Navigating the frosty challenges of applying epoxy grout in cold temperatures demands an adept approach, blending methodical planning with nuanced application techniques. This article unwraps the icy difficulties faced by professionals in winter grouting, providing a comprehensive guide that merges insightful recommendations with practical tips, ensuring your grouting projects remain steadfastly robust and impeccably finished, even when mercury dips below the optimal working conditions.
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
Product | Vibration | Chemicals | Yield | Max thickness | Start-up Time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
SR Deep Pour Fast Set Epoxy Grout | excessive | General resistance to mild acids and caustics | 0.5 cubic feet per unit | 3” Neat 12” Extended |
6-8 hours |
SR Thin Pour Epoxy | excessive | General resistance to mild acids and caustics | 0.24 cubic feet per unit | 1/8”-1” | 6 hours |
Sika 428 Grout | Low | Very little | 0.5 cubic feet per bag | 2” Neat 6” Extended |
5-6 hours |
Dayton LT-12 Turbo Grout | Low | Very little | 0.41 cubic feet |
Still think your only option for re-setting and grouting equipment is waiting on a semi-annual shutdown? The truth is, cement and epoxy technology has advanced just like your office computer. New materials and additives have produced products for grouting that allow for equipment start-up in as little as 1 hour. A single field maintenance day can now allow time for demo, install, grouting and cure to happen in a 12 hour day.
Take a look at some of the grouts that can get your equipment re-set and running on a snap.
Let’s face it, nearly every installation of process equipment is time sensitive these days. Ultra-competitive markets and slim profit margins force most companies to limit even planned down-time to the bare minimum. Saving the cure time for conventional grouts could mean getting back 8, 12 even 24 hours of production time. Cement and epoxy chemistry have made great strides in the ability to get fast strength gains while still providing the properties needed for most industrial applications.
But it’s important that you choose the right material for your application. You’ll want to consider some key factors before you decide.
Not, what material has the highest strengths in every category. If you need fast turn-around,