Here at California Custom Coatings we are constantly championing the value of epoxy coatings for concrete floors. There is one particular type of activity, however, that is not recommended if you have epoxy floors. If you weld or work with molten metals, epoxy flooring is not for you!
Epoxy Melts at Very High Temperatures
Check out any welding forum online and you can probably find someone asking about whether epoxy floors go well with grinding, cutting, and welding metals. People who spend a lot of time in their garage or workspace like it to look good, and nothing says classy like an epoxied concrete floor. But California Custom Coatings would hate for you to invest in improving your concrete only to destroy that epoxy with the one thing that it can’t defend against — molten metal slag.
Epoxy flooring is generally fine around hot temperatures. That’s why it works great in kitchens, where boiling water and oil are commonplace. But boiling oil reaches temperatures that max out in the mid-500’s Fahrenheit. In contrast, molten metal is generally over 2500 degrees Fahrenheit — five times hotter! So the sparks that fly when welding or grinding are little chunks of molten metal that will indeed burn holes in your epoxy coating.
So if you want a garage or workspace cleaned up and improved with an epoxy coating, make sure to be clear with us about whether you intend to do a lot of welding or metal grinding. We can help you decide whether or not epoxy coatings are right for you in your specific workspace. Our goal is to always have satisfied clients, and that requires acknowledging that epoxy coatings do have this one limitation.