Every building needs flooring, from climate-controlled houses in temperate regions to isolated warehouses near the Arctic Circle. As you can imagine, however, the types of flooring needed in these environments are vastly different.
Flooring that will be subject to extreme temperatures, chemical attack, corrosion, high winds, high moisture levels, and other extreme conditions must be designed to withstand these elements, both at the time of installation and throughout its lifespan.
Below, we’ll explore some toppings and coatings that are designed to withstand cold, heat, and inclement weather, and how they can help your business:
Understanding Extreme Environments
In construction, extreme environments are building environments where challenging conditions create the need for specialized designs. These conditions can include:
- Extreme heat
- Extreme cold
- Dramatic temperature fluctuations
- High winds
- High levels of precipitation
- The presence of salt and saltwater
- The presence of corrosive substances
Already-built environments can be extreme in and of themselves; foundries can become incredibly hot, and manufacturing facilities that create soap can quickly become contaminated by lye.
Extreme environments can also be remote; the challenge of remote environments lies in the expense incurred for repair and maintenance. The more remote an environment is, the more useful it is to install long-lasting flooring; the upfront cost of durable flooring is mitigated by the amount the building owner will save on repairs.
Types Of Concrete Toppings For Extreme Conditions
Companies are constantly formulating new concrete toppings to better serve extreme environments. This is an environmentally-friendly approach, as replacing concrete flooring is a carbon-intensive process. Ideally, concrete coatings should protect from several different angles of attack, offering:
- High abrasion resistance
- High chemical resistance
- High impact resistance
- Excellent corrosion resistance
- Resistance to thermal shock
- Resistance to extreme heat and cold
The coatings must, in many cases, also offer a level of aesthetic appeal; beyond that, they should be easy to maintain. Finally, the coatings must be relatively easy to install, even in extreme conditions.
There are several different concrete toppings that may be used in extreme conditions; the one you will choose for your project depends on the exact conditions you’re facing, how quickly you need the topping to cure, and aesthetic considerations. Here are a few concrete toppings that come to the front of our minds when we think about extreme environments:
Cementitious Urethane
Cementitious urethane is not a true concrete topping; instead, it is a floor coating created by mixing urethane with Portland cement, water, and aggregate. Developed for the food and beverage industry, cementitious urethane provides exceptional chemical resistance and temperature resistance. There are two core advantages to cementitious urethane in extreme environments:
Thermal stability: Cementitious urethane can withstand extreme temperature swings. This makes it an excellent choice for extreme environments, and the perfect topping for facilities that rely on hot washdowns to remove harsh chemicals from floors.
Impervious to liquids: Industries working with harsh chemicals need to wash their flooring regularly; cementitious urethane is the perfect fit, because it’s completely impervious to liquids. You can also install it seamlessly, eliminating the risk of liquids making it to the underlayment through seams.
Epoxy, Polyurethane, And Polyaspartic Coatings
Like cementitious urethane, epoxy, polyurethane, and polyaspartic coatings are, as the name implies, coatings rather than concrete toppings. Each is used in extreme environments for different reasons:
- Polyaspartic coatings cure relatively quickly in cold temperatures
- Polyurethane coatings offer great protection in regions with vibrations
- Epoxy has particularly good chemical resistance
Some polyaspartic and polyurethane coatings also provide exceptional UV resistance, which can make them ideal for outdoor flooring, but be sure to choose the right one if you have high or low temperature swings.
In addition to their innate qualities, all of these floor coatings can be enhanced with additives that provide additional protection.
Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Flooring
Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is a resinous flooring system that is installed on top of existing concrete substrates. When it comes to extreme environments, it’s one of the best flooring systems available. Here’s why:
- MMA is designed to cure in cold temperatures, with some formulations curing at sub-zero temperatures, even below -20°C
- Some formulations can cure in as little as an hour, allowing for installation in extreme environments with rapid turnaround times
- It’s a seamless system; perfect for bacteria-prone spaces like breweries and commercial kitchens
- It has excellent chemical resistance to acids and alkalis
- It handles thermal shock exceptionally well
- It offers high mechanical strength, withstanding heavy machinery, impacts, and abrasion
These qualities make MMA an excellent flooring solution for all kinds of extreme environments, including labs, cold storage warehouses, and commercial food and beverage manufacturing areas.
Installation Considerations
Choosing the right concrete topping for an extreme environment can present a number of challenges, and a fresh set of challenges emerges when it comes to actually installing the material. Concrete toppings are imbued into liquid concrete, and then this freshly placed concrete has to cure. Add epoxy coatings or other concrete coatings into the mix, and cure times can become quite elevated—a challenge for businesses that experience foot traffic or machine traffic daily.
Environmental conditions can also shift dramatically from day to day, especially outdoors or in areas that are not climate-controlled. Wind can dry the material too quickly, leading to cracks, and extremely cold temperatures can make curing next to impossible. Predicting the weather on a given day and waiting until more temperate weather appears is one possible solution, but in some environments, the flooring system you choose must account for worst-case installation scenarios.
Challenges And Solutions
There are several different challenges that can be presented by your environment—here are some of the ways we might approach each challenge:
Challenge: Extreme Temperatures
Our solution will depend on the extreme temperatures you are facing. For cold environments, we might also use heated enclosures to provide a warmer environment in which the coating can cure.
In hot environments, there are many different products and changes that might need to be done for installation and curing; we might also shade the area to reduce the amount of radiant heat the concrete absorbs.
Challenge: Chemical Attack
In the food and beverage industry and the pharmaceutical industry, chemical attack is common, and cementitious urethane is an excellent choice. Its temperature resistance also makes it a wonderful choice for areas with extreme temperatures or in facilities where hot washes are used.
Challenge: Remote Location
In remote locations, durability and longevity are key; your overhead costs will balloon if you need to fly a contractor out every time you need repairs. So product longevity is a big factor to also review with costs.
Future Trends In Concrete Toppings
As the push for sustainability gains steam in the construction industry, we expect to see an increase in the number of concrete toppings available. This trend is compounded by advances in material engineering, which have contributed to a broader understanding of how to imbue concrete with different properties.
We may see concrete toppings that, without coatings, can cure quickly in the cold. We may see concrete toppings that provide incredible resistance to chemical attack, or even self-healing concrete toppings.
This is all speculation, of course—we’re not material engineers—but it’s been truly incredible to see the evolution of concrete, concrete floor coatings, and concrete toppings over the past 20 years. The future looks bright for the industry, and we have more UV-resistant flooring options available than ever before!
Conclusion
Choosing the right concrete toppings, admixtures, and coatings for your environment can help you lower your overhead costs, reduce the need for repairs and replacements, and give you a better, easier-to-maintain flooring system.
This is not something you can simply guess at; even environments that seem similar at a glance may benefit from vastly different flooring systems. At TCF West, we have the expertise to find the right flooring system for your environment. We have a lot of experience installing concrete toppings in Winnipeg. We’ll use that experience to install a high-quality flooring system for your business.
