Once, I talked about office raised floors with one of our clients. I find that he can’t tell the differences between the floors. So, I will introduce the office raised floors: Steel cement raised floor, encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor, encapsulated wood core raised floor.
Application of office raised floors
As a modern intelligent office environment, it is not enough to meet the specific needs of application equipment. The environment should also be comfortable, clean, beautiful, efficient, convenient, and flexible. Due to the increase of office automation equipment, the horizontal wiring of power cords and data voice lines in the room is staggered and complicated. It has brought many adverse effects to the modern office environment.
A new wiring method for building development, embedding steel wire ducts and steel pipes in the floor slab, solves the shortcomings of wire duct and bridge wiring in the ceiling and other wiring methods. However, with the development of the building, the capacity and position of the wire duct are fixed. It is not suitable for re-wiring and changing lines, and the construction process is also more complicated. The construction can only be completed in cooperation with the civil construction department during the construction process.
The office raised floor (also called network floor) is a suitable product designed to solve the problem of large-open office equipment, more wiring in the room, complex wiring, and large changes in the office environment. It has the advantages of easy installation, flexible wiring, space-saving, maintenance-free, economical, and practical. This greatly improves the modern office environment and gives people a sense of elegance and comfort.
The network floor has the characteristics of safety, fire protection, high compressive strength, etc., which is suitable for all kinds of modern office environments. It can be constructed according to the requirements of the building form and can be cut and assembled for special building forms to ensure the aesthetic needs of the environment. The location and number of outlet points can be adjusted to increase or decrease at any time according to the needs of the office environment, which is unmatched by other wiring methods. The configuration of the number of outlet points is higher than that of other wiring methods, which fully meets the standard requirements of integrated wiring.
Classification of office raised floors
The network floor is a kind of raised floor, and the surface is not pasted with veneer. The emergence of the network floor overcomes the shortcomings of the existing floor cable solutions and is well adapted to the requirements of rapid network changes, multiple in and out ports, and flame retardancy, but does not have special requirements for anti-static properties. Therefore, it is suitable for large office buildings and intelligent office environments, OA classrooms, dustproof and waterproof, and places requiring overhead. (Generally used with anti-static square carpet.) According to different materials, we can divide it into bare finish steel raised floor, encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor, and encapsulated wood core raised floor.
Differences between office raised floors
From the material
It is made of a high-quality cold-rolled steel plate, which is stretched and formed, reinforced by spot welding, surface phosphating treatment, and sprayed with epoxy resin. The cavity of the floor is filled with foamed cement, and the four corners of the panel have corner keyholes. There are 3types of office flooring. Steel cement office flooring, we also call it bare finish raised floor. There are three different sizes. One is 500*500mm, and the thickness is 28mm. This size is mainly used in China, Japan, and Korea. The other one is 600*600mm, and thickness is 33mm, most areas in the world use this size. The last one is 610*610mm, which is 24 “*24”. This is standard American size.
Encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor:
The main component of calcium sulfate substrate is high-strength natural gypsum powder, which uses plant fiber as a reinforcing material, is solidified into calcium sulfate crystals, and then pulsed and pressed. The recyclable ratio of Titan calcium sulfate substrate (calcium sulfate, vegetable cellulose) is as high as 97%. Because of its excellent environmental protection and fire protection advantages has become the latest generation of raised floors. There are two sizes, 500mm*500mm and 600*600mm, thickness is 25mm or 30mm. The panel is a sandwich structure, and the middle is calcium sulfate board, the top and bottom are galvanizing steel, the steel is riveted at four sides.
Encapsulated wood core raised floor:
Wood core encapsulated panels have the same appearance as calcium sulfate encapsulated panels, production process and equipment are also the same. The only difference is the middle is chipboard. Encapsulated wood wore is fully wrapped around by hot-dipped galvanized steel. The top and bottom steel sheets are pressed and riveted, with high-density chipboard as the inside core. The wood core encapsulated panel we produce is 600*600mm in size and 30mm thick.
From the installation and pedestals
Steel cement office flooring needs two types of pedestals. Most areas use the aluminum head pedestal. The aluminum head has a firm structure, and the top has a plastic gasket as a buffer. The border area is close to the wall, so panels there need to be cut. We need to use the flat head pedestal. The cut side of the panel can be placed on the head directly. Generally, the ratio of aluminum head and flat head pedestal is 8:2. The pedestals of calcium sulfate and wood core encapsulated panel are the same, and the pedestal top also has plastic gaskets as a buffer. In the border area, remove the top gasket and put the cut side on the head. The raised height of office flooring is generally 100mm-300mm, so just using pedestals is OK. But if the height is high, we need to use a stringer to increase the system’s stability.
From the cost
As the materials of office raised floors are different, their bearing capacity is definitely different. And the cost of office raised floors is definitely different. The price of stainless steel plate is definitely lower than galvanized steel plate. The price of foamed cement is definitely not as good as that of calcium sulfate substrate. Generally speaking, under the same specifications, the bearing capacity of steel raised floor <wood core raised floor <calcium sulfate raised floor, and the cost of the floor is also all steel raised floor <wood core raised floor <calcium sulfate raised floor. However, the wood core raised floor is the lightest, so the transportation cost is relatively cheaper; the calcium sulfate raised floor is the heaviest, and the transportation cost is naturally much higher.
Tips on choosing office raised floors
office raised flooring is generally used in office buildings, meeting rooms, and other places with wiring requirements. It is usually used with square carpets.
Generally speaking, office buildings, meeting rooms have low load capacity requirements, and steel raised floors are relatively cheaper. Therefore, raised floors can be selected according to the customer’s budget. If the client has a high budget and high requirements, he can choose encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor; if the budget is low and the requirements are not very high, he can choose a steel raised floor.
Under the same environment, the service life of the steel raised floor can reach 5-10 years. The encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor has a better material because the base material is a high-quality calcium sulfate board, so that the service life will be longer than that of the steel raised floor. Therefore, if you have higher requirements for service life, you can choose an encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor when choosing a network floor.
If the installation site is relatively high and there is no elevator, it will be inconvenient to carry the raised floors. So the weight of the raised floor is very important. In this case, we can choose a lighter encapsulated wood core raised floor. The encapsulated wood core raised floor is the same as the encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor in appearance. But the weight is lighter than the encapsulated calcium sulfate raised floor.
