Anti-slip floor and traffic coatings

Overview

How an anti-slip coating works

A smooth coating gets slick when it’s wet, oily, or dusty. An anti-slip floor coating fixes that with texture. We broadcast an aggregate, such as sand, silica, quartz, or colored flake, into the wet coating, then lock it in with a topcoat. The grip stays put, and the coating underneath keeps water and chemicals out of the concrete.

Matching the texture to the floor

More grit means more grip, but it’s also harder to clean. A pool deck needs a different texture than a forklift ramp or a commercial kitchen. We pick the aggregate, and how heavily to broadcast it, for the traffic and the cleaning routine. At the CA Chapter of Acacia Fraternity, the worn kitchen floor got a urethane base to waterproof the slab, white flake broadcast for grip, a locking topcoat, and a 6-inch integral cove base to bring it up to code.

Traffic coatings for decks and ramps

Parking decks, ramps, walkways, balconies, and helipads take tires, foot traffic, sun, and rain. A traffic coating gives them a textured wearing surface that resists slips and keeps water out of the slab. Where the deck also needs waterproofing, the textured coats go over a waterproofing membrane. See deck waterproofing.

At UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, the corridors from the parking garages into the medical center got epoxy with a broadcast aggregate. A polyurethane topcoat locks in the grit and protects it from UV.

Steel walkways and stairs

Anti-skid coatings also go on metal decking, stairs, ladders, and walkways, where they add corrosion protection to steel and aluminum. On the Dublin San Ramon dredge, we added aggregate to the coated steel walkways.

Most decks and corridors can’t close. We coat in sections and work nights, weekends, and holidays so people can still get through.