By Pablo Figueroa, commercial flooring consultant
Wet production rooms are hard on floors. When the floor starts to fail, the problem shows up every day in cleaning, in ponding water, and in patches that do not hold. This is a look at how we approached a failing wet production floor in a Central Valley food processing plant, and why urethane cement was the right fit for that room.
The problem
The wet production area, roughly 4,500 to 5,000 SF plus cove base, had cracked and patched concrete across the room. In the washdown areas, the previous coating had worn through and was lifting at the edges. Water ponded in low spots instead of moving to the drains, so the crew had to work harder to push it out after each washdown. Temporary patches had been placed over earlier repairs, and many of those patches were cracked again. The plant needed a floor that could handle daily wet work, and it needed the work done without shutting the whole operation down.
What we found
When we opened up the worst areas, the slab told the story. Moisture in the concrete and repeated thermal shock from hot washdowns had debonded the previous thin coating. A thin system can look fine at first, but hot water on a cold slab, over and over, stresses the bond line. Once water gets under the coating, the failure spreads. We also found concrete that needed real repair before any new system went down. Coating over cracked, weak, or uneven concrete would have repeated the same failure. Repair, replacement where needed, and patching had to come first.
The system chosen, and why
We installed urethane cement at heavy duty thickness with integral cove base, after completing the concrete repairs.
We chose urethane cement for practical reasons. It tolerates hot washdown and thermal shock better than a thin coating. It can be installed over damp concrete, which matters in a wet production room that is never fully dry for long. At heavy duty thickness it stands up to traffic, impact, and daily cleaning. With integral cove base, the floor and the base work as one seamless surface, with no joint at the wall line for water and residue to collect in. The result is a cleanable surface with fewer seams and fewer places for failure to start.
Execution notes
We phased the work by room so the plant kept running. Crews worked nights and weekends around production, completed one section, and handed it back before moving to the next. Each phase followed the same order, prep the slab, complete concrete repair and patching, correct low areas near drains in a qualitative way so water moved more naturally, then install the urethane cement and cove base. Barriers and sequencing kept active production areas separate from work areas. That phasing took coordination, but it avoided a full shutdown.
The result
The finished floor went back into service as a seamless surface. The plant kept its washdown routine unchanged, which was the point. A floor in this kind of room should support the cleaning process, not require a new one. On the plant’s own sanitation walks after the work, the floor passed their review. Ponding in the main work areas was reduced where slope corrections were made, and the cove base gave the crew a continuous surface to clean at the walls. Those are the outcomes we observed on handover.
Questions about urethane cement flooring for food processing plants? For a free consultation, call Pablo Figueroa at (209) 607-2549 or email pablo@dtindustrialflooring.com.