and maintain, making it the perfect choice when an attractive floor needs to be installed fast.

Ensuring stringent hygiene standards is a vital priority in many sectors, especially food and beverage processing facilities. In the guides you can find out how Flowfresh, a seamless polyurethane resin floor finish, is proven to inhibit the growth of most types of harmful bacteria that reach the floor.

The inclusion of a special additive called Polygiene® gives Flowfresh its pathogen inhibiting properties. The silver ions that Polygiene® emits can target salmonella, E-coli and many types of bacteria and yeast - helping to stop the spread of harmful germs.