A Guide To Concrete

Floor Maintenance
 Contents

Introduction.................................................................................................................. 3

Ignoring Floor Damage............................................................................................... 4

Symptoms, Causes & Solutions................................................................................... 5

Joints............................................................................................................................ 5
Cracks........................................................................................................................... 6
Crazing........................................................................................................................ 7
Surface Defects........................................................................................................... 7
Durability.................................................................................................................... 7
Flatness........................................................................................................................ 8

Is Repair Necessary?..................................................................................................... 9

Doing The Repairs....................................................................................................... 11

How To Manage Repairs & Maintenance................................................................... 11

Why Choose CoGri Group?.......................................................................................... 12

Contact Us.................................................................................................................... 13

2
 Introduction
Industrial facilities, such as warehouses, distribution centres and production facilities
run their operations on top of a concrete industrial floor slab. It is the one part of the
building that will be utilised on a daily basis and it’s the point where the warehouse
and the materials handling equipment (MHE) including mobile robotic systems
interact. It is the table top on which the operation performs and as such will have a
direct bearing on the successful performance of any warehouse operation.

Businesses regularly invest in technology and management systems to improve their

levels of efficiency, customer service and overall performance. However, many are
often reluctant to spend too much time and money on floor maintenance. A floor
that is poorly maintained will result in poor MHE performance and this can also have
a negative effect on staff performance. All too often damaged floor joints, cracks
and surface defects are left untreated for as long as possible, until they can no longer
be ignored. This always leads to more expensive repairs being required, not to
mention the cost of increased forklift truck maintenance and the risk of personal
injury to staff.

We would like to show you that by taking a pro-active approach to floor

maintenance, you can improve performance and save money.

3
Ignoring Floor Damage
Despite the perceived inconvenience of having floor repairs done, there are good
reasons not to ignore damaged joints, cracks and surface defects. These include:

1. Operational Performance – Damaged floors will result in the MHE operating

at slower speeds, ultimately impacting on warehouse efficiency. Poor surface
regularity, flatness and levelness can cause mobile robotic equipment to roll
away from their target spots, requiring human intervention and unscheduled
downtime.

2. Equipment Damage - Your forklift trucks can suffer wheel, bearing and
suspension damage. Laser-based navigation systems on Goods to Person
(G2P) Robotics, such as Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) or Automated
Guided Vehicles (AGV) may be disrupted as well as wear and tear on robot
wheels and other hardware.

3. Health & Safety – Driver fatigue and the risk of injury to staff, customers and
visitors. Uneven floors could unbalance the cargo/payload carried by mobile
robots, endangering humans working within the environment.

4. Tenancy Issues – If leasing or renting your premises, it is likely you have a

maintenance clause included in your lease contract. Your business could be
liable for any damage.

5. Quality Assurance (QA) Audits – In some industries, for instance food,

pharmaceutical and chemical, damaged flooring can be seen as a negative
and result in you failing a QA Audit.

4
 Symptoms, Causes & Solutions

Not all issues you may identify in a concrete floor need to be addressed and here we
will look at the more common types of damage you may encounter and what to do
about them.

Joints
Most concrete floors have joints, with each joint comprising of two slab edges,
what we know in the trade as Joint Arrisses. It is the floor joints that tend to
be the greatest source of floor maintenance for a busy operational warehouse. This
may be in part down to poor design or poor workmanship at the construction stage,
but the impact loads from hard wheeled MHE including robotic material handling
equipment that pass over the joints are largely the cause of damage to the arris
edges.

All joints should be filled with a joint sealant that is hard enough to support and
protect the concrete arrisses, but it must also be able to deal with the anticipated
movement of the floor whilst staying bonded to at least one face of the joint. When
the joint sealant has de-bonded from the arris edge, or has perished and is no longer
protecting the arrisses, the risk of damage from MHE and mobile robotic systems
significantly increases. This is your trigger to get the joint sealant replaced. Replacing
the joint sealant as soon as is practical, will protect the arris edge and prevent more
significant damage taking place. This also removes the necessity to have more
expensive repairs carried out.

If the joint sealant has not been replaced in a timely manner and the damage has
been allowed to progress beyond the scope of re-sealing the joint, the only real
solution is to re-construct the joint arris edges. Our repair process to re-construct the
arrisses, includes saw cutting around the damaged area to form new edges,
preventing the CoGri Repair Mortar from being too thin around the edges of the
repair. The Repair Mortar replaces the damaged concrete, the repair is ground
smooth and the joint is reinstated to accommodate anticipated movement in the
slab. Whilst it’s appreciated this is a more expensive repair, our Arris Repair Detail is a
tried and tested solution, reducing future floor maintenance costs and the potential
to save on expensive repairs to the materials handling equipment.

