Concrete floors are an essential part of your plant infrastructure. Let’s face it, there’s no other real affordable option for large product storage areas. But, these large floor have to have joints to allow for stress relief and expansion/contraction to prevent cracking that could lead to eventual structural failure.

These joints have always been a weak point in the flooring system for areas of heavy traffic. However, the introduction of automated lifts and carts have pushed conventional joint design past its limits. These machines are precise. So precise that the wheels never vary from the most efficient and direct path. This shows up in wear patterns in the floor. However, the real damage is to the joint. These heavy loads are concentrated on smaller wheels that make the machine

The bar for affordability of a pump for joint filling just dropped. Just because your projects are smaller, working on your hands and knees to fill floor joints shouldn’t be your only option.

Check out this updated article explaining how much more affordable pumping joint filler is now. The article is the same. But, the numbers are crazy low.

So, you’re comfortable filling floor joints on the average job. It’s easy. Just get some cartridges and start pumping. But now you’re looking at a larger project and there are far more joints to be filled than your average job. You’re adding up the cost of the cartridges you’ll need on this one and it’s a big number. Plus, you’ll need more people to install it 20 ounces at a time.

You know that these materials are available in bulk

We design and build various structures using concrete because we need its strength. Pouring concrete allows for it to take virtually any shape we need it to and its strength is in its solid form. The weak links in other materials like the mortared joints in masonry and fasteners like nails and screws in wooden and metal structures are not needed. Concrete structures are indeed solid literally. But these structures are affected by the same outside forces that affect all other types of structures. Since concrete is ridged, it lacks flexibility and therefore is more prone to crack or break in response to outside forces like soil settlement as well as interior issues such as rebar corrosion.

Epoxy injection is a very economical option to repair these non-moving cracks (not control or expansion

So, you’re comfortable filling floor joints on the average job. It’s easy. Just get some cartridges and start pumping. But now you’re looking at a larger project and there are far more joints to be filled than your average job. You’re adding up the cost of the cartridges you’ll need on this one and it’s a big number. Plus, you’ll need more people to install it 20 ounces at a time.

You know that these materials are available in bulk units. But you’d need a pump and you’re not sure you’d have another need to use it again any time soon. Seems like a like a bad investment for just one job. Let’s take a look at the math for a clearer picture.

Example: Assume you have a 6” thick slab and have 7500lf of 1/8” saw cut joints. The depth of the cut is 25% or 1.5”. The average coverage for this joint is

Keeping your plant floors and slabs in good condition is critical to keeping your operation humming. Cracks and potholes in slabs can cause extensive damage to your lifts and other equipment. This may leading to high maintenance costs and shortened life of some very expensive equipment. Uneven or sloped areas can also prevent automated lifts from operating at all. These lifts have built in safety sensors that shut them down if it detects irregularities in the level of the chassis. This could completely shut down your ability to move finished products or raw materials.

Most plant and mill maintenance personnel are focused on the process systems and keeping them running at high efficiency. After all, that’s the heart of the production process. It’s easy to forget the role of the plant

You’re comfortable doing the minor repairs yourself and you’ve gotten good at it. But this overlay of a large area has your confidence dropping and you’re not sure your people can do it. At what point should you consider hiring a contractor?

1. Consider the ability of your people.

How do you feel about your teams ability to do this? Could they work with these materials for longer periods of time? Are they skilled enough for this application?

2. How much time do you have?

Will having this area back in service quickly be critical? Can you pull your people off their already tight schedule to do this yourself?

3. What’s the risk?

If you self-perform and you get in over your head, how much more will it cost in dollars and reputation to get it re-done in the end?

Your concrete takes a beating every day. The traffic, the dropped tools, the dragged pallets, they have your floors under constant attack. The result is seen in a wide range of damage. Some areas have minor spalling or chipping, some have scrapes and grooves and others may have significant damage. Unfortunately, there’s no one size fits all repair for all of these.

Make sure you match the right repair material and method with each repair. You’ll have to use a couple of different materials. But, the repairs will last.

Check out our guide to repair materials and methods to find the right combination for your situation.

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All those little chips in your floor joints weren’t a big deal at first. Now after years of traffic impact, they have gotten larger and now you have to address them. The rough travel is killing your forklifts but you don’t feel like you can shutdown traffic for an extensive repair. The truth is, if you have 4 hours at night or on a weekend, you can fix it permanently.

Check out a step-by-step guide to extensive joint repairs and do it yourself.

Download the Guide Now

You’ve noticed that the joints in your higher traffic areas look like they’re getting wider. The edges of the concrete seem to be “chipping away.”

Now is the time to prevent any further damage to these joints. Afterall, you need the concrete floors in your plant to be in shape to support your operations for a long time and you can’t afford to replace them. Unfortunately, this is a common problem. Most concrete floors are left with joints that are open because the conventional wisdom is that these joints are small and not really affected by large rubber forklift tires. There’s also the fact that the cost of filling all of the joints is just not worth it. There’s just too many feet to fill.

Now that you’re in operation, you have established traffic patterns and that means some joints will get the brunt of the traffic

“Fixing small cracks in the concrete didn’t seem to be worth the effort. I mean, they’re just cracks. What real harm could they do?”

Now those small cracks are wide enough to cause issues. You’re having to put down steel or plywood to cover areas to prevent tripping. Maybe you even have to re-route your traffic to reduce the potential damage to forklifts.

You don’t have to improvise or just make do when you address this very common problem. The truth is, you can restore these areas without the down time or inconvenience you assume you’ll suffer and it won’t cost you as much as you think. The materials you’ll need are as advanced as all of the tools you use for your manufacturing process. They allow for application in all sorts of conditions and are fast setting to take traffic in a snap. Plus the need for unique