Of great interest in the rehabilitation of housing was the successful application of an epoxy-polyurethane brush-on system, No. 65, over old asphalt tile and mastic on a concrete floor in a housing project. 5.2 Comments on Field Experiments Reported in Appendix B From the test on the barracks corridor, it appears that a brush-on monolithic surfacing with vinyl chips does not perform well in heavy traffic. A surfacing with sand filler wore satisfactorily and so did sheet vinyl with abrasive filler. However, the sheet vinyl was damaged by cigarettes and matches. Resilient floor coverings did not perform well in a military commissary where fork lift trucks were used and it was not practicable to protect the resilient floor tile with a floor finish. Polyester terrazzo floor tile or panel performed better in a busy computer facility than did vinyl and vinyl asbestos tile. Filled acrylic tile* wore almost as well as the polyester terrazzo tile! Floor tile or panel with melamine-formaldehyde resin wear layer appeared better than vinyl or vinyl asbestos tile for the first year of service but showed noticeable wear after 2-1/2 years and is not recommended for this application. 6. Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations by Winthrop C. Wolfe Materials and Composites Section; Structures, Economic decision making may be applied to the selection of flooring on the basis of life-cost or annual-cost and trade-offs. Both life-cost and annual-cost are functions of operation, maintenance, repair, replacement, and improvement or OMRI. Maintenance cost is largely labor, with appreciable equipment cost and negligible material cost. It is advantageous to invest in cleaning machines for large buildings for this reason. * This product has been withdrawn from the market and is no longer available. Selection of flooring should be based on properties which affect first-cost and maintenance cost. Carpeting as the permanent type of flooring may reduce first-cost when finished flooring is eliminated. Embossed and porous flooring will trap dirt and cause increased maintenance cost. In general, ease of cleaning is the property which is most related to maintenance cost. Flooring is often replaced before it wears out because of obsolescence due to loss of appearance or because of the introduction on the market of new products and style changes. In addition to appearance, trade-offs such as comfort and reduction of distracting noise have led to the replacement of resilient flooring by carpet in many buildings. Some trade-offs are matters of health and safety. Resilient flooring and floor finishes should be slip-resistant to avoid accidents. Increased use of carpeting has focused attention on fire safety, a very serious problem with some carpets. Certain carpeting will build up static charge when people walk over it under conditions of low relative humidity and cause annoying electrical shocks. Certain carpet fibers have been suspected of being allergenic and it is possible that carpet might trap irritating dirt particles. Mr. Roberts of the National Bureau of Standards reported that floor care represents about 40 percent of the maintenance budget and that NBS has a staff of 123 to clean 1,600,000 sq. ft. on a scheduled basis or about 13,000 sq. ft. per man. For general maintenance of resilient tile, which covers most areas in office buildings, wet cleaning and waxing has been largely replaced by the spray-buffing method. The spray-buffing process involves special equipment and acrylic polymer finish. This saves maintenance cost because it is not necessary to strip and refinish the floors as often and permits more frequent cleaning of resilient tiles. However, the spraybuffing process must be repeated periodically or it becomes necessary to strip and refinish the floors. According to Mr. Russell of the Veterans Administration, wet cleaning with detergent-disinfectant is used in hospitals to reduce bacterial levels. However, careless cleaning may damage floor tiles and finishes and remove insecticides from baseboards. Carpeting is being used more and more in office buildings and in corridors and administrative areas of hospitals. However, Mr. Russell reported that the Veterans Administration has not used carpeting in patient areas largely because of the question of bacterial contamination. Other problems which have limited the use of carpet in hospitals are fire safety and static charge build-up. The use of stainless steel fibers and antistatic sprays have not been entirely successful. Needlepunch carpeting was not successful in Veterans Administration hospitals because of poor wear, difficulty in cleaning and cigarette burns. Mr. Roberts pointed out that narrow carpet strips permit replacement of only part of the carpet in traffic lanes, thus lowering replacement cost. The use of carpet squares in some areas has accomplished the same purpose. Carpet is often sold on a janitorial contract or annual-cost basis. Under this type of contract, the maintenance firm has a five-year contract for cleaning and furnishes the carpet without additional cost. The Veterans Administration has tried monolithic surfacings or seamless floors and has found that good floors of this type are too expensive. Cleaning problems and failures are also a problem with some of this type of flooring. |