Six Reasons Flooring Is the Foundation of Your Facility's Success

Your structure’s floor­ing mat­ters, espe­cial­ly if you’re in an indus­tri­al set­ting. Floors can affect a facility’s suc­cess, how peo­ple work in the build­ing, and most impor­tant­ly, occu­pant safe­ty. In this arti­cle, we’ll dis­cuss why floor­ing is a vital fea­ture of your space and a foun­da­tion for success.

Why Is Floor­ing So Important?

Appro­pri­ate and well-main­tained floor­ing in a facil­i­ty is cru­cial for many rea­sons. A busi­ness appears more pro­fes­sion­al and wel­com­ing with the right floor­ing. It is eas­i­er to move around and ensures employ­ee safe­ty as they do their jobs. It’s also impor­tant for com­pli­ance purposes.

The right type of floor­ing can also reduce the ener­gy con­sump­tion of a facil­i­ty. Facil­i­ties can save mon­ey and help the envi­ron­ment by reduc­ing ener­gy usage. All these fac­tors con­tribute to a facil­i­ty’s success.

Why Floor­ing Is the Foun­da­tion of Your Facil­i­ty’s Success

Safe­ty

Safe­ty is para­mount in any facil­i­ty. The type and con­di­tion of your floor­ing deter­mines how safe the space is for employ­ees and every­one who sets foot on the premises.

In var­i­ous indus­tries, facil­i­ties are often char­ac­ter­ized as high-traf­fic and fast-paced. Any tiny mishap, like spilled cof­fee on the floor, may cause a slip-and-fall inci­dent. These seem­ing­ly minor acci­dents should be tak­en seri­ous­ly. In worst-case sce­nar­ios, slip-and-fall vic­tims can suf­fer fatal injuries. Mean­while, the facil­i­ty is like­ly to pay for claims and oth­er consequences.

Anoth­er floor safe­ty risk is elec­tron­ic dis­charge (ESD). It’s a seri­ous threat, espe­cial­ly in facil­i­ties that heav­i­ly rely on elec­tron­ics. At the very least, ESD can cause inter­fer­ence or dam­age to elec­tri­cal equip­ment. At worst, it can set off fires and explo­sions, putting a building’s occu­pants at risk.

Aside from that, germs may accu­mu­late on the floor and spread to oth­er areas. Unhy­gien­ic floor­ing could con­t­a­m­i­nate prod­ucts and put peo­ple’s health at risk. In the health­care indus­try, germs spread­ing around a space can mean a dis­as­ter wait­ing to happen.

Facil­i­ties could min­i­mize all these safe­ty risks with appro­pri­ate and well-main­tained floor­ing. Installing slip-resis­tant floor­ing can pre­vent peo­ple from slip­ping and falling. ESD floor­ing can min­i­mize the dam­age caused by ESD. Addi­tion­al­ly, anti-micro­bial, durable epoxy floor­ing can keep germs at bay.

Effi­cien­cy

Effi­cien­cy direct­ly impacts a facil­i­ty’s com­pet­i­tive­ness, prof­itabil­i­ty, and long-term suc­cess. By striv­ing for effi­cien­cy, your facil­i­ty can enhance its over­all per­for­mance and sustainability.

To make your facil­i­ty process­es and employ­ees more effi­cient, one of the areas to invest in is the floor­ing. This invest­ment can enhance or reduce the effi­cien­cy of your facil­i­ty in var­i­ous ways. For exam­ple, prop­er line strip­ing makes it eas­i­er for your team to locate what they need as they per­form their tasks.

Facil­i­ties are usu­al­ly divid­ed into mul­ti­ple areas to accom­mo­date dif­fer­ent process­es. Prop­er floor mark­ings serve as your employ­ees’ guides. With the help of the mark­ings, employ­ees can effi­cient­ly do their job with­out unnec­es­sary confusion.

Suf­fi­cient trac­tion on the floor is also vital in busy, high-traf­fic areas. Employ­ees can focus more on work when they don’t con­stant­ly wor­ry about slip­ping and falling. This assur­ance enables them to fin­ish their tasks faster.

The abil­i­ty of the floor to absorb sound also mat­ters. Employ­ee pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, per­for­mance, and well-being can all be adverse­ly affect­ed by noise. Impact nois­es, such as those from mov­ing chairs or the con­stant sound of foot­steps, can be high­ly dis­rup­tive. Install floor­ing that min­i­mizes dis­tract­ing sounds so your staff oper­ates more pro­duc­tive­ly. For exist­ing floors, you can apply indus­tri­al floor coat­ings that damp­en sound.

Com­pli­ance

Com­pli­ance is a cru­cial aspect of facil­i­ty man­age­ment. It affects the busi­ness’ per­for­mance, rep­u­ta­tion, and prof­itabil­i­ty. Non-com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments can lead to sev­er­al issues. It includes rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age, hefty fines, fore­clo­sures, and oth­er legal repercussions.

