Commercial premises have a variety of needs when it comes to their flooring, many of which, when overlooked, can be costly in a variety of ways.
When you’re laying a new floor in your shop, there are a number of different things to look at before coming to a final decision. Some of them are aesthetic, many of them are more practical and financial. So what should you be looking for?
First of all, the visual appeal. The floor has to be easy to maintain, clean and withstand wear where there is bound to be heavy foot traffic, regular sweeping, buffing, scrapes and bumps that are sure to occur throughout the course of the floor’s life.
Colour and Care
Choosing a colour that fits in with your existing colour scheme is the first step. Once you’ve decided on a colour or colours to use, the next decision has to be, what kind of flooring solution to use. Because of the amount of wear that the floor is going to be subject to, a domestic carpet is probably out of the question, however, a warm surface that is comfortable to walk on may be one of your priorities.
Popular choices for commercial flooring materials include laminate, linoleum, vinyl, rubber, and wood.
- Laminate flooring is long lasting, attractive, hard wearing and warm to walk on, particularly important if you have changing rooms and Christmas is approaching.
- Linoleum is another surprisingly warm and comfortable surface to walk on. Because the colour runs through the material, surface wear doesn’t affect the hue or pattern and it can be made into an infinite variety of different designs.
- Vinyl flooring is a cost effective alternative to linoleum. It again is warm and comfortable to walk on. It can be installed as a single sheet or as tiles. Tiles are particularly handy if your business has areas of noticeably high and low areas of footfall as worn or damaged sections can be taken up and replaced without the inconvenience of taking up and replacing the entire floor.
- Like vinyl, rubber flooring is available as sheet or tile. Rubber flooring is incredibly hard wearing, and here too, the colour goes right through the material but it has the added advantage of being impervious to acids, alkalis, solvents, oil and water. It is a slip resistant material and todays rubber floorings don’t produce an odour.
Flooring for Safety
Safety flooring is perfect for commercial and light industrial premises because they are so impact resistant and colourful as well as being non-slip. They can be impregnated with coarse particles to improve their traction and the colours that are available mean that they can be used as effective pathfinding and area demarcation solutions. Colouring floors to lead people around a space and to let them know what purpose the space serves started in industry but really came to the general public’s attention when it was used to guide patients and visitors around hospitals. Easy to clean and clearly defined, it was the perfect solution for large buildings that had many visitors but also had to be kept to the most rigorous hygiene standards.