Coatings Technology

The harsh environments inside of grow facilities can require regular upkeep and cleaning of floors. Fertilizer mixtures, pesticides, moisture, and UV lights are typically rough on floors in these buildings. Polyurethane and Polyaspartic floor coatings are typically ideal for these conditions in which chemical resistance, abrasion resistance, and UV resistance are required. We have even modified existing floor coatings to make them better suited to these flooring applications. For example, UV light stabilizing additives can be added to polyaspartic and polyurethane systems to enhance their already great resistance to UV exposure (yellowing).

An Industry Booms In The Midst of New Laws

The legalization of marijuana in several states has created a new industry of cannabis grow facilities.  In 10 states and the District of Columbia medical and recreational marijuana is legal[1]. The US is heading toward the decriminalization of marijuana and eventually making marijuana fully legal. With a relatively new and unique industry these grow facilities and dispensaries have challenges to overcome in order to make sure they stay committed to government regulations and codes.

Medical Marijuana Grow Facilities

These facilities have very distinctive needs. In the past grow facilities have experienced fires, explosions, code violations, and other incidences.  What used to be an outdoor growing operation has evolved into large indoor commercial facilities. Taking operations indoors has translated into better security, and protection from weather and outdoor contaminants.  This has led to more control over the ideal environment for marijuana growth. Grow facilities are exposed to high intensity UV lamps, moisture, and harsh chemicals used in fertilizers and pesticides.

Choosing The Right Floor Coating For A Grow Facility

Due to the harsh environment inside a grow facility; with a mixture of fertilizers, pesticides, moisture, and harsh lighting the flooring is exposed to unique conditions that require a unique solution. Keeping a floor clean is very important to operations, so much so that most grow facilities require that shoes are washed with a special solution before entering the grow room. These operations need a floor that is resistant to chemicals, easy to clean, moisture friendly and can withstand UV lighting.  

As a result of the unique environment in a grow facility, a hybrid floor coating system which consists of both an epoxy and polyaspartic resins would provide an optimal solution. Two coats of water borne epoxy (primer) protect against the humid environment. A top coat with polyaspartic protects the floor from harsh UV lights. As compared with traditional epoxy flooring, Polyaspartic would be necessary as a top coat due to the capability to withstand UV lights whereas epoxy would yellow with time. Additionally, polyaspartics protect against various chemicals and fertilizers that are present in a growing facility.

With the moisture and humidity in a grow facility, the floors can experience condensation, which has the potential to make a smooth floor surface slippery. Finding the balance between clean-ability (smooth floors) and safety (anti slip) on a floor is an important consideration. The smoother the floor the easier it will be to clean, but the more slippery it will be when wet. If safety is more important for your grow facility we recommend adding anti-slip particles to the hybrid floor coating increasing the coefficient of friction on the floor surface. If clean-ability is more important than we would recommend all employees wear slip resistant shoes while the grow facility is experiencing high levels of moisture.

Marijuana Dispensary Floor Coatings

The retail space of marijuana dispensaries places emphasis on cleaning and sanitation, product safety, compliant facility operations, waste management, and worker health and safety. With this in mind having a clean and aesthetically pleasing floor is important for the product and the customers.  In a dispensary if it is not exposed to any outside sun or UV lights an epoxy floor would be cost efficient and provide an easy to clean floor that also looks appealing.

[1] Medical and recreational marijuana is legal in Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, Alaska, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and the District of Columbia.

Deciding between a new polyaspartic garage floor coating or a new epoxy garage floor coating can be a confusing decision, especially if you are new to the world of coatings. In the past most people only had the option of epoxy but over the last decade many decorative coating contractors are now offering the “newer” polyaspartic coating technology. There are many attractive characteristics to both floor coating systems, but which one is right for your garage floor?

