New Floor Surface Installed Without Break in Production
16th January 2018
Sikafloor supplied the solution when the owners of a tea processing plant required a new surface installed without interruption to warehouse staff or production.
The warehouse floor had become dilapidated over time due to constant use of heavy machinery and foot traffic. The plant’s owners selected contractors Thelwell Flooring to install a new surface which was not only durable enough to withstand the long-term rigours of warehouse activity, it had to be easy to install and fast-curing to ensure production work could continue unencumbered at the plant. Sikafloor®-31 PurCem® possessed all the properties to meet these precise requirements.
Refurbishment work at the plant began in May 2017. A 1,200m2 area of new flooring needed to be installed after the original concrete surface became cracked and broken in places. The first 1mm layer of Sikafloor®-31 PurCem® was installed following repairs to the original substrate which also required decontamination.
A multi-component, cement and aggregate coating with excellent chemical, abrasion and mechanical resistance, Sikafloor®-31 PurCem® is also solvent-free, making it ideal for use in an environment where food is stored or prepared and susceptible to odour contamination. Following the first coat’s application, a second one was installed to the same 1mm thickness.
The floor’s refurbishment was carried out in stages over a period of four months in order to minimise disruption to the plant’s daily operations. For the contractors, this meant weekend and out-of-hours working to ensure newly-laid areas of flooring could meet the demands of forklift and other machine activity when warehouse work resumed at the beginning of the week.
The Sikafloor®-31 PurCem® was installed in two colours throughout the warehouse – grey to denote pedestrian-only areas; blue for forklift traffic.