5
 Symptoms, Causes & Solutions

Cracks
Unfortunately all concrete floors are at risk of cracking and this risk increases with the
size of the bays and the distance between the floor joints designed to relieve stresses.
The type of floor design you have, such as a jointless floor (large bays and very few
joints) carry a greater risk of cracking when compared to a jointed floor (lots of joints).
No matter what the slab design, there are a few reasons why cracks appear, but most
commonly cracks are associated with restraint to shrinkage.

Where cracks form due to restraint from shrinkage they are typically fine (narrow)
cracks and generally have no structural significance. Once cracks appear they should be
monitored to check for signs of movement; is the crack getting wider? Also look out for
breakdown or spalling of the crack edges, as these are vulnerable to damage from the
hard wheels of the forklifts.

Although less common, cracks can occur due to overloading of the floor slab and also
some restraint-induced cracks could have structural implications because of where they
have formed in relation to the loads applied on the slab.

Most cracks are relatively straight forward to repair ensuring the floor remains in a
serviceable condition. Although some cracks, such as those that may have been caused
as a result of overloading will require further review to ensure the correct repair
solution can be provided. It is therefore essential that a specialist floor repair contractor
is approached to provide advice and services on how best to deal with the cracks.

6
 Symptoms, Causes & Solutions

Crazing
Is a feature of power trowelled concrete floors that is often confused with cracking,
as it appears as a network of fine, closely spaced cracks on the surface of the
concrete. Crazing is typically an aesthetic issue and doesn’t cause any structural or
serviceability issues.

Surface Defects
A variety of defects can present themselves from time to time on the surface of a
concrete floor slab, ranging from surface erosion from MHE or the AMR casters snap
with turning, to spalling around old fixing bolts left in the slab. How you treat
them will depend on the type of damage, but one thing they will have in
common; they will only get worse if they are neglected.

Durability
You may also have a floor surface with poor abrasion resistance and this can impact
on operational performance. Depending on the scale of the problem, this could be
treated with small patch repairs or if it is widespread, applying a suitable resin or
screed system may be the best option.

7
 Symptoms, Causes & Solutions

Flatness
It is possible that you may not have any significant damage to the floor joints or the
surface, but your robotics and MHE are not running at optimum speed. This could be
an indication that the flatness of the floor is the issue. We can provide a specialist
service for flatness compliance testing of defined and free movement floors. The
results of the tests will enable us to provide you with an effective solution to
overcome the flatness issues.

A lot of floor defects and issues are not always easily identified and we have found
that the best source of feedback are the operatives who use the floor on a daily basis.
Whether they are the forklift truck drivers, pallet truck operators or those who walk
the floor regularly, they will be able to tell you where the problem areas are.

Other indicators of possible floor issues are as follows:

Inordinate build up of dust on equipment or pallets of goods.

Blisters or cracks in the resin floor system.
An increase in maintenance bills for your equipment.
Forklift truck drivers slowing down at certain locations on the floor.
Identified in a QA or Health and Safety audit.

Should you experience any of the symptoms above the time has come to assess the
condition of the floor and investigate how improvements can be made.

8
 Is Repair Necessary?
Not every joint, crack or surface defect you notice has to be repaired as a priority.
Some may not need to be fixed at all, such as a fine crack that hasn’t opened much
with no arris damage. Or a spalled joint that is under the racking and not in a traffic
route. Minor defects like these should be identified and monitored to ensure they
don’t become an issue. At least not an expensive issue in the future.

Unfortunately, many businesses don’t factor in to their budgets for floor

maintenance and we are regularly contacted about a floor survey once the damage
has reached a stage where it can no longer be managed. Even if this is the case, it is
still a good starting point for change and putting a pro-active floor maintenance
action plan in place. The results from our survey will help us provide you with
unparalleled advice about floor repair and maintenance strategies. Our information
can be presented in a Traffic Light System to help with prioritising repairs and
assisting with maintenance budgets.

Our traffic light criteria as follows:

RED – Serious damage requiring immediate repair action.
AMBER – Damage requires timely action. Failure to repair will result in more
serious damage.
GREEN – Serviceable. Monitor. Report signs of deterioration at the earliest
opportunity.

