What Is Coved Skirting? (Epoxy & Resin Explained)

Coved skirting is a curved transition between the floor and wall, typically installed using epoxy or resin flooring systems to create a seamless, hygienic finish.

Industrial use

Deep cleaning is vital in many manufacturing, production, and packaging environments, particularly those related to food and beverages. Paying particular attention to corners, junctions, edges and areas where dirt and bacteria can become trapped is a tricky challenge.

Here, resin coved skirting created using resin materials provides a particularly effective solution. It creates a clean, smooth transition and finish, eliminating the nooks and crannies that can create a dirt trap.   

What is coved skirting?

Resin coved skirting effectively creates a smooth junction between the flooring surface and the wall, eliminating the traditional ninety-degree angle corner, which can harbour bacteria and creating a hygienic finish which is easy to clean and wash down. The skirting is made from a three-pack system. This consists of a resin base, which gives the finished colour for the coving, a hardener and a filler.

Three-component system

The three components are mixed thoroughly to form a lightweight render, which is designed to be easy to apply and provide effective and robust protection in use.

This render is installed with a coving trowel up the wall from the floor to create coved skirting. This is usually to a height of around 100mm, forming a smooth curve and a smooth transition with no edges. It is finished using a metal or plastic trim pre-fixed to the wall, known as a ‘bird’s beak’ because of its shape. This creates a tanked resin system suitable for both wet and dry conditions.

Coved skirtings usually take around 12 hours to reach a cure. When installed by trained professionals, it can be added to an existing flooring system or existing concrete floor to improve hygiene and performance.

Where is coved skirting installed?

Resin coved skirting is an important element when installing a full flooring system to achieve optimum integrity, cleanability and hygiene around the wall and floor junction.

This high-performance flooring option is typically used in applications including:-

• Food production facilities, food preparation areas and other manufacturing conditions where hygiene is a vital consideration
• Wetrooms to achieve the correct levels of impervious performance
• Toilet block and other applications where cleanliness plays an important role in floor installation
• Breweries and other beverage environments where washdown is an essential consideration
• Pharmaceutical production facilities and clean rooms
• Medical, health care and hospital areas.

Benefits of epoxy coved skirting

The benefits of coved skirtings with a smooth edge are multiple and significant.

• Removing any edges and entrapment areas means that harmful bacteria such as Salmonella, Ecoli and Listeria are unable to collect and multiply, where they can present a significant risk to food hygiene and health
• Coved skirting acts as an effective form of waterproofing – where regular washdowns are part of the essential production and cleaning process, they ensure that the work is quick, easy and effective
• Coved skirtings are quick to install and cure within hours, which means that adding them to an existing flooring system need not result in extensive downtime
• Coved skirting is durable, hard-wearing, abrasion-resistant and cost-effective with excellent chemical resistance
• It can provide an added aesthetic for a production area and is available in a wide range of standard colours
• Seamless coved skirtings can be created around the circumference of a production area and even around pillars, posts and other interruptions to a floor area.

Use in conjunction with stainless steel drainage

When creating tanked flooring systems for areas where frequent washdowns are essential, it will probably be necessary to implement stainless steel drainage channels for drainage purposes within the existing (or new) system to remove excess water from the location effectively.

The drainage channels will effectively channel this water to specified drainage, ensuring the floor underfoot dries quickly, and there is no pooling of washdown water, which could provide a good breeding ground for bacteria or present a slips and falls risk.

What coved skirting products do UltraSyntec recommend?

At UltraSyntec, we use a variety of coved skirting materials, depending on the individual application. However, our preferred coving of choice is Ultra CG. This is an industry-leading polyurethane coving system that creates an attractive matt finish and can be laid up the wall to a height of 250mm – ideal for applications requiring a higher level of coving.

Ultra CG resin coving has been developed specifically for use with other Ultra polyurethane flooring systems to create a seamless ‘box’ finish which is impervious, abrasion resistant, durable and practical. 

What does coved resin skirting cost to install?

As a guideline, an average coved skirting installed to a height of 100mm up the wall, complete with a stainless steel bird’s beak trim, will cost on average between £20-£30 per linear metre.

This cost will be influenced by several other factors, such as the existing resin flooring systems or concrete floors, the quality of the walls, and the environment itself. Where repairs are necessary to create the correct ‘key’ or surface, the cost may increase.

Years of resin floor installation experience

Ultrasyntec has almost three decades of experience in forming coved skirting systems, epoxy resin flooring, and polyurethane flooring systems, and has a high satisfaction record across a variety of industries, providing industry-leading solutions that are attractive, durable, and help enhance hygiene levels.

If you’re looking for resin skirting solutions or have any epoxy resin or polyurethane resin floor coating requirements, contact the team at UltraSyntec for an assessment of your needs and a professional specification to match the environment and application.