CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE GUIDE TO INDUSTRIAL FLOOR REPAIRS

How To Reduce Downtime With Your Food Factory Flooring Replacement

Maintaining your food factory floor is essential to ensure the highest level of hygiene and safety, as over time this can deteriorate with your existing floor. But this doesn’t always come cheap.

When choosing your floor, it’s not only the cost of the floor you need to consider, it’s the opportunity cost that comes with the downtime, having your staff unable to work in the area, as well as missed revenue as your factory area needs to be closed.

How Long Does It Take To Replace A Resin Floor?

There is no definitive answer when it comes to the completion times as it varies with each project’s requirements. If you only need a repair on your floor, the completion time would be much lower compared to a full replacement.

The most commonly used resin in the UK is PU, which is a thermoset plastic. It usually takes around 3-5 hours to dry, and around 5 days to fully cure, depending on the temperature of your food factory, but can take even longer at lower temperatures.

PU is applied in 2 different coats as a primer and a body coat which can take a long time to complete, especially when you factor in the removal of the existing floor, drying the floor and preparing the substrate and priming. You then have to wait for the primer to dry before installing the screed or body coat.

This usually results in needing 2 days just to complete. You will then needs to wait a further 3-5 days for the floor to be cured and ready to use. What you need to ask is, “can your food manufacture facility afford to be closed for a full week”?

However, Acrylicon’s resin floor repairs can fully cure in 2 hours, reducing the need for downtime. With its high compressive strength, it is the strongest resin flooring available and the only one to offer a comprehensive 10-year guarantee on new floors.

Minimising Disruption In Your Food Factory

We understand you can’t put your entire factory on hold for a day to replace your floor; it doesn’t make financial sense to do so.

To ensure the entire space can be complete with minimal disruption, you can have your entire floor done in sections, meaning only some areas need to be shut down at a time, or even work when your factory isn’t open such as overnight or at weekends.

Ensuring convenience to clients is just as important as the resin floor itself, as we understand you can’t go on hold.

Hygienic Flooring For Food Factories.

Thermoset plastics only cure once, so each layer is mechanically stuck to the dried layer below leaving bond lines.

When exposed to a crack or impact damage, these layers can delaminate and they make a breeding ground for bacteria and germs. Which can jeopardise the hygiene in your food manufacturing facility.

When repaired with Epoxy or PU, the damaged area is cut out, new flooring is installed and cold joints are left around the patch.

These joints will eventually open, allowing for water and dirt to penetrate the floor. The result of this is delamination starts again and a larger patch of floor is now required to be repaired.

Acrylicon is from the Thermoplastic family of resins. These resins can cure and un-cure, as they are reactivated by uncured resin. There is therefore no risk of delamination within the flooring system, as there are no joints.

This is also more hygienic, as there is nowhere for bacteria to reside and grow within the floor, which is essential in a food factory environment.

Conclusion

When specifying your food factory floor, it’s important to remember that there are more costs than just the materials and installation cost of the floor. Is shutting down your factory for up to a week really worth saving x amount, or is it costing you more than you save to shut down?

Acrylicon can perform floor repairs at weekends and out of hours to ensure minimal disruption to your business.

To arrange a free no-obligation floor survey from one of our local experts, get in touch.

About Acrylicon

Acrylicon, the go-to industrial flooring company, has been implemented by Unilever, Walkers, McCain, Network Rail and many more companies that understand the cost implications of shutting down.

Their fast cure combined with the immense compressive strength saves you time, money and hassle when it comes to your industrial flooring. They can work at weekends or in business downtime to ensure minimal disruption to your daily processes.

With a life expectancy of up to 4-8 times longer than traditional resins, Acrylicon’s unique chemical composition ensures you get better value for money than from any other resin floor available.

Acrylicon’s long-lasting resin flooring is used across a variety of sectors including in food factories, commercial kitchens, warehouses, hospitals, supermarkets and car parks.

All new flooring comes with a 10-year performance warranty for complete peace of mind. Every installation is carried out by trained and certified regional installers so there are no split warranties.