Protecting the Floors in Your Commercial Office Space This Winter

There’s no deny­ing that win­ter has got­ten off to an unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly slow start here in New Eng­land. This has been a nice change of pace over­all, but also is cer­tain­ly going to be short-lived. As New Eng­lan­ders say, if you don’t like the weath­er just wait a minute.

Just as clean side­walks and roads can turn overnight into murky slush pud­dles and frozen, salty ponds, the floors in your com­mer­cial office space are also in for a rude awak­en­ing. Are you prepared?

What Will Your Office Floors Face This Winter?

• Rock salt (sodi­um chlo­ride) scratch­es and gouges floor­ing sur­faces as it’s ground under­foot into the sub­strate, and leaves a tell-tale pow­dery residue.
• Ice melt is espe­cial­ly dev­as­tat­ing because of its harsh chem­i­cal ingre­di­ents, and can melt wax and ure­thane fin­ish­es. Not only is this destruc­tive, but it also cre­ates a slip­pery, haz­ardous surface.
• Ice melt prod­ucts and salt also can dam­age your car­pet by caus­ing both col­or-fad­ing and a break­down of the fibers.
• Expo­sure to mois­ture dam­ages hard­wood floor­ing and caus­es dis­col­oration near door­ways, espe­cial­ly where water often stands and sat­u­rates the surface.

4 Tips for Min­i­miz­ing Floor Damage

Don’t wor­ry! Mov­ing to a warmer cli­mate isn’t the only way to save your floors from cost­ly dam­age this win­ter. Tak­ing a proac­tive atti­tude can go a long way, both pro­tect­ing your sur­faces and improv­ing the safe­ty of your facility.

• Sweep/​vacuum fre­quent­ly, cut­ting down on the time that the sand, salt, and ice melt sits on your floor.
• Place a heavy-duty mat by the door to catch all that ini­tial­ly falls off your clients’ and guests’ shoes. If pos­si­ble, also run a scraper mat out­side the door (the longer the bet­ter). The ribbed sur­face will help to trap contaminants.
• Don’t allow water to stand. Pud­dles will quick­ly dam­age wood, and can cause a host of issues for car­pet­ing (includ­ing the growth of mold).
• Adopt a more intense clean­ing reg­i­men. Fre­quent vac­u­um­ing and mop­ping will reduce the issues and decay that sus­tained expo­sure to sand, salt, water, and ice melt prod­ucts creates.

What Is the Tough­est Floor Covering?

When epoxy floor­ing is cured, it becomes one of the strongest com­mer­cial floor coat­ings avail­able. Because of its heat and water resis­tance and abil­i­ty to with­stand pres­sure from foot traf­fic and equip­ment, epoxy floor coat­ings are con­sid­ered one of the tough­est floor coat­ings. If main­tained prop­er­ly, they are resis­tant to bac­te­ria; repel liq­uid, oil, grease, and more; and can last decades with­out peel­ing or cracking.

Why Should You Con­sid­er an Epoxy Floor System?

You might think that epoxy floor­ing is geared more toward meet­ing the needs of indus­tri­al spaces, but that sim­ply isn’t the case. They do per­form beau­ti­ful­ly in those envi­ron­ments, but they also can be an attrac­tive, cus­tomiz­able option for com­mer­cial office spaces. Dec­o­ra­tive flakes can be added and spe­cif­ic col­ors achieved, all with the goal of cre­at­ing an aes­thet­i­cal­ly-pleas­ing floor.

But beyond beau­ty alone, epoxy floors are a work­horse. They’re durable, mois­ture-resis­tant, and seam­less (no cracks or crevices). And, as an added win­ter­time ben­e­fit, they also are slip-resistant.

What could be better?

Can We Answer Your Com­mer­cial Or Indus­tri­al Floor­ing Questions?

Be sure to con­tact us at Kaloutas’s indus­tri­al floor­ing divi­sion to dis­cuss your spe­cif­ic floor­ing ques­tions. We are pas­sion­ate about find­ing the per­fect solu­tion to meet our clients’ needs, and work with the con­fi­dence and exper­tise that comes from hav­ing over 30 years of indus­try experience.

Kaloutas is New Eng­land’s pre­mier con­trac­tor for com­mer­cial & indus­tri­al paint­ing, floor­ing, and relat­ed ser­vices. Estab­lished in 1987, Kaloutas has become a trust­ed resource for gen­er­al con­trac­tors, facil­i­ties man­agers, and build­ing own­ers from Con­necti­cut to Maine. Our team prides itself on high qual­i­ty work­man­ship, jobs done on time & bud­get, and tack­ling com­plex projects that oth­er con­trac­tors don’t have the expe­ri­ence or resources to han­dle. Con­tact us today for a paint­ing or floor­ing esti­mate, or give us a call at 978−532−1414 to learn more.