Safety first for busy school’s new flooring

A new flooring finish was required for an atrium, which hundreds of children use or pass through each day.

Because the atrium floods this area of the school with so much light through a Perspex roof, it meant that whatever was chosen had to be UV stable, hard wearing and safe.

With hundreds of children crossing the floor in the Radclyffe School in Oldham, Greater Manchester each day, priorities were for an improved decorative finish which was safe, suitable for steps and compatible with existing large expansion joints as there had been a lot of movement in this building.

The system also had to be economic, hard-wearing, easily cleaned, have low odour during application and chemical resistance, slip resistance and non-dusting.

Sherwin-Williams’ technical flooring experts looked at their diverse range of options for this specific application covering 800 sq metres.

The floor finish chosen was a multi-coat resin system incorporating decorative multi-coloured Resuflake, with clear seal coats ensuring strong UV stability because of the amount of natural light coming into the area.

This complements adjacent flagstone areas in the school atrium, and provides a continuous flooring system which is safe, easily cleaned and hard-wearing for the long-term.

Because the system was applied to a concrete substrate, it also became a part of the building rather than an add-on and meets all original requirements.