Our provision of an upfront schedule of rates for all aspects of concrete joint and
floor repairs can help reduce the cost of your floor maintenance.

9
 Doing The Repairs
As with most types of maintenance, you can either choose to maintain the floor
yourself using your own staff, or you can outsource it to a general contractor. There
may be benefits to both of these options, but in the long run, the best choice is to
bring in a specialist industrial flooring contractor like ourselves. This way the repairs are
actioned efficiently and effectively, and generally only done once.

At CoGri Group, we believe our floor repair services to be of the highest order, but we
also appreciate that not everyone has the available budget to bring in a specialist
contractor. Particularly when you have to deal with unplanned emergency
repairs. With this in mind we developed our own range of professional repair
products that can be applied in the first instance to get you through until you are
able to bring in the flooring specialist.

Employing a specialist flooring contractor who understands the floor and how it is
used, will provide you with peace of mind and help reduce your future maintenance
costs.

10
 How To Manage
Repairs & Maintenance

How you maintain your industrial flooring depends on the type of floor you have in
your facility. The most common flooring found in warehouses, factories and industrial
units is concrete with a power trowelled finish. Resin coating systems such as epoxy,
polyurethane or acrylic can also be found in industrial environments. Many facilities
will have a combination of concrete and resin, where the resin is applied to pedestrian
walkways, pallet lanes and general safety markings.

There are also the specialist areas such as food production, pharmaceutical or chemical
facilities that will have a full specialist resin floor system applied on top of the concrete
floor slab. No matter what the floor system is, it will be open to wear and degradation
from everyday traffic. Every floor needs a robust cleaning and maintenance schedule
to avoid serious issues occurring, help prolong the life of the floor system and keep
the operation running efficiently.

Understanding what floor system is in place and how it is used, will help when
putting together a floor maintenance schedule. The more specialist requirements
should be taken into consideration but in the main the schedule should include
the following ongoing tasks:

1. Inspection: Conduct regular visual inspections for signs of damage and log all
joint, crack and surface defects for maintenance requirements.

2. Cleaning: All floor surfaces should be cleaned regularly to prevent the build up
of dirt and debris, also reduces the risk of potential slip hazards.

3. Planned Maintenance: Addresses non-urgent repair tasks before they are

allowed to become a serious issue requiring an expensive repair detail.

11
 Why Choose
CoGri Group?

At CoGri Group, we offer robust flooring solutions that provide genuine value for
money and lasting quality. CG Flooring were established in 2000 as a sister company to
Concrete Grinding who specialise in high tolerance laser grinding to floors in very
narrow aisle warehouses, as a result of requests from their clients about how to repair
floor damage outside the narrow aisles. The new company with a different skill set
was born.

As a specialist in the repair of concrete industrial floors, we have used our experience
to develop innovative repair, maintenance and refurbishment services which we offer
to businesses throughout the UK and overseas. Our systems and services are designed
to ensure our time on site is kept to an absolute minimum reducing the impact on any
live operation.

We offer a Due Diligence Floor Survey package which will provide an assessment on
the condition of the existing concrete floor, focusing on four key aspects that can
determine the success of any floor in an operational building: JOINTS, DURABILITY,
FLATNESS and LOADING. The results of the survey will ensure we can provide you
with unparalleled advice on floor repair and maintenance strategies.

As a proud member of the CoGri Group, a consortium of international industrial floor

specialists, it allows us access to some of the finest minds in the industry, as well as
additional resources, equipment and personnel. All designed to ensure we deliver
robust solutions with an excellent level of service.

By engaging our services, we believe we can help you maximise the efficiency and
operational performance of the warehouse.

12
 Why Choose
CoGri Group?

Contact Us
Thank you for downloading this e-book. We would be delighted to hear from you
and answer any further questions you have about concrete floor maintenance,
including how our services can help you save time and money.

Please visit our website and contact your relevant regional office, or contact the UK
Head Office in Huddersfield on +44(0)1484 600080.

You can also email info@cogrigroup.com, or send us a message directly through our
website.

We look forward to hearing from you.

CoGri Group CoGri Group

Dene House, North Road
Tel: +44 (0) 1484 600080
Kirkburton
Huddersfield 13 Fax: +44 (0) 1484 600095
United Kingdom Email: info@cogrigroup.com
HD8 0RW Website: www.cogrigroup.com