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SSPC Issues New Commercial Guides

FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2015

PITTSBURGH—Floor coatings and fluoropolymer finishing are the focus of new specifying and evaluation guidance from SSPC.

The organization has also revised two surface-preparation standards.

Details on the new and revised documents follow.

Specifying Slip-Resistant Flooring

SSPC-Guide 21, "Guide to Evaluation of Slip and Fall Resistance of Flooring Surfaces," compiles information from various standards for evaluating slip resistance into one document.

Written by SSPC's Commercial Floor Coatings Committee (C.8.3), the guide is intended to help owners and specifiers who must specify required slip resistance for a floor surfacing (or coating) in a given service environment.

It contains:

  • Recommended maintenance protocols for hard flooring surfaces to increase slip resistance;
  • A sample form that can be used to investigate accidents and determine corrective actions;
  • Explanations of terminology related to slip resistance;
  • Descriptions of standard methods and testing equipment for assessing slip resistance; and
  • Consideration when interpreting test results.

Understanding Fluoropolymer

SSPC-TU 12, "Ambient-Curing Fluoropolymer Finish Coats Applied to Metal Substrates," is a technology update intended to provide a fundamental discussion of ambient-curing fluoropolymer finish coats applied to metal substrates, including recent developments.

Written by SSPC's Fluoropolymer Coatings Committee (C.1.8), the update is intended as a resource for architects, specification writers, faciity owners and other charged with the selection and field application of coating systems requiring superior weathering resistance and appearance retention in both architectural and industrial applications.

It includes:

  • Background information about the development of fluoropolymer materials;
  • A basic description of fluoropolymer coating technology;
  • The different types of fluoropolymers used in coatings today;
  • Application methods; and
  • Performance testing procedures.

Revisions Added

SSPC has also announced revisions to two of its standards.

SSPC surface preparation
©iStock.com / nightman1965

SSPC has revised its Guide 6, which deals with containing surface preparation debris, and TU 7, which describes methods for monitoring emissions during surface preparation.

Revisions have been made to SSPC-Guide 6, "Guide for Containing Surface Preparation Debris Generated During Paint Removal Operations."

The guide establishes various sets of criteria for containment structures used in field surface preparation and coating projects, depending on the method of surface preparation being used and the degree to which emissions must be contained.

The principal revisions include:

  • A section on "Methods for Assessing Quantity of Omissions" has been removed from Guide 6 and moved to the revised SSPC-TU 7;
  • A potentially misleading recommendation about establishing a minimum volume of air to ventilate a given volume of containment has been eliminated since airflow and volume are affected by the containment design; and
  • Minimum airflow recommendations for crossdraft and downdraft have been moved from notes to a section to make them more apparent to specifiers.

SSPC-TU 7, "Conducting Ambient Air, Soil, and Water Sampling of Surface Preparation and Paint Disturbance Activities," has also received several revisions.

This technology update describes methods and equipment used for monitoring emissions during surface preparation and other emission-generating operations to assess whether the controls in place are adequate for protecting the public, the environment and adjacent personnel or whether controls meet federal, state and local regulations.

The principal revisions include:

  • The addition of monitoring methods moved out of SSPC-Guide 6, which were revised to provide several sets of acceptance criteria for each method;
  • Definitions for "action level" and "permissible exposure limit" indicate that the ones listed in TU 7 are those for which OSHA has comprehensive health standards and that the limits shown were current at the time of publication; and
  • Information on recent revisions in NAAQS for lead limits, including pro and cons of using revised or former acceptance levels.

More information: www.sspc.org.

   

Tagged categories: Asia Pacific; Certifications and standards; Coatings Technology; EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa); Emissions; Floor coatings; Fluoropolymer; Latin America; Non-slip coatings; North America; Paint Removal; Slip-Resistance; SSPC; Surface preparation

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