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What Can Liquid Terrazzo Flooring Do for a Factory Showroom That Polished Concrete Cannot?
2026-11-03
Summary: Liquid terrazzo flooring is a poured, seamless decorative resin floor in which graded coloured quartz is cast into a self-levelling epoxy binder and sealed under a clear topcoat. Unlike polished concrete, the appearance is designed before the pour rather than revealed by grinding; unlike epoxy terrazzo, nothing is ground back after curing. In a factory showroom the floor must carry visitor traffic, hold a colour scheme and still be cleaned like a production area.
Last updated: 2026-11-03
What liquid terrazzo flooring is
Liquid terrazzo flooring is a seamless decorative resin floor made by pouring a pigmented self-levelling epoxy binder, broadcasting graded coloured quartz into the wet film and sealing the aggregate under a clear topcoat. It sits in the decorative resin family; the NEDIS system is Nedis SL Decor Epoxy Flooring (Liquid Terrazzo).
The name is literal, and that matters to a specifier: the floor arrives as a liquid and sets as a solid. A colour transition can therefore run as a clean diagonal or a swept curve with no joint, threshold strip or cut tile, because the pattern is placed in the same operation as the surface.
Three processes get confused in tender documents. Polished concrete is an existing slab ground and sealed, so its colour is whatever the pour produced. Epoxy terrazzo is cast, cured, then ground and polished to expose the stone. Liquid terrazzo leaves the aggregate in the surface: one is revealed, one is ground, one is poured.
Why a showroom floor is judged differently
A production floor is judged on load, chemical exposure and cleanability. A showroom floor is judged by people who are not floor engineers, standing in the middle of an industrial site. It has to do three jobs at once.
Read as a finished interior. Visitors arrive from a car park, not a cleanroom, and the first twenty metres of floor set the expectation for everything behind it.
Survive plant traffic. Visitor traffic is lighter than production traffic but not gentle: pallet trucks still cross the goods entrance and trolleys still turn on the spot.
Be cleaned on the plant schedule. A showroom that needs its own chemical, machine and crew will be cleaned less often than the drawing promised.
The four candidate systems side by side
| Criterion | Liquid terrazzo (Nedis SL Decor Epoxy) | Polished concrete | Ceramic tile | Plain epoxy self-levelling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colour source | Pigment and quartz, set before the pour | Whatever the slab contains | Factory-made, fixed range | Pigment in the binder, flat tone |
| Joints | None within a pour | Saw cuts remain | Grout line every tile | None within a pour |
| Visual depth | Aggregate reads through the wear layer | Exposed stone and patch variation | Printed or glazed face | Uniform, no depth |
| Wall detailing | Coved in the same operation | Sealant bead | Skirting and trim | Coved, optional |
| Best fit | Visitor-facing halls and corridors | Floors where looks do not matter | Back of house and wet rooms | Production halls |
Where the colour comes from
Two things set the appearance. The pigment sits in the binder and establishes the field colour; the quartz sits in and on the binder and establishes depth, so the surface reads as stone rather than as paint. Because the colour is in the body of the floor and not printed on top, wear does not open a different colour underneath.
A second colour can be placed as an inlay: a contrasting mix poured against the first while it is still workable, so the two set as one surface. The result is a crisp band with no joint to collect dirt and no metal strip to catch a trolley wheel, which is what most showrooms are actually buying when they ask for a pattern in the floor.
Zone by zone: what to specify where
| Zone | Real duty | System | Detail to fix at design stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entrance and reception | Heel traffic, grit, wet feet | Liquid terrazzo, satin | Mat well recessed flush |
| Visitor corridor | Continuous footfall, sightlines | Liquid terrazzo, one pour per run | Pour breaks on door lines, not mid-corridor |
| Display plinths | Point loads, cleaning at legs | Liquid terrazzo, reinforced base | Plinth coved to floor, no open angle |
| Sample or tasting area | Spills, sugar, hot liquid | Nedis PU Cement Flooring, 4–9 mm | Fall to drain, coved skirting, slip-rated finish |
| Goods entrance | Pallet truck wheels, impact | Epoxy mortar or heavy-duty build | Armoured edge at the door line |
| Stair and mezzanine edge | Impact, visibility | Liquid terrazzo with contrasting nosing | Nosing cast in, not glued on |
The details that decide whether it looks expensive
Three details separate a showroom floor that photographs well from one that reads as a coated slab.
