CASE HISTORY:

• Shortly after the installation of an elastomeric coating on this 1,000 square foot meat room floor in Wal-Mart, many areas began to fail.
• The sub-contractor had used another installer that was not familiar with the installed coating, which lead to several sections of the floor being improperly mixed and placed. Quite a few areas of the coating were to thick while other areas had very little coating covering the concrete at all. The thin sections had failed in many sections through out the meat room creating serious trip hazards.
• Instead of using colored quartz aggregate, a Wal-Mart specification, colored latex paint chips along with sand was broadcast into the coating in order to create a non-skid surface.
• The total floor installation was very inconsistent in color, texture and overall film thickness.
• Down time was a critical concern of Wal-Mart since the previous coating application took several days to complete.
• The floor system requested by the owner needed to be long lasting, easy to repair, easy to clean, have a non-skid texture and very little odor.

 SOLUTION & SURFACE PREPARATION:

• The contractor requesting assistance in repairing the floor contacted ESI in order to find a floor coating specialists that had the equipment and expertise to remove the old failed system and then replace it with an acceptable product.
• SparThane by ESI was recommended as the product to replace the failed system.
• Golden Floor Preparation, located in Golden, Colorado was contracted to completely remove and replace the failed system with the new SparThane membrane.
• The surface preparation required the use of a large SASE floor grinder, Saw-Tec grinders, pneumatic chisels and manual scrappers in order to properly remove the failed elastomeric coating. Once the actual coating was thoroughly removed, the floor was shot blasted using a portable Blastrac machine.
• Once the shot blasting procedure was complete, Golden Floor crews went to work building up and leveling the areas around each floor drain section using special epoxy mix slurry.
• Major random cracks in the floor were also repaired using a special epoxy resin that was quick drying.

 MATERIAL:

• Products specified:
  

  1. Primer - PoxyPrime EPS-LT a 100% solids epoxy primer with a ratio of 3:1 was specified.
  2. Base Coat - U-THANE 60 is 100% solids, 3:1 ratio, and plural component, flexible, elastomeric coating system developed to go directly over the PoxyPrime EPS-LT primer.
  3. Top Coat - PolySpar FL is a 1:3 ratio, aliphatic polyaspartic coating system that is color stable, retains an excellent sheen, and is highly abrasive resistant.

 INSTALLATION:

• Once the entire floor preparation procedure was completed, the Golden Floor crew mixed the PoxyPrime EPS-LT primer, then using a squeegee and 18 inch commercial rollers, laid down the primer at a coverage rate of 200-250 square feet per gallon.
• During the installation of the primer, a uniform coat of the specified colored quartz aggregate was blown into the primer and then allowed to dry for 2-3 hours before installing the U-THANE 60 base coat.
• Applied using the same technique as the primer, U-THANE 60 was installed at approximately 30 mils. During the application period colored quartz aggregate was once again blown into the U-THANE until refusal. After the coating was allowed to cure, (3-4 hours) the excess aggregate was swept up and then vacuumed from the floor.
• Installation of the PolySpar FL was also conducted in the same fashion and using the same tools as both the primer and base coats. PolySpar FL was applied at an average coverage rate of 70-80 square feet per gallon.
• The entire project, including surface preparation and installation of the SparThane system was completed in less than 72 hours.