What Is Magnesite Flooring

Magnesite was applied to the top of concrete ground floors which resulted in reddish pink hued colored floors.
What is magnesite flooring. It s a water based product usually reddish pink in colour which was most commonly used as a floor finishing. Also a small lump when held in gas flame will glow brightly like a gas mantle at the edges. It allows concretors to screed the floor slab without doing final finishing. Depending on the coloration added magnesite can mimic many other flooring materials.
What makes it different from normal cement is that fillers and aggregates such as wood chips or sawdust have been added into it. It is a material that has a cushioning effect underfoot. The magnesite material is simply poured out over the concrete raked out and trowell. The added fillers actually make magnesite much more durable than cement.
Going back some 60 years or more magnesite was a product used quite widely in flooring especially for industrial premises as it was resistant to oil spillages. Magnesite flooring is electrically conductive and so an electrical resistance moisture meter will give a full scale damp reading even when the material is bone dry. There are many benefits of having magnesite flooring. Magnesite flooring consists of magnesium oxychloride which is a white asbestos material.
The magnesite used to make the floors nice and flat was filled with sawdust and cork held together by a glue. What is magnesite flooring. Magnesite floors were common in the 1960s mainly in sydney as a slab topping or an underlay to carpet and other forms of floor covering. Floors and flooring bre 2003.
Made from calcined or burnt magnesite and various. Now the glue was the problem because it was made of magnesium oxychloride. Pye pw and harrison hw. Magnesite is a form of cement created through magnesium oxycholoride.
Most magnesite flooring of the past was anywhere from 1 2 inch to 3 4 inch thick.