Industrial and Commercial Coatings can help improve your facility’s safety for pedestrians. But which serves better: pedestrian floor lines or aisles? Here’s the breakdown for when and where to choose one over the other:
Floor Lines:
Looking at the picture, it’s easy to see the benefit in the floor lines. They are highly visible, and pedestrians instantly know to stay within the aisles. But let’s attempt to look beyond the function, and get a closer look at the installation process.
Prepping for Floor Lines:
Floor lines don’t receive the same prep work that coatings typically receive. The problem with diamond grinding for aisles, is that the diamond grinding head is wider than the actual aisle line. So, when you go to install the aisle line, you would see the chewed up concrete. Which would make for an unsightly finish.
So the solution is alcohol wiping the floor to remove any debris or contaminants from the floor. This way, you’ll be able to remove any possible contaminants that may adversely affect the adhesion you’re trying to achieve with your coating.
Epoxy Material:
And that’s all you’ll need with the prep work. But since the prep work is so minimal, you’ll need to apply an epoxy that can doesn’t require aggressive floor preparation. And in the epoxy family, a polyamide epoxy will serve as the choice.
Polyamide epoxies offer excellent adhesion and film flexibility. The adhesion allows it to adhere to unprepped concrete better. And, it’s flexibility allows it to handle fork lift, and pallet jack traffic.
Application
The application process for pedestrian lines is simpler than aisle ways. It’s less invasive. But, it still requires scheduling, to make sure there aren’t any forklifts running at the same time the floor is being installed.
Aside from that, you’ll need to tape out both sides of each line. And then you’ll want to brush and roll your material. It’s important that the installer applies adequate coverage, so that that material completely covers the floor.
And once the material is applied, the installer will want to come back the next day, to apply a clear coat of epoxy ontop of the line. The clear coat can be a 100% solid epoxy, because it’s bonding to the previously applied epoxy. But the goal is to have the clear epoxy overlap the polyamide epoxy, so that it protects the edges.