Commercial Breakroom Floors – Decorative broadcast and polyaspartic

We reviewed this breakroom floor a few months ago. The customer’s goal was to create an easy to clean floor that could also hide dirt easily. Currently, the floor had an aged epoxy system that was cracking at the joint lines. And this large room also had a vinyl cove base.

What the customer was looking for was a troweled integral cove base so that the floor would be easier to clean. To quote this project, we removed the existing vinyl cove base, and troweled on new 4″ cove to achieve the finish.

Hide dirt but easy to clean Floor

When the customer asks for a floor that can easily hide dirt, then a decorative micro chip or color quartz floor is the predestined option. These floors do a great job hiding dirt because of the variety in colors and texture. But the problem is that sometimes these floors can have too much texture, making them difficult to clean. So mitigate this, the preferred option is to install a minimum of (2) grout coats.

Some installers can choose epoxy for the grout. Epoxy is an okay material, but it will discolor over time and amber. So the clarity you see on the first day will eventually dull down. Polyaspartics are a better grout option because they will maintain their clarity and not amber.

So for this customer, after we installed a double broadcast floor system, we then installed (2) grout coats of non-yellowing polyaspartic. This was a great choice for the customer. One drawback with polyaspartic is that it is very glossy. Sometimes this is preferred from the customer. And that was the case here. But we’ll often try to encourage the customer to install 1 additional top coat of a satin aliphatic urethane. These will help knock the sheen down, and also helps hide applicator imperfections.