If you have a warehouse with a lot of heavy machinery moving around and forklifts transferring skids everywhere; a concrete barrier wall is the best solution to protect your self and your technology.
As warehousing and manufacturing continues to skyrocket in the United States, it is important more than ever to be able to work simultaneously with technology and machinery. As a business owner or commercial real estate owner you want to limit your liability as well as protect all of your assets.
Having computers and office equipment inside of the warehouse is an extremely common practice however can result in unnecessarily damaged equipment and personal injury.
Installing a concrete barrier wall between any office equipment personnel and heavy machinery is your safest and best option for success in safety.
If you’re a property owner looking into the details of what it takes to put a concrete barrier wall in your building or if you are a concrete business owner looking to add this service to your portfolio; this blog will cover briefly how to build a barrier wall and what the final product can potentially look like.
Build That Wall
- First and foremost you’re gonna want detailed plans for your wall including dimensions and reinforcements.
- Clean your workspace and make sure there are no objects getting in the way of putting your plans onto the surface where you are going to build.
- Make all of your measurements and snap any lines necessary to transfer the plans and the floor. We are going to work or away from the ground up.
- Cut and create your forms for the wall before installation as a mega tricky to install the inside forms once the outside forms are properly put into place.
- Install the outside forms on the snap lines and tie everything together so all measurements are correct and plum.
- Now it’s time to install the rebar reinforcement before you install the inside forms.
- After the rebar reinforcement is installed and tied together it’s now time to put in the inside forms.
- Using the same process as the outside forms you install the inside forms with cleats to the existing slab as well as tying all of the two by fours together so there is no shifting or moving.
- Find any vulnerable spaces in your forms and kick them for more support.
- The next day strip the forms and prep the concrete for resurfacing using a grinder.
- Using the resurfacer of your choice fill in all honeycomb and holes and finish with a broom finish.
Time To Completion
This particular project was pretty small including around 20 feet of wall at 4 feet high and 1 foot thick so we were able to complete the project in one day.
Using the same sequence as listed above me and two other people were able to have everything framed and reinforced in four hours.
Because this is inside of a warehouse with limited space we are going to wheel barrel the concrete into the warehouse and then shovel the concrete by hand into the forms.
You can use a vibrator to help the concrete in the forms however we choose to use a rubber mallet and hit the outside of the forms to help Concrete move.
We like to use a rubber mallet on a job like this because a vibrator creates a ton of pressure on the forms and we cannot risk any blowouts. Knowing that we are going to resurface regardless of the finish of the wall we are choosing to use a rubber mallet to help jitterbug the concrete.
Lasting Protection
Building a barrier wall to protect your equipment is a great investment because it will last forever.
Unless you are intentionally trying to break the wall down or knock it over this wall will serve its purpose flawlessly.
We have installed thousands of feet of barrier wall to protect equipment and refrigeration units for years. Forklifts will hit our installed walls on a daily basis with no damage to the equipment being protected.
Overtime you will get chipped concrete and scuff marks which is completely natural however it’ll take some serious effort to damage what is behind the barrier wall.