Allegheny County, Turtle Creek Valley
ESD Flooring in Turtle Creek
Static control floors for Turtle Creek operations, built to the band your process requires rather than to a colour chart.
What it is
Why Turtle Creek needs it
The valley is being rebuilt as manufacturing again, and a lot of what is going into it handles energy directly. Cell and pack assembly is one of the few places where static control and ignition risk sit in the same room, which changes what the floor is for.
It also means you are almost always working on an old slab in an old building. That is not a problem, but it is a different job from coating new concrete, and pretending otherwise is how a floor fails in year two.
Allegheny County
The grounding path
Conductive floors move charge fast and need a continuous copper path tied into building ground. The grid under the coating is what the megohmmeter is really testing.
Where we work
The Turtle Creek corridor
We cover the Turtle Creek Valley through East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding and Braddock, and the redeveloped manufacturing campuses along Braddock Avenue.
battery and energy storage manufacturing
heavy electrical assembly
reindustrialised mill campuses
We are in the valley regularly and we know what those slabs are like before we walk in.
The standard
The two bands the standard defines
Measured to ANSI/ESD STM7.1. Which one you need is set by what you build, never by preference.
ohms, logarithmic
S20.20 system ceiling, 109 ohmsfloor plus footwear plus person, to STM97.1
- Conductive2.5 x 104 to 1.0 x 106 ohmsCharge has to leave the floor fast.
- Static dissipative1.0 x 106 to 1.0 x 109 ohmsCharge bleeds off in a controlled way.
- Ordinary epoxyabove 1.0 x 1011 ohmsTwo decades past anything the standard accepts.
Conductive
2.5 x 10⁴ to 1.0 x 10⁶ ohms
Charge has to leave the floor fast and the operation handles parts that fail at low voltage. Common in electronics assembly and munitions or energetics work.
Static dissipative
greater than 1.0 x 10⁶ to less than 1.0 x 10⁹ ohms
Charge has to bleed off in a controlled way rather than dump. The usual choice where people work around live equipment and a hard path to ground is a shock risk.
The whole system
less than 1.0 x 10⁹ ohms
Floor, footwear and person together to ANSI/ESD STM97.1, plus a walking test under less than 100 volts peak to ANSI/ESD STM97.2.
Before anybody quotes
What we look at first on a floor like yours
Whether the risk is the part or the room
NFPA 77 covers static where ignition is the hazard rather than component damage. It is a different question from ANSI/ESD S20.20 and the answer changes the build. Some rooms need both.
What the old slab is hiding
Mill floors carry oil, patch, curing compound and forty years of repair. Everything comes off to sound concrete before a conductive layer goes anywhere near it, because the grounding only works if the system is adhered.
Chemistry, not just resistance
What the floor is rated for by chemical family, never whether it is chemical resistant, which on its own means nothing. Urethane cement and novolac systems handle aggressive chemistry and thermal shock; a standard epoxy does not.
By name
Every standard on this page
Nothing here is our own designation. Look any of them up before you talk to anybody.
- 01The floorSTM7.1 measures this alone
- 02The footwearpart of the system
- 03The personpart of the system
- 04Building groundcopper strip, bonded
STM7.1 reaches the floor, and stops there.
STM97.1 and 97.2 reach all four links.
STM97.1 under 1 x 109 ohms, and STM97.2 under 100 volts walking
That is the whole chain, measured together. The floor on its own never settles it.
ANSI/ESD S20.20
The ESD control program standard an audited facility is held to.
ANSI/ESD STM7.1
How the resistance of the floor itself gets measured.
ANSI/ESD STM97.1
How the floor, the footwear and the person get measured as one system.
ANSI/ESD STM97.2
The walking test. Peak body voltage a person generates on that system.
ASTM D257
The general DC resistance method the flooring methods descend from.
NFPA 77
Recommended practice on static electricity where ignition is the risk, not part damage.
Static control across the metro
ESD flooring nearby
Same standard, different floor. Pick the one closest to your operation.
Scheduling
Can you pour it in Turtle Creek this week?
Live air and dew point over Turtle Creek Valley through East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding and Braddock, and the redeveloped manufacturing campuses along Braddock Avenue, scored against ASTM D3276. Five degrees of margin over the dew point, held through prep, application and cure, or the floor blushes while it is going off.
Reading conditions over Turtle Creek...
What this is and is not
This reads the air. The standard governs the slab, and concrete lags air by hours, sometimes by most of a day after a cold night. A slab can still be under the dew point while the air above it looks fine. So treat this as your scheduling answer, not your go-ahead: the go-ahead comes off a surface thermometer and a hygrometer at the door on the morning of. Cure windows also move by system, so the product data sheet on your job is what governs.
FAQ
Static control questions
The six that come up once you have a slab and a deadline. The full twenty five, on resistance, grounding and test method, are on the Pittsburgh page.
Cost is driven by four things: square footage, how much existing coating has to come off, whether the slab needs moisture mitigation, and which band you have to hit. A grind-and-coat over sound concrete and a full mitigation build on a wet slab are different projects. We quote after we have seen the slab and know the band, not before.
Most plant floors run 3 to 5 days from grind to return to service, driven by square footage, how much coating has to come off first, and cure time between coats. A phased install keeps part of the floor working while the rest goes down.
Yes, in phases, nights and weekends. Most plants cannot give up a whole floor at once, so the floor gets sectioned and the grounding network gets tied together as the sections join.
Yes. Impact and abrasion are a separate spec from resistance, handled with a thicker build or a urethane cement body under the conductive topcoat. Ask for both numbers, because a floor can be compliant and still be too soft for your traffic.
Yes, across the Pittsburgh metro including Cranberry Township, Robinson Township, Moon Township, Monroeville, Warrendale, North Strabane Township and the surrounding Butler, Allegheny, Washington and Beaver county corridors.
Four things: square footage, the band you have to hit (conductive or dissipative, and whether an audit sets it), what is on the slab now, and your traffic. If you do not know the band, that is a normal place to start and it is worth settling before anyone quotes you.
Read all twenty five static control answers on the Pittsburgh page, including resistance bands, grounding and test method.
Start here
Tell us about the slab
Square footage, the band you have to hit, what is on the slab now, and your traffic. If you do not know the band, that is a normal place to start.
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