10 Great Reasons To Choose Epoxy Resin Paints
Floor Paint vs Epoxy Paint
Painting a floor can be a large job, and a costly one. In a commercial situation such as a warehouse, manufacturing plant, even in a shopping centre car park, painting can be disruptive and lead to lost revenue through the need to restrict access to the area as well as the cost of employing a contractor of taking staff away from other jobs.
When you first start planning a project traditional floor paints will often look cheaper and seem easier to apply, resulting in less time lost. However, standard paints are prone to chipping, flaking and peeling and may only retain their pristineness for a couple of months before they start to show the signs of serious wear and tear, particularly in heavily trafficked areas.
Two part epoxy resin paints are different. Essentially, they ‘cure’ rather than ‘dry’. This curing process creates a super hard surface that seals the porous concrete so foreign substances like dirt, oil and even water will simply sit on top rather than penetrate the coating and floor, corroding it and causing damage.
Epoxy paints have a number of benefits including:
Long Lasting, Hard Wearing Finish: Epoxy coatings and floor paints create a much more resilient finish that is able to withstand frequent use from pedestrians and forklifts to cars and HGVs in loading bays. So long as preparation and application is done correctly, an epoxy floor can last several years or more. Because you don’t need to repaint as often you spend less time disrupting your business and therefore save more, even though the initial outlay may be higher than traditional floor paints.
Resilience To Oils, Grease, Chemicals, Etc: Epoxy floor paints are great at repelling potentially harmful substances like hydraulic fluids, diesel, even industrial chemicals. This prevents damage to the underlying floor and means your paint job will last longer.
Quick & Easy To Apply: Whilst it will take longer to apply epoxy paints, it isn’t as long and as difficult as many people think. Most modern epoxy coatings are easy to mix, simply to apply using a roller, squeegee or sprayer. If you chose one of the rapid curing mixes your floor can be back in use in as little as 3 - 6 hours.
Hygienic & Easy To Clean: Thanks to the hard surface that epoxy coatings create they naturally repel dirt and grease. This makes them much easier to clean that peeling, flaking and cracked floors. Because they have these exceptional cleanliness properties, epoxy floors are ideal for use in commercial food preparation areas.
Create A Glossy, Bright Surface: With epoxy floor paints you can choose to create a gloss finish that is great a reflecting light and can improve brightness in areas using artificial light. Specialist sealers can also be applied to prevent fading of colours if you are painting an area exposed to natural sunlight.
Suitable For a Range of Surfaces: You can use epoxy paints on concrete floors and walls, metal surfaces, wooden decking, stone tiles, block paving, mezzanine levels, steps and a whole range of other surfaces.
Can Be Made Anti-Slip: Help prevent accidents around the workplace by adding an aggregate to your 2 pack epoxy paint and turning it into a grip paint. Different sized aggregates serve different purposes so you can create anti-slip walkways and stairs all the way up to solutions for vehicle ramps and loading bays. This not only prevents pedestrians from slipping, it can help prevent forklifts and trucks skidding on wet or slippery surfaces.
Create Visual Demarcation Zones: Epoxy paints are now available in a range of colours. This lets you create visually distinct zones on floors that indicate where people should or shouldn’t be walking, locations for safe storage, vehicle access areas and a range of other safety solutions.
Requires Little or No Maintenance: Because epoxy coatings are so durable they require much less attention than traditional floors. You’ll spend much less time patching up scratches and cleaning stains, reducing the need to put parts of the floor out of action whilst you perform repairs.
More Environmentally Friendly: The epoxy resin paints available from RM Suppliers have been designed to be both user and environmentally friendly. Because you have to repaint surfaces less often you also use less product overall.
Not all epoxy paints are created equally. It’s now possible to buy 1 part or single part epoxy paints that have epoxy mixed in with traditional paint to create a ‘halfway’ solution. These paints are tougher than normal floor paint but remain just as quick and easy to apply. However, they don’t have the resilience associated with the 2 part epoxy resin paints the RM Suppliers specialise in so won’t provide the same amount of protection and longevity.
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