Ready To Improve The Condition Of Your Facility's Floor?

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repaining holes in flooring with a filler

Ensuring a well‑maintained floor surface is important for many reasons. Reducing the risk of damage and making use of solutions such as specialist coatings, helps to reduce the risk of accidents and creates a more efficient operation.

Undertaking a full floor inspection, and completing floor maintenance and refurbishment can feel like a daunting task, however, taking these steps will help protect the surface and reduce the impact of wear and tear. This makes the maintenance and repair work required in the longer term much more manageable.

Here, Watco breaks down the three key areas from their new downloadable Guide to Achieving the Best Floor:

Download the FREE guide here

1. Repair

Inspecting your entire facility floor is an essential first step. At this stage, you can identify where damage needs repairing and if there are any signs of damp that need to be addressed in order to create a solid foundation for the ongoing refurbishment.

When it comes to smaller cracks and irregular surface damage, an epoxy resin repair mortar – Watco Concrex Carbon Fibre – is easy to apply and its carbon fibre reinforced formula ensures superior strength and durability for your repair. However, for larger repairs such as holes or wide cracks, choose a pourable mortar, such as Watco Flowpatch for a long‑lasting solution.

Another common issue to address before repairing or refurbishing your floor is damp and any patches of excess moisture in floors. In areas with low level damp, a fibre reinforced leveller, such as Watco Flowtop, can be used to resurface the concrete floor and protect the surface from moisture penetration.

However, in areas with more significant damp, for example, where there is evidence of standing water, you should apply a damp proof membrane to hold the damp back, such as Watco Epoxy Damp Proof Membrane, which withstands 98% humidity.

a level floor once the holes and imperfections have been filled in

2. Prepare

Once your floor is in good condition, you can look at the benefits of specialist coatings. For example, where anti slip coatings would help to reduce the risk of slips on spillages by increasing the grip underfoot. To get long‑lasting cover, that looks great, the right floor preparation is important.

First, sweep the floor with a stiff broom to remove any dust or loose material. Stubborn dirt, oil or grease stains can be tackled with Watco Bio D, which is a heavy‑duty, low odour biodegradable cleaner that cuts through these contaminants. For new bare concrete, an acid etcher such as Watco Etch & Clean will remove surface laitance and neutralise excess alkalinity so the paint can bond to solid material.

a floor being brushed

3. Paint

Now the floor has been prepared, it is ready for painting.

There are five main categories of floor paint: polyurethane, epoxy resin, polyaspartic, acrylic, and chlorinated rubber. Each category has different properties and benefits, so it's important to do your research in order to select the best one for your floor and usage.

In addition to protecting the floor surface from chemicals, damp and general wear, the right coating can also be used to reduce the risk of accidents in your facility. Watco Safety Coat has been developed with textured beads which decrease the potential for slips, but are fine enough not to catch up on mops so that cleaning processes can still be upheld.

Watco flooring safety coat

Learn more about the three stages for free by reading Watco's Guide to Achieving the Best Floor below:

Download Watco's FREE eBook now