Polyaspartic Floor Coatings

Polyaspartic coatings have been around for decades and found their first uses in corrosion control applications on metal and concrete parts of bridge structures.  Around 2005, Slide-Lok Garage Interiors, was one of the very first players in the garage makeover and garage improvement market to use Polyaspartic resin technology for garage floor coatings.  In those days, nearly everyone on the market resisted the technology and tried to push epoxy, thinking polyaspartic would not hang around and would not hold up.  Well, it did hang around and for many, many years. It has proven to hold up very well in a wide variety of conditions and Slide-Lok was one of the very first to use polyaspartics in the garage concrete flooring market.  In the last few years, the advantages and long term reliability of polyaspartic has become so widely known and apparent that today, many contractors offer polyaspartic resins in addition to epoxy.    

Polyaspartic coatings are a great option for many reasons. For one, it is very easy to apply and can typically be done in only one day; minimizing installation trips, cost, and inconvenience to home owners. This coating is also easy to apply in extreme temperatures from hot to cold, which can allow you flexibility in deciding when you would like to have your project done.  Unless working with a very exotic epoxy formulation, as a rule of thumb, epoxies should not be used when temperatures are below 55 degrees F and for those contractors that use only epoxy, their installs come to a halt when fall temperatures start dropping.  Polyaspartics can be used in temperatures well below zero. 

One of the early advantages of polyaspartic coatings is that they are UV stable which makes for a great top coat, meaning that it will not discolor or yellow from the sun.  This yellowing or ambering is perhaps one of the famous shortcomings of most epoxy formulations.  Polyaspartics also feature excellent scratch resistance, making them extremely durable and useful for areas of high traffic. As well, they are much, much more elastic than epoxies, meaning that when your concrete expands and contracts with changes in temperatures, the polyaspartic floor coating will “move” with the concrete much better and as a result, adhesion to the concrete is highly improved.  Polyaspartic floor coatings are however a more expensive option than epoxy.

Epoxy Floor Coatings

Epoxies have been around for many, many decades and their main advantage is their low cost.  When it comes to flooring, epoxies tend to be less elastic and in environments where the substrate, concrete, is exposed to wide temperature variations over the course of the year, they can “pop” off the floor.  Below 55 degrees Fahrenheit, epoxies are a ‘no go’ for installation as curing can be extremely slow and/or result in partially cured flooring systems. Even when you’re within the right application temperature, epoxy takes longer to cure than Polyaspartic, usually taking five to seven days before you can use the floor compared to 24 hours with polyaspartic floor coatings. And of course, mostly all epoxy floor coatings use a similar resin technology based on DGEBA (bisphenol-A and epichlorohydrin) which features an aromatic ring, making it inherently flawed to yellowing and ambering when exposed to the sun (radiation).  If the floor will be exposed to UV light from the sun, over time, epoxies will yellow and should not be recommended for outdoor or sunlight exposed floors. 

Be wary of newer companies touting “100% UV Resistant Epoxies” or derivatives thereof. Many of these companies are using the same commercially available epoxy resins (DGEBA) as the lower cost epoxies and pairing it with a higher cost cycloaliphatic amine (hardener). While this system has enhanced UV resistance to yellowing/ambering, it is only temporary. The system may last 6 months longer than a floor without a cycloaliphatic hardener, but it will yellow just the same in time. It wouldn’t be honest to say that technically a 100% UV resistant epoxy could not exist, it could, but at this moment in time it would make absolutely zero sense from a financial and a technical standpoint. There are a few saturated cycloaliphatic epoxy resins that exist in the marketplace that could be paired with a cycloaliphatic hardener, but these are so inherently expensive to manufacture and are not widely used simply because they are not being manufactured. The largest epoxy manufacturers in the world do not even make these types of resins for flooring because of drawbacks such as increased cost, poor cure rate, unsuitable film formation, etc… They are so cost prohibitive to introduce for the increase in UV protection that the recommendation is simply to use a polyurethane / polyaspartic flooring system which also comes with other improved technical performance aspects such as increased cure, hardness, elasticity, etc…