Epoxy Freeze: Product Acclimation
by Daniel Owen - R&D Leader, Specialty Flooring
Our technical representatives often provide on-site project support to our customers. This is especially crucial when problems arise. Our job is to diagnose and provide solutions to get our customers back to business as usual. This is the first of a four story series of troubleshooting and prevention blog posts.
The Importance of Product Acclimation
The Scenario: Temperature turned out to be a major concern for a contractor at a food production packing plant where the room remains at about 50 degrees. Due to the low temperature conditions of the job site, the contractor chose to use an accelerated resin product, Low Temperature Epoxy (LTE), which allows for curing at lower temperatures.
When the team began the coating process, they used a product that had been left in a truck not much earlier, allowing it to heat up to about 80 degrees. The material was rolled out and started setting within seconds. The rolling mechanics couldn’t get it to roll out smoothly, and the material dried to an aggressive orange peel texture.
Why Did This Happen: Typically, when using an accelerated resin like LTE, you must allow the product to acclimate to the temperature of the room prior to use. LTE Epoxy will harden as low as 20 degrees and give you a certain amount of pot life to apply. However, if the temperature of the resin is too high and is being applied to a substrate that is significantly colder, the resin will set before you can roll it out.
The Fix: The contractor had to sand down the peaks of the texture and reapply another coat of LTE. Yet the second time around, they were sure to allow the product to acclimate to the room temperature prior to use.
The following list of products require proper acclimation prior to use:
- Low Temperature Epoxy (LTE)
- Low Temperature Epoxy Paste
- All CastorCreteTM Lines (TG, RT, CM, and SL)
- All 80 to 100% Solids Epoxies
- Solvent-Based Polyurethanes
It is extremely important to keep all resins acclimated to the temperatures or conditions of the floor being coated.