Case Study 2301:
Richmond Dry Cleaners
Completed: January 2023
Our Industry Partners...
LabSurface
LabSurface is a Canadian resin manufacturer that produces high-quality contractor-grade resins, which we proudly used on this project.
Smith Paints
Smith Paints has been manufacturing world-class coatings and urethanes for nearly 100 years. Their Hi-Wear urethane is a staple in our chemical-resistant floors.
Ardex Americas
Ardex is a world-leader in the underlayments and concrete remediation industry. We are proud to install these high-quality products in our commercial applications.
The Problem..
Being a staple of the Grande Prairie community for over 60 years, Richmond Dry Cleaners had grown to a point of needing to expand to service their broad range of clients. Moving from their downtown location to a newly-renovated commercial building at 10814 100 St Unit 101, Grande Prairie introduced some construction challenges, namely the floor. The needs of the new building required three previously separate commercial spaces to by homogenized into one, all with decades of abuse and renovations!
Insert DuraGuard Surfaces Ltd…
The Solution..
The height differences from three different floors and a multitude of repairs needed to be scarified and ground flush
An incredibly tenacious adhesive was used to glue down vinyl flooring for the previous business, which all had to be removed. Using a combination of scarifying, grinding, and shotblasting we were able to successfully remove any bond-breakers from the surface to prepare for a self-level underlayment.
There were several large cracks, some trenches from utility cutouts, and some areas that needed deep-filling of repair material to mitigate the use of costly self-level underlayment.
A roll-down primer supplied by Ardex was installed to ensure proper adhesion between the existing concrete and the new self-level underlayment. This process is fairly quick, but the countdown starts now!
Next, we installed an average of 3/4″ Ardex self-level underlayment across the entire surface, nearly 140 bags of self level was used!
This process is a labor-intensive step, whereas each batch of product is mixed and deposited to the floor in groups of two.
One coat of epoxy was then installed with a full sand broadcast (over 5,000lbs of sand!) to rejection. This critical step creates an integral layer of epoxy-soaked sand as a protective layer for the concrete below. Once it is cured, we can collect the uncured sand and dispose of it.
And additional, colored layer of epoxy is now installed to continue the build of the system.
Once sufficient curing has been achieved, we can then install the final colored layer of hi-wear urethane, specifically designed for extreme chemical usage areas, such as parabens and solvents used in dry cleaning!
