Poured Resin Floor finished and a definite success!!!

[IanR]

Poured Resin Floors have been discussed here a couple of times and over at eBuild.

 

For our living areas we looked at tiles, micro screed, polished concrete, wood and poured resin options - finally making a tentative decision to go with Poured Resin. We feel we took a bit of a risk with limited options to view the product installed, and only got to view it in a commercial/retail situation.

 

We got quotes from about 6 companies, but only had confidence in two of them and one of those two has, what were for us, unacceptable payment terms so the decision on the supplier took some time but ultimately made itself.

 

The floor was started last week and finished Monday night. First opportunity to walk on it (in socks) was today. Going to leave it another 5 days before covering.

 

I'm glad we took the risk, the finish is outstanding. And glad we didn't go with our second choice of polished concrete as during the light grinding stage, to key the surface ready for the resin, many more hair-line cracks were exposed than we were aware of when it had the natural power-float finish. 

 

Great attitude from the installer too, first time they'd installed on to a C35 power-floated slab and found the grinding much harder going than they expected, so the planned 1 day's prep ran to 4 days, but they just took it on the chin.

 

 

 

 

[jamiehamy]

That's tremendous! Would you mind PMing me a bit more on the supplier and cost p/m2 if you don't mind please?

[IanR]

1 hour ago, jamiehamy said:

That's tremendous! Would you mind PMing me a but more on the supplier and cost p/m2 if you don't mind please?

 

Happy to "post in public" as this is one of the products and installers I'm happy to recommend.

 

I believe pricing came in at around £75 / m2 but I will double-check. As I found though you can't rely on a per meter cost to get an accurate estimate. There're are 4 different products used, all from different container sizes and the product supplier directs how much of each is required for any given area. I was at around £85 per meter and added another room of around 28 sqr meters but the price barely moved and brought it down to what I think was £75 per m2.

 

Installers were 3D Royal Floors and I can't fault them. While they misjudged the prep time they caught up with 12 hour days over the weekend to ensure there was enough cure time before my kitchen install starts next week.

 

Ref. http://www.3droyalfloors.co.uk/residential-multicolor-decorative-resin-floors

 

The "system" I went with was from Arturo and is their PU2030 self smoothing floor product. UV stable and flexible. There is an alternative, PU2060 product which cheaper and harder wearing for commercial/retail environments but isn't guaranteed UV stable.

 

Ref. http://www.arturoflooring.com/products/flooring-systems/arturo-pu2030-self-smoothing-floor/

 

Ours is what they describe as a "concrete look", with a two colour body coat to give some movement to the finish. Again there's the opportunity to bring the cost down a little by using a single colour, which I loved the look of, but my wife thought was too clinical.  

Edited April 12, 2017 by IanR
Added links

[ToughButterCup]

Well, that looks a picture, as it were. Thanks for the link to the supplier.

Ian

[Vijay]

Possibly? http://www.3droyalfloors.co.uk/

[IanR]

That's them, I'll update my previous post with a few links.

[ragg987]

Looks great and the price you found seems good value. We ended up with Engineered oak and by the time I add up labour and glue it probably gets close to the price you mention.

[Barney12]

Out of interest what's the thickness of the product?

[IanR]

1 minute ago, Barney12 said:

Out of interest what's the thickness of the product?

 

Around 4mm

[IanR]

A bit of the process:

 

Recessed thresholds back filled with Epoxy mortar:

 

Slab surface lightly ground and any cracks cut back and filled with epoxy resin

 

Mat wells trimmed with stainless beads which are screwed and stuck (epoxy again)

 

Primer coat (epoxy resin) and then PU resin scratch coat applied

  

 

Then self smoothing colour coat and two sealer top coats to give the pics in the first post.

[Onoff]

Does it smell a lot when it goes down?

 

[IanR]

 

17 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Does it smell a lot when it goes down?

 

Yes for the Epoxy Primer coat.