Wall junction. An integral coved skirting formed with the floor gives a continuous curve. A right angle closed with sealant gives a dark line that widens with every cleaning cycle.
Threshold and joints. Doorways should be flush, with the floor running through; a metal strip is a maintenance item in the one place visitors look down. Slab joints are structural and are placed on door lines and column grids rather than filled and forgotten.
Sheen. High gloss reflects the ceiling and every footprint with it. Satin holds colour and depth while forgiving the traffic a showroom actually receives.
Slip resistance and cleaning chemistry
Visitors wear street shoes and enter wet, so slip performance belongs in the specification as a test result: DIN 51130 for the ramp test and its R classification, ASTM D2047 for static coefficient of friction on the finished surface.
Cleaning is the other half of the same decision. A showroom is cleaned with what is already on site, from neutral detergent to isopropyl alcohol and quaternary ammonium disinfectant. A decorative floor that dulls under that routine loses its appearance long before it loses its function.
What has to be true before the pour
Decorative work fails on substrate, not on colour. Moisture is tested to ASTM F2170 at the depth the system requires rather than at the surface. The slab needs an abrasion-opened profile, not a smooth trowelled finish, so the primer has something to key into. And because a showroom is usually the last space finished and the first space visited, pour breaks and curing time are planned against the opening date.
By the numbers
- The decorative system is built on a self-levelling epoxy binder specified at Shore D hardness 84.7.
- Abrasion loss is 0.023 g under a 750 g / 500 r Taber cycle, tested to ASTM D4060.
- The binder carries a B1 flame-spread classification to EN 13501-1.
- The ground-aggregate alternative, Nedis Epoxy Terrazzo Flooring (Industrial Grade), is built 6.0–10.0 mm and reaches at least 60 MPa compressive strength.
- Where a showroom includes a wet sample area, Nedis PU Cement Flooring is specified at 4–9 mm and rated for −40 °C to +120 °C in continuous service.
- NEDIS has manufactured flooring systems since 2002, runs a 40,000 m² plant and has supplied more than 16,000 enterprise customers.
Standards, certification and supply
NEDIS — Nedis Flooring Systems is a source floor coating manufacturer: it formulates and produces the coating systems and supports them with technical support services, from system selection to detail drawings for coving and drainage. Operations are certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, and systems are supplied for export delivery worldwide.
For a showroom project the useful starting point is the finish schedule: which zones are visitor-facing, which are wet, and where the pour breaks fall. The system follows from that, not the other way round.
Frequently asked questions
What is liquid terrazzo flooring?
A seamless decorative resin floor in which graded coloured quartz is cast into a pigmented self-levelling epoxy binder and sealed under a clear topcoat. The NEDIS system is Nedis SL Decor Epoxy Flooring (Liquid Terrazzo).
Is liquid terrazzo the same as epoxy terrazzo?
No. Epoxy terrazzo is cast, cured, then ground and polished to expose the aggregate, typically at 6.0–10.0 mm. Liquid terrazzo leaves the aggregate in the surface and seals it without a grinding stage.
How thick is a liquid terrazzo floor?
Depth follows the system data sheet and the condition of the slab, not the pattern. The decorative pour is a thin self-levelling build over a prepared substrate.
Can it be used where food is handled?
In visitor areas, yes. Production, washdown and sampling zones take Nedis PU Cement Flooring at 4–9 mm, rated −40 °C to +120 °C, because they face hot water, sugar, acid and thermal shock rather than foot traffic.
Does it stain?
The sealed surface resists routine plant chemistry, but no resin floor is stain-proof. Pigmented liquids, rust and dyed drinks left standing overnight are the usual causes of marking.
Can it be laid over an existing floor?
Only where the existing floor is sound, dry and firmly bonded, and where the new build height fits at doors and drains. Contaminated or delaminating slabs are removed first.
What drives the cost?
Aggregate grade, colour count, inlay complexity, area and site access. A single-colour field costs less per square metre than a three-colour inlay cut around plinths, which needs more pours, more set-out and more protection of finished work.
Last updated: 2026-11-03
To specify a showroom floor, send the finish schedule and the slab report. DM us for technical specs and a sample box.
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