Benefits of using Joint Fillers in Commercial Flooring:

When choosing a floor for your business, theres a lot of different options when choosing a floor. Many businesses will go with resin-coated concrete, for that industrial look, which is very popular at the moment. Sometimes resinous coats arent always the right fit for an application and basic concrete is called for. If your flooring isnt naturally seamless, you must have a good joint filler to fill the cracks to prepare for the concrete stage. 

What are joint fillers? 

Joint fillers fill the gaps inbetween individual tiles or chucks of concrete in your floors. They can be made from a wide variety of materials and give the best lifespand to your floors making them resistant to damage or chemical spills. They remain flexible and resilient for years, making them an excellent value to you. The concrete floors can crack, since concrete is laid in slabs with joints to prevent it from cracking. Once the joints are open you must use a joint sealer, to protect the joints but also make it more appealing to the eye. Once you consider the environement of the concrete slab. You want to make sure that the joints are properly filled depending on the environment. If concrete joints in an industrial environments are not filled properly, vehicles can damage the concrete. Filling the joints properly will protect the edges of the joints and allow for load transfer between the slabs, otherwise the concrete would break off under the wheels of heavy equipment. There are many options for joint fillers available, two types of fillers are semirigid polyureas and semi rigid epoxies, which can be tinted to match any color or aesthetic. One of the difference between them is the amount of time they take to set. The epoxy can take 8 to 12 hours to set and the polyurea takes anywhere from 30 minutes to around 2 hours to set. To properly protect the edges of the slabs it is imperative to ensure that the filler is level with the surface of the floor. The joint is overfilled and allowed to be harden, then the excess filler is scraped off with a scraping tool. The product is a stain preventing film that is applied before using the joint filler. It is also important to keep in mind that semi rigid epoxy joint fillers can become discolored when exposed to ultraviolet light. Using a joint sealant is important to keep water and mositure out of the concrete. Before applying a sealant it will take about seven days to cure and is completely free of moisture. After applying the sealant it will take about seven day to cure completely. Sealants will also keep other debris out such as dirt. You definitely do not want dirt and other things building up in your concrete. It is also important to consider the size of the joints when choosing sealants. When the joint is less than 3/8 of an inch wide a single component product is ideal and if the joint is wider than that then dual component polyurea product works well. It is important to consider the quality of the sealants as well. Some sealants can withstand liquid better than others. If needing to seal joints near a swimming pool a two-part polysulfide joint sealant is ideal. This type of sealant will self level and set . At HTC Commercial Flooring we have state of the art equipment and a properly trained team with years of experience. Call HTC Commercial Flooring for your next Concrete project!