Constructing any new warehouse, from a compact regional distribution building to a huge depot processing millions of goods, is a huge undertaking with many important considerations to bear in mind. Choosing the right construction material for your warehouse is a particularly important concern, especially when it comes to flooring.
Warehouse flooring must be able to withstand an enormous amount of wear and tear and will be subjected to heavy foot traffic and the weight of heavy goods and forklifts. As such, many warehouse builders choose poured concrete for its toughness and reliability, but opting for floors made from precast concrete panels can often be a better option with significant advantages.
What are the benefits of choosing concrete panel floors over concrete floors for my warehouse?
Affordability
Laying down a poured concrete floor requires a significant amount of time and labour and can be cripplingly expensive if you have a lot of ground space to cover. Precast panels are a much more affordable option, as they are much faster to fit and do not require as much expensive skilled labour.
No problems with certification
Before any poured concrete floor can be used in a warehouse, its structural integrity and safety must be verified by local planning and building safety authoroties, which can cost you time and money. Concrete panels are cast and certified off-site before you even purchase them, and once a concrete panel floor is fitted, it can be used almost immediately with no legal headaches.
Consistent quality
Because precast concrete panels are created in factory batches, they are practically identical in terms of build quality and durability. The quality of a finished poured concrete floor is much less reliable, and because it is created on-site there is little opportunity to check for mistakes and structural weaknesses (such as air bubbles).
Can be laid in any weather
Laying a poured concrete floor requires specific weather conditions, even if the walls and roof of your warehouse have already been partially erected. They cannot be laid properly in rainy or humid weather and will take far too long to set and cure during prolonged cold spells. By contrast, precast concrete panels can be securely laid in almost any weather, making them particularly suitable for building warehouses during the rainy season.
Easier to budget
In most cases, concrete contractors will not be able to accurately quote the cost of creating a poured concrete floor until they are actually on site. Unexpected problems (such as expansive soils or prolonged wet weather) can make a poured concrete floor far more expensive than you were anticipating. Fixed prices and consistent panel sizes make precast panel floors far easier to budget accurately.
