Coating a Ballpark Restroom with Ecodur

A major league ballpark in downtown Denver, Colorado, covers 76 acres and its facilities are extremely heavily used. After nearly 20 years, it was time for upgrades to large areas of flooring, particularly in the restrooms.

The client not only wanted durability, but also showroom quality finishes in the restrooms. Materials used also had to be non-toxic with zero VOCs and be able to withstand heavy foot traffic.

Problem.
Conventional epoxy coatings work well on highly stable substrates but they do not survive stresses well. On passenger ship decks, they often microcrack within six months. In the case of stadium flooring, the substrate is highly stable and would appear to be ideal for conventional coating solutions.

But, restroom facilities have the additional challenge for coatings in that they are subjected to frequent, vigorous cleaning with strong chemicals designed to not only remove dirt but also kill germs. With industrial cleaners, some can affect coatings quite rapidly and radically reduce their wear resistance and, where cracks have occurred, they can also affect adhesion.

Ecodur is in several thousand frac, oil and production water tanks where it performs well against a very wide variety of chemicals, a number of which can quickly destroy steel tanks in a matter of weeks and months if unprotected.

Solution.
Castagra’s Ecodur is zero VOC, zero BPA, non-toxic and has exceptional adhesion, even on aging concrete. With a level of retained elasticity over its entire lifetime, it copes well with cracking that inevitably occurs over time with large concrete structures.

It is made from castor oil and naturally-occurring soft rock gypsum. It is certified Class A flame retardant and has an ANSI/NSF-61 rating for contact with human drinking water.

Ecodur also has a lifetime advantage over other coatings in that should repairs be required, it re-bonds to the original Ecodur, making for a seamless repair bond.

Ecodur is also easy to apply manually. Pot life is around 40 minutes and full cure occurs within 24 hours instead of two to three days as required by some coatings, thus returning facilities back to full use within a day.

Application Results.
The surfaces to be coated were thoroughly cleaned. They were swept of all and any debris, chemically etched and power-washed before being allowed to dry. Cracks and slab lines were filled with Ecodur.

The aim was to provide the maximum opportunity for Ecodur to adhere extremely strongly, thus making the ideal primer base for the purple grape and cream colored decorative chips which were applied into the top clear coat. The total depth of the coatings was 40-50 mils. This project, as before, was carried out by Lifetime Coatings.