Commercial floors built for a working site
If you are reading this, the floor has probably already told you it is finished. Bare concrete dusts up and coats everything on the shelves, a patched coating from years ago is lifting in sheets around the roller door, and the wash down at the end of the day takes twice as long as it should because the slab has soaked up years of oil and will not come clean no matter what goes on the mop.
Evo Epoxy Flooring is based in Kellyville and coats commercial floors across the Hills District and North West Sydney. Kian Khadivi runs the jobs and Nasser has been on the tools since 2001. We take on warehouses, workshops, commercial kitchens, showrooms and shopfronts, and we are a local operator rather than a national contractor, so we would rather be straight about the size of the work we take on than talk you into something and then stretch to cover it.
Get a Free QuoteWhat a working floor has to survive
A floor in a working business gets a much harder life than one in a house, and it gets it every single day.
- Wheeled traffic: forklifts, pallet jacks, trolleys and hand trucks all put point loads through a floor, and they concentrate the wear into the same lanes day after day.
- Dropped weight: tools, stock, parts and the corner of something heavy coming off a pallet. Impact is what chips a poorly prepared floor.
- Oil and chemical spills: hydraulic fluid, degreaser, coolant and cleaning products. On bare concrete these soak in and stay, and on a coated floor they sit on the surface until someone wipes them up.
- Constant foot traffic: the path from the door to the counter, or from the bench to the store, gets more use in a month than a home floor gets in a year.
- Wash downs: water, detergent and a pressure washer are hard on a surface that was never sealed to cope with them.
Bare concrete wears down under all of that. It dusts, it stains and it pits along the wheel paths, and the dust it releases ends up in your stock and on your equipment.
Preparing a floor that is already in use
Preparation decides how long a commercial floor lasts, and a floor that has been in service is harder to prepare than a fresh slab.
We mechanically grind the surface back to give the coating something to key into. On a floor that has been working, that also means dealing with what is already in the concrete. Oil that has soaked in has to be drawn out and the contaminated surface taken off, because a coating will not bond to a slab full of hydraulic fluid. Old failing coatings have to come up rather than be coated over, and cracks, holes and spalled patches around the door line get filled and made good.
We also look at what the slab is doing before we commit to a product. Moisture moving up through a slab is one of the main reasons coatings fail, and it is far cheaper to find that during the site visit than after the floor is down.
Grinding is dusty work. We run vacuum extraction off the machines and section off the area we are working in, which matters more in a business than it does in a house, because your stock, your benches and your equipment are all sitting right there.
Line marking and floor definition
Once a floor is coated it can start doing a job beyond looking tidy. Walkways, pallet bays, racking footprints, keep clear zones around switchboards and doors, parking bays in a showroom, or a marked route from the customer entrance to the counter can all be set out as part of the work.
Our preferred product is EPO100L Line Marking Tinted Epoxy from All Purpose Coatings, a two pack epoxy formulated as a stand alone line marking coating for floors and walls, and it is available in all Australian standard safety colours. Where a marked area also needs grip underfoot, a medium such as silica sand or crushed glass can be added to the coating.
Marked lines that are part of the floor behave differently to tape stuck on top of it. They do not lift at the edges, they survive a scrubber, and they stay legible under traffic.
It is worth thinking about the layout before we start rather than after. Bays and walkways are straightforward to set out while the floor is clear, and a nuisance to add once everything is back in position.
Wheel stops, speed ramps and bollards
Setting a site out usually runs into the same conversation about the hardware that goes with the paint. We supply and install wheel stops so cars pull up where the bay says they should, speed ramps where traffic needs slowing down, and bollards to keep vehicles away from switchboards, doorways, racking and anything else that is expensive to repair. It is straightforward work, and it makes far more sense to do it while the floor is clear and the bays are being set out than to come back later and drill into a finished floor.
Downtime costs more than the coating does
Nobody running a business is weighing up a floor coating on the coating alone. They are weighing up how many days the workshop is not turning over, or how many days the shop cannot open.
