Seamless Floors Keep Maintenance Simple, Offer Performance, Flexibility

Planners choosing flooring materials should consider the big picture when they are addressing ease of maintenance. There are endless options in colors and style; you can find that in most every category of flooring, but finding a floor that meshes with overall design, meets all the performance standards and promises to be easy to clean can be challenge, however it is critical due to the traffic, messes and day to day wear and tear on a school floor. Planners should look for seamless, resinous hard surface floors, such as epoxy and urethane poured floors. These “hard” surfaces are resilient, but seamless is the key. Seams and grout lines collect dirt. Dirt invites bacteria. This is not only a maintenance problem, but also a health issue.

Seamless surfaces can work just about everywhere, from kitchens to locker rooms to corridors and classrooms. The design elements provide tremendous design flexibility; you can incorporate shapes, designs and custom colors to define a space any way you chose without sacrificing performance characteristics (stain, abrasion and impact resistance) and ease of cleaning. Think for example about the popularity of the multi-purpose room. This room’s purpose might change over eight times in one day. The floor stays the same, but the uses vary and everyone’s needs are accommodated. More importantly, the maintenance staff can move in and out of the room quickly to ready the floor and the room for the next function. A seamless, resilient system meets all these needs, plus keeps noise down and is easy under foot.

In addition, seamless, non-wax surfaces are sustainable; a non-wax surface will result in lower life-cycle costs. Also, the use of a urethane-based seamless systems provides increased chemical and stain resistance, particularly in laboratory applications.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

About the Author

Kendall Speer Ellis is the Marketing manager for The Stonhard Group. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • UNH Marks Construction Milestone on Oceanic Exploration Facility

    The University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., recently celebrated a major construction milestone with a beam-signing ceremony for the new Center of Excellence for Operational Ocean and Great Lakes Mapping, according to a news release. The facility’s ultimate goal is to support research, training and technical assistance in ocean mapping.

  • Myrtle Grove Elementary

    Phased Construction Keeps Students on Campus During Rebuild

    When Escambia County School District needed to replace most of Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Pensacola, Fla., it had three distinct challenges: honor the school's legacy in the community, bring state-of-the-art learning environments to the county, and be seamlessly built on the same site as the active school campus.

  • Campus Safety Requires Using Every Resource Available

    Across the U.S., school and campus leaders are facing a security landscape that has changed dramatically over the past decade. Incidents on school property have increased in recent years, with several consecutive years setting record totals. According to analysis of data by CNN, dozens of shootings now occur on school grounds annually across K-12 and higher education environments.

  • ZeroEyes, Academic Innovators Partner to Provide Safety Solutions

    ZeroEyes, which produces a multi-analytics weapons detection and threat intelligence platform, recently announced a partnership with Academic Innovators, according to a news release.