At Caterline, we believe commercial kitchen flooring is affected by many different factors, including high temperatures, spillage, and heavy-duty cooking equipment. Because of this, it is essential to ensure that the floor in commercial kitchens is excellent. Use safety flooring to ensure minimal spillage; it should also be durable, comfortable, and should have infection control—this article is a brief guide to commercial kitchen flooring to ensure seamless work.
Considerations for Commercial Kitchen Flooring
Commercial kitchen flooring is put to the test day after day, with extreme temperatures, continual flows of water, frequent spills, and heavy industrial kitchen equipment. And the unreasonable expectations don’t end there. If you’re looking for commercial kitchen flooring, you’ll want something that can meet a variety of criteria, including:
Easy installation
Time commitment is one of the major deterrents for restaurant owners when it comes to replacing their flooring. It is difficult to imagine your restaurant being shut down for three days and losing income, but this is the typical time taken for most floor firms to install commercial kitchen flooring in a restaurant. Though this isn’t the essential element to consider when choosing a floor and a firm to work with, it should be considered. Overnight installation is excellent since it can be completed without disturbing your company flow.
Hygiene Support
In every food facility, one of the most critical considerations is ensuring that there is hygiene. Make sure to have an environment that is compliant with GOV.UK. Hygiene is also essential because it can cause a health impact on your employee’s health and visitors.
The floor must be simple to clean with standard cleaning techniques and solutions, and it should have antimicrobial and antibacterial characteristics to prevent germs from developing on the floor.
Slip Resistance vs Cleanability
In industrial kitchens, spills of liquid, cooking oils, and other substances are common, posing a risk of slipping and falling. While many different types of flooring claim to have slip-resistant surfaces, only a handful can provide completely tailored slip-inhibiting characteristics. What is the significance of this? Because what one operation deems the ideal amount of skid resistance may be too strongly designed for effective cleaning at another.
For numerous reasons, such as standard components that can wind up on the ground and recommended cleaning products and procedures, floor care regimens might vary substantially from one facility to the next—installation-ready flooring. Specific commercial kitchen flooring options may be used to alter the gradient during installation to help reduce leaking water and pooling areas where germs can grow.
Chemical Resistance and Strength
The exposures of a wide variety of temperatures must be resisted on each commercial kitchen floor. The ovens, frying pans, and grillers may spit hot oil onto the ground and grate it. The floor can be abrasive underfoot activity and cart travel by granular substances such as whole grains, sugar, salt, and spices. The floor can be filled with plates, pots, knives, and other kitchen appliances, due to the daily cleaning of hard detergents, solvents, and degreasers.
Many commercial floor products will indent, blister, crack, and peel back in this sort of climate, revealing the porous concrete foundation beneath. As a result, you may be faced with costly repairs and downtime at a moment when you least expect it. Make sure to choose an elevated finish that is resistant to hot oil, scratches, and chemicals.
Thermal Shock Resistance
The kind of flooring you choose for your kitchen should be strong enough to survive a wide range of temperatures that are there between your walk-in coolers as well as the cold produced by the freezers. The intense temperatures that the cooker, dishwashers, and steam cleaning produce should not d=be bale to damage your kitchen flooring.
Such a divergence in temperatures can cause contraction and expansion of the concrete substrate and coating, therefore, damaging your commercial kitchen flooring.
If the covering and the concrete plate respond very differently to shift in temperature, dislocation and splitting of the floor covering the concrete can happen, loosely / moving floor regions will create and the pollutants filtered beneath and into the floor plate.
Choose a thermal shock-resistant flooring system, which spreads and contracts at an average rate equal to the underlying label to prevent such risks. Doing this ensures that the whole surface of the floor stays wholly connected to the concrete and avoids microbiological development between the flooring and the substratum.
Moisture Tolerance and Mitigation
In any industrial kitchen, there are essentially two primary sources of humidity. One cause is the moisture produced by the cooking, dishwashing, cleaning procedures, fluid waste, and similar activities in the room. Naturally, this might lead to mist or moisture on the surface of the ground. If not correctly adjusted, moisture may cause the flooring covering and the concrete substratum to deteriorate prematurely in both situations. Suitable commercial flooring in the kitchen tolerates continuous surface wetness.
Comfort
The kind of commercial kitchen flooring you choose needs to be comfortable enough for your employees so that they can stay for an extended period and be happy to be in the kitchen.
Aesthetics
When choosing your commercial kitchen flooring, you need to ensure that the design you select complements the layout in your home. Doing this will give your room a great ambience while supporting your home’s branding at the same time.
Easy maintenance
Another important consideration is the maintenance of the floor; choose a type of flooring that is easy to clean and maintain. You do not have to use robust cleaning solutions frequently to keep the floor clean.
The Best Flooring for a Commercial Kitchen
JetRock Epoxy Flooring
Epoxy flooring, especially JetRock epoxy flooring, is the most highly advised for the best-expected duration. This highly durable floor outlasts both ceramic and commercial vinyl flooring, and it comes with a slew of other advantages that makes it the best option for your kitchen.
