Concrete Floor Coatings

[YellowDog]

Hi Everyone,

I have read through most of the threads in Floor coatings out there and curious about any new experiences on what is out there or even some older one?

A little background on us we are currently in the renovation of an warehouse for our 20BBL brewery. We have cut in the trench drains etc and are getting ready to repour. We are sloping the floors and are adding a top coat of cement over the existing slab to provide the the slope.
We have seen locally in Vancouver some good experiences with floors and some bad ones. Like any new breweries we are trying to save cost anywhere we can so the most economical way while still maintaing quality is what we are interested.

Anyways hoping the community can provide some guidance as this forum has been a great tool in our planning.

Thanks,

[mainandmill]

I am interested in seeing if you get anyone to help out...we are nearing this same situation.

[YellowDog]

Recomendation

I have had a recommendation from another brewery to use the following product

http://www.duromar.com/hydroflor

Any thoughts on this the reason is we are under a little time crunch and anything we can do to apply the coating before the floor fully cures would be great!!

Any advice is appreciated

Thanks

[AnthonyB]

If I had it to do over again I would have avoided epoxy in our brewing area. In our tiny brewery, we epoxied the walk-in cooler (about 400 square feet), a hallway, and the brewing area (about 300 square feet). Underneath the fermenters and in the walk-in, everything is fine, but in any trafficked brewing area where hoses are dragged, carts, kegs, etc. the epoxy has all started lifting. Once an impact has compromised the surface, the hot water/chemical/etc. does the rest. This was supposedly industrial, 100% solids epoxy at 10mil thickness on a well grinded and then washed concrete floor.

[ChesterBrew]

No direct experience w/ product, but...

Someone here at some point in the past mentioned this product and I bookmarked the site; may be worth at least investigating.

http://www.sealhard.com

[YellowDog]

Someone here at some point in the past mentioned this product and I bookmarked the site; may be worth at least investigating.

http://www.sealhard.com

Thanks I talked with the manufacturer of this product and they do not recommend for breweries. I was surprised as I had also had seen them mentioned on the forums.

[ChesterBrew]

Thanks I talked with the manufacturer of this product and they do not recommend for breweries. I was surprised as I had also had seen them mentioned on the forums.

That's great to know... I'll delete that bookmark now.

[Ted Briggs]

Stonehard

If you have the $$ ive heard this stuff is the shizzle:

http://www.stonhard.com/markets-product-recommendations/food-beverage/

Notice that multiple products are recommended based on the area. Floors are not a one-fits-all.

[RockyMtnBrew]

We used low cost commercial epoxy ourselves

We laid down a commercial epoxy from Rustoleum. You can get it from www.brewfloors.com . We followed their instructions and spent a good 2-3 days prepping the floor and putting it down ourselves. It has no problem with chemicals or heat. It is a little weak against impacts like where we drag full kegs around or drop stainless all the time like around kettle and bbt, in these locations it scratches and chips but you can easily recoat. This was an unlevel, old concrete floor and its doing pretty darn good after 8 months of full time abuse. We spent well under $1000 for the whole 1500 square feet. Ucrete and other commercial guys wanted $8-15k! Thats a huge savings and worth touching up a few spots every 6 months in my humble opinion. Most breweries expand and we expect that as well so we didnt want to spend a ton on floors just to expand later. Cheers and good luck.

-Joe

[theBrewMeister]

Quarry tile and urethane epoxy coatings are really the two best options. If anyone is having problems with epoxy in the brewery it's because they either, A. Used cheap stuff or the wrong type for the application, or B. Didn't prep the floor right.

Both reasons are equally important, but it's impossible to stress just how important prepping the concrete first. I love epoxy in the brewery, but it HAS to be done RIGHT! Water is the universal solvent.