In part of the Northern Hemisphere we are still several weeks away from being able to start the high season for the installation of wetpour flooring. In southern Europe, on the other hand, they can be carried out throughout the year, except in some environments with a high altitude above sea level and same happens in other continents.
One of my nightmares when I was planning multiple safety flooring projects in different regions, was the forecast of weather conditions and the need to update the planning near daily due to delays caused by some unexpected weather conditions.
Our safety flooring installation activity requires maximum and minimum ambient temperature conditions (normally between 5ºC and 35ºC), which in some regions makes impossible to do installations during certain months of the year, and they cannot be carried out, as well, in situations of rain or snow precipitation or in the presence of excessive wind that can move sand, pollen, dust or plant debris.
Ten or fifteen years ago, the local weather forecast was much more complicated to achieve and had little reliability, depending on the geographical environment and its variability, but today, the large number of earth observation satellites and devices such as our mobile phone can provide us with extraordinarily useful and reliable local information through different applications that, in addition to the forecast, also provide us with real time temperature and humidity data from a weather station near the place where we are doing our flooring project.
Having specific devices to measure the temperature and humidity on site, such as the one that appears in the image below, which is the one that I have, is in any case useful, since it allows measurements to be made at the soil of the sub-base floor and its price is perfectly affordable.
When you have agreed to send a flooring installation crew, which has traveled to the job site and the weather forecasts fails, preventing the start or interrupting the work, there will be a delay in this and maybe the following jobs and an associated cost and customer unsatisfaction that you will have to deal with.
You can resort, in some extreme situations, to using temporary shelters, covers, awnings and protective tarpaulins to cover the work in progress, when unexpected precipitation begins, and we have even used mobile heaters or air condicioning machines inside a full shelter in some projects, but in general it is preferable that the environmental conditions do not pose an additional challenge for quality work and job budget, therefore knowing the environmental forecasts in advance is essential.
The presence of rain or snow, when using moisture curing binders, will cause extraordinarily fast curing and foaming, which would produce a particularly serious visual effect for the top layer and even significant indentations in the event of heavy rain or hail. It is better not to start the installation if there is a forecast of rain and to have protective tarps ready in case it starts to rain when you have already started the work.
The wind can also be a problem, if it is excessive it can drag dust, sand, pollen, leaves and plant branches that, if the flooring is still uncured and sticky , will remain attached to it, causing visual or even functional problems.
Another factor, which is not always taken into account, is the presence of tree or buildings shadows in parts of the site to be surfaced, that may be different during the day. The existence of some shadowed areas can cause different yellowing from UV rays effect, creating an irregular appearance on the surface a few hours after finished. This effect will tend to even out if the shadow areas are not permanent, but may initially be visually undesirable or unacceptable by your customer.
Just today I received a phone call from a friend and manager of a wetpour installer customer who has just sent a crew to the sunny Canary Islands, which only have less than 30 days of rainfall a year. He was desperate because as soon as they landed, you guessed right, it is raining.
Always check your preferred APP for mid and short term weather forecast and cross fingers.
Take care
Rubberman Blog 