Open For Business: Low-Odor
Coating Refreshes Floors Mid-Season
Project Details:
Facility Owner: The Plex North
Location: Fort Wayne, Indiana
Facility: Multi-sport complex
Coating Distributor: HPP Industrial
Project Contact: Peter Mahlock
Keeping an active sports facility open during a floor renovation is its own kind of challenge. At The Plex North in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a year round complex hosting youth and adult soccer, flag
football, and baseball and softball programs, the concrete flooring throughout the facility’s hard-surface areas needed a refresh. But with leagues, practices, and families moving through the building on a near-daily basis, the facility couldn’t afford to shut down for a conventional epoxy installation.
Traditional high-performance epoxy floor systems are typically solvent-based, which means strong odor and flammability risk during application and cure, a difficult combination in a building that stays open to athletes, coaches, and spectators. The Plex North needed a coating system that could deliver the same durability and showroom-quality finish as a solvent-based system, without forcing a closure or exposing occupants to fumes during the work.
The solution was a two-part, fully water-based epoxy system. Crews first applied Concrete Saver® Hard Surface Primer (CS-55), a two-component, zero-VOC water-based epoxy primer formulated to improve adhesion on hard, smooth substrates like troweled concrete.
Once primed, the floor received SealKrete® High Performance Epoxy-Shell™ Pro WB, a two-component, water-based epoxy topcoat that covers in a single coat and cures to a glossy, easy-to-clean, showroom-quality finish.
Both products carry very low to zero VOC content and no flammability concerns, allowing the crew to work in occupied areas of the facility with no/low odor and none of the ventilation or shutdown requirements a solvent-based system would demand.
The water-based formulation didn’t come at the cost of performance. Epoxy-Shell Pro is rated for foot traffic in as little as 12–16 hours, vehicle traffic in 3 days, and delivers the same abrasion and chemical resistance expected of a premium solvent-based epoxy, letting The Plex North get sections of the floor back in service quickly as work progressed through the building.
The Plex North project is a strong example of how HPP Industrial helps facility owners solve a problem that’s becoming more common: high-performance results with none of the disruption. As more schools, gyms, and recreation facilities look to stay open through renovation work, water-based systems like this one give owners and operators a way to say yes to both — a durable, professional-grade finish and a facility that never has to close its doors.
Written by Pam Sholtes, President of HPP Industrial
