The work
Warehouse and factory floors take constant traffic, racking loads and abrasion, and need the flatness to run material handling equipment safely and fast. Get the floor wrong and every hour of every shift for the next twenty years is slightly worse than it needed to be.
We deliver power floated and laser screed floors to the free movement or defined movement grade specified, at the output the programme needs, on projects from around £15,000 to £2m and beyond. Everything is placed and finished by our own crews with our own plant.
Proof, not promises. You get the flatness survey and the cube results, not an assurance that it went well.
On site
We plan the method, phasing and plant so work continues around us and the floor goes down right first time.
The specification
Almost every commercial argument about a warehouse floor traces back to one number, and it is set by the racking, not by the floor. The lift height of the trucks and whether they have side-shift determine the tolerance the floor has to hold, so get the racking layout settled before the floor is priced. A floor specified for 8m trucks and then asked to serve 14m trucks is a problem that concrete cannot fix afterwards.
UK warehouse specifications normally point at the Concrete Society's Technical Report 34, currently in its 4th edition. TR34 controls levelness and flatness separately: Property E controls levelness, measured between fixed points 3m apart on a grid, and Property F controls flatness, the change in elevational difference between two consecutive measurements each over 300mm. Compliance is assessed on the 95th percentile value, not the worst reading:
The racking and the trucks decide the class the floor needs. We price to the class specified, and if it looks tighter than the use needs, we say so before you commit.
Where trucks run fixed routes in very narrow aisles, a defined movement specification applies instead. The tolerance is then measured along and across the defined aisles rather than on a grid across the whole floor, and it is priced and surveyed differently. Confusing the two at tender is an expensive mistake.
Distribution
A distribution centre floor is a different problem from a factory floor. The area is large, the programme is fixed by a fit-out and a go-live date, and the tolerance still has to hold across the whole thing.
Scoping
The biggest cost driver on the page. Over-specify and you pay for tolerance the operation will never use. Under-specify and the racking installer finds out for you.
Decided by whether trucks roam or run fixed aisles. Different survey, different price.
A slab is only as flat as what it sits on, and laser screed plant runs on the prepared base. A loose or out-of-tolerance sub-base is paid for in concrete volume or in a regulating operation.
Armoured joints in the main traffic runs are not the same price as sawn induced joints in a quiet corner, and the traffic pattern should drive the layout.
Cold stores, battery charging areas, wash bays and heavy machine bases all have their own requirements and should be priced separately rather than averaged into the main slab.
Placing a large floor under an incomplete roof changes the finishing window, and wind and sun cause plastic shrinkage cracking on exposed pours.
Systems
The full range is at concrete flooring. For this sector it comes down to three.
The structural slab and finished surface in one operation. The default for warehousing and manufacturing.
Read moreServiceWhere the floor plate is big and the programme is short.
Read moreServiceFor the yard, the lorry park and the service areas outside, designed for HGV loads, abrasion and drainage.
Read more
Capability
We run a Somero S22EZ laser screed, our own power floats and our own concrete line pumps, all operated by our own people. Own operatives, own plant, own placing booms, start to finish.
Not every floor in this sector is at ground level. Suspended and mezzanine decks are reached without craning plant up.
Delivery
Warehousing is often thought of as an empty-shed operation. A lot of it is not.
Proof
Constructionline Gold registered. Avetta and SSIP accredited. Member of the Nuclear Industry Association. We deliver for Tier 1 contractors including VINCI, McLaren, Costain, Kier and Tarmac.
FAQs
Send us the drawings and the specification, and we'll tell you straight whether we can deliver it, and how.
Discuss your project