Not so much for the body coat and sealers.

[Vijay]

Does look fantastic! How is it applied?

Edited April 12, 2017 by Vijay

[Bitpipe]

Looks great - we love our resin floor (Sika comfort floor) and it attracts a lot of comments.

 

Ours took 3 applications of the resin to get a good finish though, never got to the reason why - the installer even had Sika reps on site for the pour and we monitored the RH and temp (was last summer), he suspects it was either a dodgy chemical batch or perhaps that the house was too airtight, combined with a muggy conditions (we had heavy rainfall after a sunny day).

 

Prep for us was crosslaid glued and screwed ply (9 +12) then the installers glued a 4mm rubber crumb mat. The resin is a two part mix which is poured onto the floor and raked into place, then run over with a spiked roller, it then self levels and cures over 24 hours.

 

Topcoat is applied with a roller - it can be re-done to return to the original finish or if you want to change colour etc.

 

You can't have any use of silicone products for weeks before hand though as the very presence of that in the air will cause fisheyes in the finish, luckily we used Sikaflex so were ok.

 

Ours now has about 6 months wear and still looks great, comes up well after a steam mop too.  

Edited April 12, 2017 by Bitpipe

[IanR]

4 hours ago, Vijay said:

Does look fantastic! How is it applied?

For ours the primer and sealer coats were rollered, and the scratch and body coat were poured and spread by trowel. 

[Lesley72]

On 12/04/2017 at 12:41, IanR said:

A bit of the process:

 

Recessed thresholds back filled with Epoxy mortar:

 

Slab surface lightly ground and any cracks cut back and filled with epoxy resin

 

Mat wells trimmed with stainless beads which are screwed and stuck (epoxy again)

 

Primer coat (epoxy resin) and then PU resin scratch coat applied

  

 

Then self smoothing colour coat and two sealer top coats to give the pics in the first post.

@IanR is your resin floor still looking amazing ? would you still recommend?  Do you think it’s possible to do this on a suspended floorboard type floor? 

[IanR]

13 minutes ago, Lesley72 said:

@IanR is your resin floor still looking amazing ? would you still recommend? 

 

I definitely would. 5 years in and it still looks like new....almost everywhere.. We were very careful with it while the build finished, covering with a thin cortex sheeting, and giving all the trades mats or similar for putting doors, cabinets etc on to to avoid any accidents. We are still careful, in a similar way you would be with a wood floor. All our furniture has felt pads, outside shoes tend not to make it beyond the boot room.

 

Our boot room gets very heavy use, we live on an ex-farm and have 3 young boys and two 60kg dogs. The floor gets filthy, and outside boots come in with stones in the soles. Even this floor will mop up and look excellent, if not quite brand new. In the boot room there are two surface scratches, that are noticeable as the dirt catches in them and our floor is a light grey. The scratches are our fault, a metal dog crate got dragged across it without thinking, but work boots haven't made any wear marks.

We found a slight oddity with getting "dull" patches where we have some rugs and mats. Only just noticeable and seems to be worse if there's a backing on the rug/mat that is dark in colour. Remove the mat and these patches seem to fade away after a while.

 

Overall, I would definitely have it again. The groutless/seamless finish leaves no dirt traps. We can leave a robovac to take away 95% of the daily detritus from children and dogs, and just mop it perhaps once a week and it stays looking spotless. If you accept it's not as hardy as a porcelain tile, it's a fantastic floor finish.

 

I understand that it can go down on a suspended floor, but I believe there's more prep in the way of additional layers of, I think, ply to reduce the risk of any movement.

[PaulD]

Looks incredible, I've been doing a lot of research on resin for our very large open plan living area of our class Q. Definitely seems to be getting more popular and some of these contractors are doing some crazy stuff (check out gafflowresinfinishes on Instagram. £75 seems quite reasonable compared to other floor coverings, thanks for the detail and pics !