What to Know When Renovating a Hospital Floor

Spending time in hospitals is not typically an enjoyable experience. However, when building or renovating a hospital, there are choices you can make concerning flooring design to make a hospital stay a little more pleasant for everyone from facility managers to patients alike.

Seamless Hospital Flooring

Eliminating tile, grout and seams is crucial in the cleanliness and sanitation of your hospital floors. Bacteria and contaminants tend to acquire in these areas making cleaning and sanitizing a chore.

Seamless flooring also allows for ease in the maneuvering of machines, trolleys and hospital beds. Bump and trip hazards need to be eliminated completely in hospital or health care settings for the ultimate safety of patients and health care professionals.

Chemical Resistance and Durability

It is crucial to also have flooring that is durable enough to withstand some serious sanitizing and chemical solutions. It is imperative that floors in a hospital setting are constantly being cleaned and sanitized and often times industrial scrubbed. Floors that have poor chemical resistance and durability will not stand up to these harsh circumstances and will eventually deteriorate with time.

Be sure to use our Chemical Resistance Chart for product reference.

Anti-microbial Flooring Options

For additional resistance to pesky contaminants, EC-40 Anti-microbial 100% Solids Epoxy fights against algal, bacterial and fungal organisms that cause odor and degrade coatings and can be used in conjunction with other epoxy systems. Learn more here!

Install an Integral Cove

An integral cove is a smart, efficient choice when installing new hospital floors. Eliminating seams anywhere possible makes spaces easier to sanitize, clean and maintain. It also helps fight unwanted bacteria and mold from accumulating in tricky corner spaces. Try our EC-76 Cove Gel!

Non-Slip

On top of being seamless and durable, another crucial factor is having floors that are not slippery. Both decorative and neutral finish options are available with a non-slip additive or broadcast leaving the floors both functional and looking great.

Overall Design

The overall design of your floor can make a difference to a patient’s hospital experience. Calm, cool tones are often times used to portray feelings of ease and contentment. While using dark or hard tones or patterns can give off a tense or anxious sensation. Choosing the right design – whether it be choosing quartz sand blends, potential patterns or topcoats, your flooring should also be a key design decision that has the ability to positively affect one’s experience in a not so fun place.

Best Coating Options

DUBRO: The Double Broadcast System (DUBRO) is a 100% solids epoxy floor coating system with silica sand broadcast into the pigmented base coats and sealed with pigmented epoxy.

This system is a decorative, durable, chemical resistant and slip resistant coating, which makes it perfect for hospital settings. DUBRO is designed to be used as a medium to heavy duty coating.

Liquid Granite™ and Liquid Terrazzo™: Liquid Granite™ and Liquid Terrazzo™ are 100% solids epoxy floor coating systems with color chips broadcast into the pigmented epoxy and sealed with a high build clear topcoat. The Liquid Granite™ is a full broadcast color system and the Liquid Terrazzo™ is a light broadcast color system.

Liquid Granite™ and Liquid Terrazzo™ is decorative and durable making it a perfect solution for hospitals.

Epoxy Mortar Quartz: For the system that does it all – Epoxy Mortar Quartz is a 100% solids epoxy, combined with TC-65 Decorative Quartz Sand and troweled into place. It provides a high-build system that is highly impact resistant, chemical resistant and very durable. It also looks amazing!

Epoxy Mortar Quartz System is designed to be used as a heavy duty coating where unmatched durability is key.

Next Steps

Now that you understand what’s needed in rennovationg a hospital floor, making a decision can still be a challenge. Reach out  to our skilled resin flooring experts at Westcoat to help guide you to the right choice for your facility, providing information about the manufactured product, installation process, as well as maintenance after install and warranty details. The floor you choose should be formulated for the conditions of your space, allowing your operation to run smoothly for many years.