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The Importance Of Good Brewery Flooring

The popularity of breweries has increased massively over the past few years.

They are no longer just a place that produces different types of beers. They are now seen as a day trip – or a tourist attraction in some cases, with brewery tours becoming more common as consumers are now interested in how their favourite beers are being created.

A brewery is no longer solely a beverage manufacturing facility; it has become a point of interest among many options, with people choosing to drink and visit on a regular basis.

With all this being said, the importance of brewery flooring cannot be understated, for both safety and aesthetics.

In this post, we explore why traditional brewery flooring is best avoided if you want to maintain hygiene and which resin leads the way in terms of cure time, compressive strength and overall quality.

Read on…

‘Traditional’ Brewery Flooring

There are no typical buildings for breweries and most new sites tend to be located in disused industrial buildings, such as warehouses, barn conversions, or manufacturing plants and as such, the flooring inside isn’t up to the requirements of a brewery.

Mostly, the flooring of these old industrial buildings is made from concrete, which can have serious effects on the health and safety of a brewery.

When used without a sealant, concrete can actually absorb any spillages. This will result in large unsightly stains all over your floor, as well as bacteria and mould growing in the floor. This could end up becoming a potential health and safety concern if left untreated, as the bacteria would compromise hygiene, whilst the mould could impact employees and consumers alike.

Concrete can also release “concreate dust.” When left untreated, this could irritate any individual with sensitive breathing, or sometimes even contaminate product, which is why it’s so important to move away from the more “traditional” flooring in breweries.

What Aims Should Your Brewery Flooring Achieve?

A brewery is a very high traffic area and heavy-duty, durable flooring is definitely needed to meet the demands of foot traffic, heavy machinery and spillages.

It Is also important that your floor meets all health and safety requirements, so it is safe for staff and visitors to use. The way to ensure this is simple. The three things your flooring should achieve is:

• High compressive strength
• Slip Resistant properties
• A resin floor that doesn’t damage easily

The compressive strength of a floor refers to its ability to withstand heavy loads and impact on the flooring solution, without damaging it. This is important in a brewery as if damage occurs and a repair is needed, it could compromise how hygienic the floor is.

These repairs can leave join lines in the floor, which can actually allow liquids to get under the floor, and again, cause bacteria to grow.

Is Resin Flooring Suitable For Breweries?

Using a resin flooring solution in your brewery is the ideal flooring solution, due to the fact it meets all the aims of your brewery flooring. However, some flooring solutions are better than others.

When using Epoxy or PU flooring solutions it is not uncommon for bond lines to occur which can be a cause for concern, especially in a brewery. When damaged, these bond lines are the perfect place for bacteria to grow and reside, which can massively impact the hygiene of your floor.

This can also happen when a repair takes place. Due to the bond lines, water can get in between the old and repaired section of the floor which can lead to bacteria growth, as well as water being trapped within your floor.

PU and Epoxy are both synonymous with excessively long cure times, which may be an issue if you’re still finding your feet after the COVID-19 outbreak, where any form of disruption can dramatically impact business.

To solve the issue of long cure times, many are tempted to opt for MMA – which does have a short cure time. However, this comes at a price. MMA has poor compressive strength; particularly when compared to PU. So, whilst you might be saving on cure time, you may be hit with expensive repair bills further down the line.

What is The Best Resin For My Brewery Flooring?

When it comes to brewery flooring, Acrylicon is by far the best resin to use due to its fast cure time, superior compressive strength and positive hygiene credentials.

From a technical perspective, it’s the strength of the bond lines that produces a successful floor, with the ability to transmit loadings and thermal changes without reducing its “grip” that creates the longevity of the system.

An Acrylicon floor is designed to achieve deep penetration into the substrate and with the subsequent chemical bonding of the body and sealer layers, the Acrylicon resin will be permanently “welded” to the base.

Despite this deep penetration into the substrate, cure time with Acrylicon is remarkably low, with it fully curing within two hours. When compared to other resin systems whose cure time can vary between 3 and 14 days, you can see the positive impact this will have on your business’ shut downtime.

Conclusion

It is vital that you get your brewery flooring right, as it can be a very costly mistake over time, due to repairs and flooring failures.

To talk to an expert about your Brewery flooring, simply call 01480 276620 or email uk@acrylicon.com