That is the conversation we have first. Before anything is quoted we want to know when you trade, what has to keep moving while we are there, and what can be shut down. From there the usual answers are working in sections so part of the floor stays in use while we move across, working outside trading hours, or working through a shutdown period you already have booked.
Whatever we agree on, you get the timings up front. A coated floor has to cure before it takes foot traffic, and it needs longer again before wheeled traffic goes back on it. Those windows depend on the product and the conditions on site, so Kian gives you the real numbers for your job and we plan the sequence so nothing goes back on the floor too early.
Grip, wash downs and commercial kitchens
A commercial floor has people moving on it while carrying things, and often moving on it while it is wet. Grip is a safety question rather than a finish preference, so the amount of texture is chosen for the space and how it gets used. A wash down area or a ramp needs more grip than a showroom does. More texture holds more dirt and takes more effort to clean, so there is a trade off, and we match it to what the space actually does rather than applying the same finish everywhere.
Why a sealed floor cleans up faster
Bare concrete is porous. Spills go into it, dust comes out of it, and no amount of scrubbing gets a stain back out once it has soaked in. A sealed floor has no open surface for any of that. Oil sits on top and wipes up, the slab stops generating dust onto your stock and equipment, and a mop or an auto scrubber goes over the surface instead of fighting it.
Commercial kitchen floors
A commercial kitchen asks more of a floor than most spaces we coat. It is wet for a good part of the day, it takes hot water and strong cleaning products across it, and people are moving quickly on it carrying things. That pushes the specification towards more grip and a coating that copes with repeated wash downs, and it usually means talking about coving the floor up into the wall so there is no open junction sitting there collecting water. We work that out on site with you rather than quoting a kitchen the same way we would quote a showroom.
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0468 333 881sales@evoepoxy.com.auWe work out of Kellyville and cover Castle Hill, Kellyville Ridge, Bella Vista, Norwest, Baulkham Hills, Rouse Hill, Beaumont Hills, Glenhaven, Dural, Kenthurst, Box Hill, Stanhope Gardens, Glenwood, Parklea, The Ponds, Schofields, Winston Hills, Seven Hills, Northmead and Marsden Park.
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Free on-site assessment and a fixed written quote, planned around the hours you trade.
Frequently asked questions
Can you coat the floor without shutting us down completely?
Usually, yes. Most sites are done in sections so part of the floor stays in use while we work on the rest, or done outside trading hours. Which one suits depends on your layout and how much of the space has to keep moving, and that is the first thing we work out on the site visit.
Our floor has a coating on it now and it is peeling. Can you go over the top?
A new coating is only ever as good as what it is stuck to, so a failing coating has to come up and the slab has to be prepared back to sound concrete first. Coating over the top of it would give you the same problem again in a year.
How long before a forklift can go back on it?
Longer than the wait for foot traffic, and longer again than the wait for a car. As a general guide of what typically happens rather than a fixed promise, the polyaspartic topcoats we prefer take light foot traffic in around five to six hours and light vehicle traffic in around twenty four hours, and reach full chemical cure somewhere between three and seven days depending on the system. Heavier wheeled traffic waits longer than that, and forklifts are exactly the traffic that punishes a floor put back into service early. Temperature, humidity and the conditions on site all move those numbers, so Kian confirms the real timings for your job before we start and we sequence the work so you are not tempted to put weight on it early.
Can you mark out walkways and pallet bays as part of the job?
Yes. Our preferred line marking product comes in the Australian standard safety colours, and it is far easier to set out while the floor is clear than to come back and add it later.
Do you coat commercial kitchen floors?
Yes. A kitchen is wet for much of the day and takes hot water and strong cleaning products, so it is specified differently to a showroom or a storage area. That usually means more grip underfoot and a conversation about coving the floor up into the wall so there is no open junction collecting water. We work it out on site.
Evo Epoxy Flooring
2 Affleck Cct, Kellyville NSW 2155
Servicing the Hills District & North West Sydney