Dar Al Shifa Hospital Project- A Case Study of re-coating an old Epoxy layer and remarking arrows, lines, and curbstone painting

Cleanliness is next to healthiness. And more than anything, this idea applies to a hospital environment. There is no gainsaying that a clean and tidy hospital is crucial to patients’ safety, especially the hospital’s exterior surroundings, which command the first impression among potential patients. Thus, it must be as elegant as possible.

This case study discusses how we recoat an old epoxy floor outside the Dar Al Shifa hospital in Kuwait to make its outside environment even more attractive and welcoming.

The existing flooring had Epoxy coating with cracks, and the flooring area also had some damaged layers. The sidewalk and car park also needed some painting facelift. As it was a busy area, we needed to put more men to work as quickly and carefully as possible.

Like every task, preparation comes first. We began by testing the condition of the floor before the complete grinding and removal of the existing coating.

Epoxy floors are tough to remove, so we used the diamond disk wheel attached to the Blastrac 435 grinder, ensuring that we can remove the old layer quickly and easily reach the required depth. We chose the Blastrac 435 grinder because it has a multi-purpose feature suitable for the nature of the project.

We understand that grinding off an epoxy coat outside the hospital environment puts Patients and passersby at risk. So, the grinding machine was attached to a powerful dust collector, which significantly reduces the amount of dust generated in the process.

Dealing with these specks of dust can be very difficult. In fact, sand particles left on the floor may cause an unbinding issue when treating the floor later on. The aftermath might not appear right away. Nevertheless, it is inevitable, given the peculiarity of Kuwait’s weather. Therefore, we needed to vacuum thoroughly to get rid of remaining dust and debris

First off, we re-inspected every area of the kitchen. We also closely inspected the areas that had heavy foot and trolley traffic before starting the preparation of the floor surface.

We removed the existing coating and prepared the surface using the BLASTRAC diamond disc floor grinding machine, the cutting process was dust-free because we connected it to the BLASTRAC dust collector. This is important because we had to maintain a dust-free atmosphere, especially in a factory that produces spices.

After we were done with floor grinding, we removed the existing epoxy coating. We then vacuumed the entire floor area to make it dust-free.

The next step was the application of epoxy primer. The zinc phosphate material penetrates the substrate, creating a mechanical bond that seals the loose particles. Doing that ensured that the epoxy coat stuck to the surface of the floor quickly.

Following the primer application, the next step was to look out for cracks and holes across the floor. For the epoxy to seal properly, we deemed it necessary to fill the entire gap. So, we did a scratch coat to cover up these cracks and holes. Once repaired, we grinded and flushed them to create an even and clean surface for applying the epoxy floor coating. The aim of this is to prevent the repairs from being visible through the layer.

As part of the quest for obtaining the best possible evened surface, we applied the final coat of epoxy with a hand trowel as a scratch coat to cover up the uneven floor finish. We used a polyurethane protective traffic deck coating system with a roller to protect Sunlight since it was an outdoor flooring.

Lastly, we moved on to the ground floor of the multi-storey car park, where specific improvements are required on the arrow, line markings and the curbstone painting.

The challenge with this area was that the instructional arrows and line markings were no longer as visible as they should. Patients who wish to use the park and motorists may find it hard to move around this area easily. So, we needed to rectify that.

We cleaned the existing arrow marking of debris to ensure that the new paint adheres properly. The zebra line was also repainted at the emergency exit to ensure that motorists may not overlook the initially fainted marking. Likewise, we painted all the curbstone inside the ground floor car park white and yellow line-marking paint. Outside the hospital surrounding, all the curbstones were painted yellow, white, black, and blue line markings to give a new look.