Sika Flooring’s Nick Grounds reckons more and more owners and designers of industrial buildings are turning to dry-shake concrete floor surface hardening systems to provide the most hard wearing surface that is also attractive, easily applied and economical.
Some think that concrete floors with a dry-shake hardened surface are 20 times more abrasion resistant as powerfloated concrete.
These dry-shakes are popular choices for floors in new buildings that are subject to continuous traffic and heavy loads such as warehouses, distribution centres, factories and retail superstores.
Dry-shake concrete hardeners are blends of cement, pigments, aggregates and admixtures that are sprinkled directly onto the surface of new, wet concrete floor slabs. The dry-shake fuses with the concrete when powerfloated, forming a monolithic surface that helps improve durability, especially abrasion and impact resistance. Standard and custom colour pigments can be integrated within the materials so they don’t wear off.
Within the blend of materials that make up Sikafloor MetalTop, are hard alloy aggregates containing titanium. This ensures that it produces one of the hardest surfaces of all dry shake systems. The surface also provides anti-static properties, is dust-free and resistant to oils, chemicals and solvents.
The largest, coloured dry-shake floor featuring the Sikafloor MetalTop system was installed by specialist concrete flooring contractors, Twintec at the new distribution warehouse and offices of AAH Pharmaceuticals in Stoke-on-Trent.When potential tenants are weighing up buying or renting a new warehouse, they tend to be picturing how their furniture will look in it, rather than examining the flaws in the floors.
Kevin Dare, managing director of the CoGri Group
