Urethane cement
for the hot, wet rooms
Madison’s working buildings run on
A thick cement based urethane for kitchens, showers and wash down floors, put over a slab that has been ground open and repaired first.
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The rooms that wear out ordinary coatings
Urethane cement goes in the rooms where water, heat and cleaning chemicals hit the floor every day. In Madison those are the working buildings: commercial kitchens, back of house prep areas, wash down rooms, showers and locker rooms. The town has a commuter base working Research Park and Redstone and a stretch of retail along County Line Road, and the buildings that serve both see the hardest use on their floors.
A garage floor gets dirty. A kitchen floor gets punished: a pot of boiling water tipped near the line, the steam cleaner at close, degreaser left to sit while the crew breaks down for the night. Epoxy makes a good floor in plenty of rooms. This is one of the rooms where it struggles.
Why the cleaning crew matters
Kortni came into this trade stripping and waxing floors, which is a good way to learn what a night crew does to a floor and what a floor does back. That background is why the first questions on a commercial job are about the hose and what goes in the bucket.
Ask how the floor gets cleaned before anyone asks what color it should be.
A floor that sees a mop once a day has a long list of options. A floor that sees a hose and caustic chemicals every night has a short one, and urethane cement is usually at the top of it. Tell us how your floor gets cleaned and we can start the conversation there.
What thermal shock does to a floor
Thermal shock is the plain name for a fast temperature swing. The floor sits at room temperature, then boiling water lands on it, or the steam cleaner comes through at the end of the night. The concrete and the coating on top expand at different rates, and a coating that cannot move with the slab starts losing its grip at the bond line.
Urethane cement is formulated to move with the concrete through those swings. It also goes down thicker than an epoxy coating, which gives a kitchen floor more body under carts, dropped pans and the boots of a crew on a long shift.
Then there is moisture. Some slabs carry moisture up from below, and that pressure will lift an epoxy film off the concrete from underneath. Urethane cement tolerates moisture in the slab that epoxy will not. We still find out what the slab is holding before we commit to anything, because grinding it open shows us what is really under the old sealer or coating, and older Madison slabs often carry one.
None of that shows on the day the floor goes down. A coating in the wrong room can look right for a while, then start lifting at the drains and along the walls, where heat and water hit hardest. By the time it shows, the fix means grinding off the failed floor and starting over.
Where the water goes
Most wet room failures start at an edge. Water finds a seam, gets under the finish and starts lifting it from the side, so the details at the walls and drains matter as much as the open floor in the middle.
- Cove base. The urethane cement turns up the wall as one continuous piece. There is no joint at the wall line for wash water or chemicals to work into.
- Slope. With the right fall, water heads for the drain and leaves. A low spot holds a puddle, and a puddle that sits against an edge night after night is how a floor starts to lift.
- Drains. The finish has to meet every drain cleanly, because that is the spot where water spends the most time. A shower room or wash bay with two drains gets two of those details.
- Chemicals. Hot water, steam and caustic wash down chemicals are what this system is made to take, which is why it ends up in rooms that get cleaned hard.
This is why we want to see the room before talking about how it gets finished. A wash room with a floor drain and block walls has a different set of edges than an open prep kitchen, and each edge gets its own detail.
Planning around a closed kitchen
Closing a kitchen costs a business something, so the install is planned with you before it is put on the calendar. We see the floor in person first, then hold the days it needs as one block and hand you the dates.
The order of work does not change from one building to the next. We grind the slab to clean concrete and take off whatever sealer or old coating is on it, repair the cracks and spalled spots, then put down the urethane cement and run it up the walls. If a crack is still moving or there is water coming up with nowhere to go, you hear about it before you spend anything.
Shower rooms and locker rooms plan the same way on a smaller footprint. The room comes out of use, anything that can be lifted off the floor goes, and whatever is fixed low on the wall gets cut in around so the cove base runs clean behind it.
There is more on the system itself on our urethane cement flooring page, finished floors in the gallery, and the rest of our work around town on the Madison page. To get a kitchen or wash room on the schedule, send us the details or call (205) 238-8111.
Kitchen and wash room questions
What owners and facility managers ask before they take a room out of service for a new floor.
Why not plain epoxy in a kitchen?
Epoxy does fine in a lot of rooms, but a kitchen floor takes boiling water, steam cleaning and fast temperature swings every day. Urethane cement is made to move with the slab through those swings, it goes on thicker, and it handles caustic wash down chemicals. That combination is why kitchens get it.
Our slab may have moisture in it. Is that a problem?
Less of one than it would be with epoxy. Urethane cement tolerates moisture in the slab that would push an epoxy film off from below. We still grind the floor open and look at it first, and if water is coming up with nowhere to go, we will tell you before any work starts.
Will it stand up to our cleaning chemicals?
Hot water, steam cleaning and caustic wash down chemicals are the conditions this system is built for. Tell us exactly what your crew uses and how often, including anything that gets left to sit. That routine is the first thing we ask about, because it decides the system more than the look does.
How does the floor finish at the walls and drains?
With integral cove base, the urethane cement turns up the wall in one piece, so there is no joint at the wall line for water to get into. The floor is set with the right slope so wash water runs to the drain. Those two details get more of our time than the open floor does.
What do we need to plan for while the floor goes in?
Plan on the room being closed for the whole install. We book the job as a block of consecutive days, because a resin floor cannot be stopped halfway and left overnight, and you get the dates before we start. Clear everything off the floor you can, and we will work around a few heavy items.
Do you have references?
Yes. Ask us for commercial ones and we will match them to the kind of room you run, a kitchen to a kitchen and a shower room to a shower room. Seeing a commercial floor in person is often possible as well, particularly in buildings the public can walk into.
The other Madison systems
Get the floor on the calendar
Call Kortni with the size of the room and how it gets cleaned, and we will set a time to see it.