JetRock’s a high-grade blend of our proprietary epoxy resin and quartz chips. The unscented solution is squeezed into a 3/16′′ layer over present tile, wood, or concrete surfaces. The finishing product is slippery, non-porous, and durable. The material is waterproof. A JetRock floor will not keep the odours, will not have to be resealed regularly, and will not need cleaning or repairing.
Ceramic Tile Flooring
A clay mixture is shaped into tiles and burned in a kiln to create the ceramic tile. Ceramic is available in porcelain and non-porcelain composites, and it is complex, resilient, and simple to clean, needing little upkeep. Ceramic is coated with a melted glass finish for industrial kitchens, protecting the surface from wear and tear, stains, and water. Unglazed porcelain is porous and will break down quickly in a professional kitchen. Because manufacturing companies can produce the glaze in virtually any design, using wood-grains and other natural patterns, ceramics may take on almost any look. If a tile breaks, you may replace it one at a time without turning off the machine.
Concrete Flooring
Another popular choice is concrete. It has the advantage of being extremely long-lasting, with a solid, flat, and smooth surface resistant to heat and most impacts. Polished concrete makes a beautiful kitchen floor and may last up to ten years if properly maintained.
This sort of flooring is also long-lasting and able to withstand the weight of large machines and equipment. On the downside, its toughness makes it difficult to stand on for lengthy periods, so many homeowners use rubber mats to cushion the impact. Concrete flooring is permeable, allowing germs and fungus to grow, and it may fail health department inspections unless painted over with epoxy.
It’s not the simplest to keep clean, and it’s slick when wet. It can also raise the amount of loudness in a commercial area. Materials cost £3-5/sq. ft., while installation costs £6-12/sq. Ft.
Vinyl Flooring
Commercial vinyl flooring is the most cost-effective option, but this can be repaired. Therefore it must be changed as early as possible. It’s also not a sustainable option, as it manufactures volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and worn-out materials usually pollute the environment.
Due to the significant maintenance expenses, especially if moisture or dirt seeps into the seams, this is not typically advised to restaurateurs. Although the materials appear to be affordable, the cost of upkeep alone makes it pricey and inefficient. Every three years, it should be changed.
Natural Stone Tile
Another alternative for commercial kitchen floors is natural stone tiles, mainly when the workplaces are visible to consumers. Similar to ceramic and quarry tile, it is sturdy and difficult to keep in mind but has numerous disadvantages. Initially, if you want a designer look, installation of the tiles may take several days and sometimes even weeks. In addition to the costs on the front end, the natural stone may also be quite maintenance-efficient, which will require regular repairs or tile replacement. Some additional downsides: Stone tiles may initially be stained and discoloured unless they are screwed up, unlike quarry or ceramic tiles.
Furthermore, stone tiles used in professional kitchens must be selected with care: profound surface differences might provide tripping risks. Most significantly, they must be slip-resistant even when wet, which is a criterion that not all-natural stone tiles satisfy. Materials cost £5-6/sq. Ft., whereas installation costs £8-25/sq. Ft.
What is the cheapest commercial flooring?
Low-consuming materials are offered like Laminate, vinyl planks, ceramic panels, tapestry, bamboo machinery, and many others. Luxury vinyl tiles or LVT are incredibly durable — don’t let the word ‘luxury’ fool you since there are many cheap LVT versions.
The essential aspects to consider in choosing low-cost materials are pricing per square foot, the waterproof for moist locations such as kitchens, and whether you want a luxury flavour or a chilly ceramic floor. Floors laminate has long been a famous company for kitchens. Its significant edge is economically viable over the tile and wood floors.
The flooring of the Laminate improves. You’ll notice even more persuasive wood appearances and all the developments in wood, such as hand-scraped wood and distressed wood appearances.’
Resistant to sting and scratches, it is a fantastic choice for busy kitchens, but verify yours under the room’s humid conditions before you purchase.
Choose Laminate of higher quality, with a realistic illusion of wood or tile and grain, emboss, bent edges, and stone appearance.
Avoid the cheapest stratified, staining, warping, and peeling. You may get what you pay for, and more affordable alternatives are frequently excessively bright and unrealistic.
Expertise in design: Go for a low-sheen finish and search for the features mentioned above, like sharp rims, to make your design genuinely persuasive. Protect your laminate floor with an underlay against damage by heavy equipment.
Laminate Flooring: most laminated floors can be laid by themselves since most manufacturers upgrade their laminates with easy-to-use locking mechanisms.
Cleaning laminate flooring: Use a moist cloth to clean your laminated floor rather than an utterly wet mop, which could get water beneath the flooring materials and damage it.
Waterproof commercial kitchen flooring
Chemical contamination is taken into account while choosing a waterproof and installation solution for a commercial kitchen flooring. The designer must provide the relevant ranges of the functional load group.
Commercial kitchen epoxy flooring cost
The price depends primarily on the type of epoxy, how many coatings are utilized, and how they are employed ( whether using a squeegee, roller, trowel, or sprayer). Based on an average, epoxy coatings can typically cost £20/m2, but metallic epoxy with build-up can cost £150 p/m2.