The first step in ensur­ing com­pli­ance is to under­stand the reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments that apply to the facil­i­ty. Reg­u­la­tions that gov­ern sev­er­al aspects of facil­i­ty man­age­ment vary depend­ing on var­i­ous fac­tors. These fac­tors include the busi­ness size, indus­try, and loca­tion. Floor repair con­trac­tors near you are like­ly already aware of these require­ments and can guide you toward compliance.

But irre­spec­tive of the indus­try, a facil­i­ty must fol­low gen­er­al guide­lines on floor­ing. For instance, the Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA) requires walk­ing-work­ing areas to be clean and dry at all times, if possible. 

Mean­while, prop­er­ly main­tained drainage is a must in facil­i­ties with wet process­es. Facil­i­ty man­agers should also pro­vide dry-stand­ing places for employ­ees. Addi­tion­al­ly, walk­ing-work­ing sur­faces must be free of hazards.

Even the seem­ing­ly sim­ple task of adding floor mark­ings needs to be done right. OSHA has a list of mark­ing and mes­sag­ing require­ments that facil­i­ties must fol­low to stay com­pli­ant. All text must be clear and leg­i­ble even from a dis­tance while remain­ing con­cise yet infor­ma­tive. OSHA also spec­i­fied safe­ty sym­bols and graph­ics, col­ors, and sig­nal words to use.

Aes­thet­ics

The aes­thet­ics of any space mat­ters, even if you’re not a cus­tomer-fac­ing busi­ness. It affects how employ­ees feel when work­ing in the facil­i­ty. It also affects how peo­ple per­ceive your business.

The floor is one of the first areas your employ­ees, vis­i­tors, and cus­tomers see when they step inside your premis­es. It is also one of the dirt­i­est parts of the build­ing, espe­cial­ly with high foot traf­fic. A dirty and dull-look­ing floor can leave a neg­a­tive first impres­sion, which isn’t good for any busi­ness. It can put all the mon­ey and time spent per­fect­ing a brand image to waste.

Dull-look­ing floors don’t just leave a neg­a­tive impres­sion and dam­age the brand image. They may also neg­a­tive­ly affect the team’s morale. Dull and unmain­tained floors cre­ate a poor work­ing envi­ron­ment, which will affect your company’s bot­tom line one way or another.

For­tu­nate­ly, many floor­ing options these days com­bine aes­thet­ics with func­tion­al­i­ty. A per­fect exam­ple of this is a pol­ished con­crete floor. It is shiny, extreme­ly durable, and less prone to staining.

Ener­gy Savings

Facil­i­ties use var­i­ous equip­ment and sys­tems that con­sume ener­gy. One of these is the heat­ing, ven­ti­la­tion, and air con­di­tion­ing (HVAC) sys­tem. It is present in near­ly every build­ing and often among the largest ener­gy con­sumers. If you want to reduce your ener­gy bills, con­sid­er installing ener­gy-effi­cient flooring.

Heat­ed and cold air can escape through many areas of a build­ing, includ­ing the floor­ing. On aver­age, 10% of heat is lost through the floor, caus­ing the HVAC sys­tem to work hard­er. As a result, these sys­tems con­sume more ener­gy than nec­es­sary and increase your ener­gy bills. 

If you want to reduce your facil­i­ty’s ener­gy con­sump­tion, one method to con­sid­er is mak­ing your floor­ing ener­gy effi­cient. Ener­gy-effi­cient floor­ing will act as a ther­mal bar­ri­er. It pre­vents warm air from infil­trat­ing the build­ing dur­ing sum­mer and heat escap­ing in win­ter. Aside from that, a floor coat­ing with a high light reflectance val­ue (LRV) can also help. A floor with a high LRV reflects light ener­gy into the space. It ensures the work­place is well-lit with­out increas­ing ener­gy consumption. 

Con­tact Kaloutas for Qual­i­ty Floor­ing Solutions

Kaloutas offers a range of floor­ing solu­tions for facil­i­ties in var­i­ous indus­tries. We can han­dle floor demo­li­tion and instal­la­tion of many types of floor­ing. If you want to improve your exist­ing floor, we can apply an indus­tri­al floor coat­ing. We also offer con­crete floor prep and pol­ish­ing and con­crete expan­sion joint repairs. No mat­ter your floor­ing needs, Kaloutas will get the job done right.

Our floor­ing installers are well-trained and use the lat­est instal­la­tion tech­niques and equip­ment. They ensure your indus­tri­al or ware­house floor­ing project meets your require­ments and stan­dards. If you’re ready to get a floor­ing esti­mate or learn more about our ser­vices, don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us.