Cheese room floors...Australia

[Chicken man]

Hi everyone...long time no post!!!
Just looking for some information re a new type of floor surface.....I am told it is a type of plastic coating and applied similarly to epoxy coatings...??
Have only that information to go on and if anyone has some knowledge on this product, either in Australia or over seas it would be greatly received!!
Cheers and good cheesing to you all!!!
Ian
Mature cheese!!!

[FooKayaks2]

Ian

I recently looked at a  polyurea spray on coating at work to re line a potable water in a beverage plant. This could work in the situation you are looking at. It certainly does seem to be an impressive surface coating particularly if you look at some of the YouTube videos of what it can do.

Check this one out
! No longer available

I will PM you the contact details of the company I used.

Mathew

[Chicken man]

wow...that is impressive..
Thanks Matthew!!

[Kern]

Actually, polyurea coatings are not new as they have been around for years and are commonly used in truck bed linings among other things.  The video is impressive in that it demonstrates the toughness of polyurea coatings.  However, compared to an epoxy coating polyurea coatings are quite soft and flexible.  Furthermore, they "gel" so quickly (1-2 seconds) that they don't have time to self-level like an epoxy coating.  Since they don't self level and are somewhat soft they provide thousands of little nooks and crannies that will catch spilled curds and whey.  All of these little sites will serve as bacteriological factories and the floor will soon be contaminated with little beasties like salmonella, listeria, etc. - exactly what we DON'T want in a cheese making operation. 

In the US you'd never get such a floor coating approved for a commercial cheese making operation. 

The best coating for a concrete floor is a two-part epoxy floor coating.  It is smooth, hard, impermeable, and highly resistant to attack by cleaning chemicals.  It has one serious drawback:  When wet it is very slippery so the right shoes/boots should be worn when making cheese or cleaning the floor.  It only should be used on a concrete floor that has at least a 6 mil (0.006 inches) polyethylene sheet between the concrete and the earth.  Absent this the epoxy coating may blister due to osmotic pressure created as moisture rises through the concrete and is stopped by the epoxy barrier coating. 

[Chicken man]

Thanks for your insights Kern!!

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

A cheese for you Kern.

[Kern]

Thanks for the Cheese, Gurkan.

[Bantams]

I worked for two years at a small creamery that had a new epoxy floor (done a year before I began working).  Now, just three years after the epoxy was done, it's ready for a redo. 
The acid corrodes it rapidly.  It is extremely slippery.  And it stains easily.  Definitely not a material I can recommend.  However, I was not around when it was poured, so I cannot comment on how it was applied, except that it was done by a professional....

[Kern]

It is not uncommon to see an epoxy coating fail on a concrete floor.  This, however, is not the fault of the epoxy.  The failure results from the concrete having too high a moisture transmission rate.  The most common cause of this is that the concrete was poured on a dirt base without a polyethylene barrier film separating the concrete from the dirt.  The failure is caused by moisture becoming trapped behind the impermeable epoxy film.  Osmosis creates sufficient pressure to delaminate the epoxy film from the concrete.  Initial evidence of failure is the appearance of numerous small blisters in the epoxy film.  Eventually these crack and the epoxy coating is essentially toast.  Removing and replacing the epoxy without solving the underlying problem (very difficult) simply restarts the cycle all over again.

It is imperative to measure the moisture transmission rate prior to applying any non-porous coating (epoxy, urethane or paint - it doesn't matter) to concrete.  Some professional applicators do this, others don't.  If the transmission rate is too high then the concrete should be left uncoated or coated with a porous coating.  Incidentally, epoxy resins properly formulated hold up extremely well to high strength mineral acids (sulfuric, hydrochloric, phosphoric, etc.) and aren't going to be bothered by a little lactic acid in whey.

OK:  Now for full disclosure.  Thirty-seven years ago I started and still own a company that formulates epoxy and urethane coating systems for a wide variety of applications.   

[Bantams]

Aha!  That must be the problem.
The building was not originally constructed with the plan to become a cheese facility - that came later.  And so the concrete footing would not have been prepared for epoxy.
Thank you for enlightening me! 

[qdog1955]

Kern,
Where is the barrier placed when pouring concrete on stone ballast?
Qdog

[awakephd]

OK:  Now for full disclosure.  Thirty-seven years ago I started and still own a company that formulates epoxy and urethane coating systems for a wide variety of applications.

Kern,

You might have meant this to acknowledge that you could be perceived as having a bias ... but what it means to me is that you really know what you are talking about! Particularly as I know your company and the very high regard in which it is held.

<OT semi-rant>

"Professional applicators" come in all varieties -- some superb, and some ... not.

This is one of the primary reasons that I tend to DIY most of my home improvements. At the very least, I will KNOW about any mistakes that I made along the way. But more than that, I usually find, when I start digging into the research, all sorts of horror stories about "professional" jobs that were not done properly. Most recently I have done on a complete master bath remodel, tearing out the old vinyl shower and putting in a tile shower, including a traditional "mud" pan for the drainage. Reading on some tiling forums was hair-raising -- over and over again, someone came to the forums to ask about a problem they were experiencing with their professionally installed showers ... and as they were led into the investigation by the members of the forum, all sorts of absolute no-no's and shortcuts were uncovered.

When I HAVE commissioned a professional to do some home improvement, due to lack of time to do it myself ... I have generally wished I found the time -- since I generally then have to find the time to correct the flaws in what the pro did.

</OT semi-rant>

[Kern]

Where is the barrier placed when pouring concrete on stone ballast?

The ideal procedure goes something like this: compress the ground where the concrete will be poured for several months (usually done with a meter of stone or small rocks); remove the ballast and level the ground, drains, water lines, electrical conduit, etc.; fill the area with several inches of sand, small pebbles, etc; install the polyethylene; install any required re-bar in high load areas; pour the concrete.

Different situations will call for variations to this procedure:  Perforated drain pipes may be required where the water table is high, or the pad will be on a hill side and run-off must be channeled around the pad.  Obviously, if one used larger stones then the voids should be filled with smaller stones and sand.

The point is to get a concrete pad on stable ground isolated enough so that it doesn't keep pulling water out of the ground.  If you've ever put water on uncoated concrete you've noticed just how fact the concrete absorbs it.  The same thing occurs on the bottom side also.   

[Kern]

"Professional applicators" come in all varieties -- some superb, and some ... not.

The same applies to building codes:  "some superb, and some ... not".   

[qdog1955]

Kern,
  What would be the recommended curing time before coating concrete and should it be treated with muriatic acid first ?
Qdog