How Brewery Flooring Impacts Health and Safety

When most people think about breweries, their attention probably turns to the fermenters, distillers, tanks, and ingredients that make for the best brews. While all of this equipment makes up the heart and soul of any brewery, other aspects of these facilities are just as important.

Often taken for granted, brewery floors lay the foundation for every brewery, allowing workers to walk and operate machinery safely each day. In fact, industrial flooring plays a major role in ensuring the health and safety of all employees and customers who may enter the brewing center. Let’s examine how and why this is.

Minimizing Slips and Falls

It’s no surprise that brewing can be a slippery business. The brewing process involves liquids and fine materials, namely water, yeast, malt, and hops, plus various additives to achieve different flavors, etc. No matter how carefully these ingredients are handled, some of them are bound to make their way onto the floor, creating a safety hazard for workers and the machines they use.

Proper industrial floor coatings can greatly reduce the risk of slipping. Urethane cement floors, for instance, offer a strong grip texture that increases friction, thereby reducing potential slips and falls.

Making Cleaning Easy

Of course, no matter how slip-resistant your brewery’s floor is, spills and leaks must still be addressed immediately. The easier it is to clean these messes, the safer and more productive your brewery will be. You want to go for industrial flooring solutions that make it easy to locate and remove every type of spill common in your facility.

Floors that are resistant to thermal shock (rapid changes in temperature) won’t fracture so easily, meaning liquid spills won’t be able to seep into the floor or quickly spread. Instead, all messes will remain where they are so you can quickly clean them up, dry the area, and continue your operations. These floors will also remain intact when power washing them on a regular basis.

Keeping Bacteria (and Mold) at Bay

Durable, thermal shock-resistant floors are also useful for preventing the growth and spread of bacteria and mold. These unwanted, harmful materials often thrive in the cracks and seams of floors. By hiring a brewery flooring contractor to install high-quality industrial floor coverings, you can seal all of these cracks, making it hard for bacteria and mold to enter your facility.

Installing a cove base can also help, as this creates a curved edge between the floor and walls, rather than a straight seam. Additionally, you might invest in antimicrobial flooring, which contains biostatic effects that further reduce the risk of this growth.

Designating Areas with Line Striping

Slipping, falling, and being overrun by harmful bacteria are all serious threats to any brewery and its workers. But they’re not the only ones. Physical impact from machinery and heavy objects can harm not only your facility but your people as well. With so many people and so much equipment, line striping helps designate which areas are safe for walking, and which are meant for machines and equipment.

Just like painting lines on a road, commercial industrial painting services can clearly mark every area of your brewery floor via line striping. These lines can be color-coded and be made in various lengths and widths so every employee knows where (and where not to) stand.

By now, it should be clear that brewery floors should not be taken for granted. Workers and customers need a safe place to walk, and your facility needs to stay strong under the pressure, chemicals, and environmental threats it faces each day. Painters USA offers our clients the highest-quality industrial floor solutions for breweries and other industrial facilities across the U.S. To learn more, contact us at 1-800-999-8715.