EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California -- A floor repair project recently wrapped up at the Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory on Edwards Air Force Base, California.
The repair project was identified as mission need and was funded by the Air Force Materiel Command’s “AFMC We Need” initiative.
“The old floors had damages; scratches and holes in the material,” said Tech. Sgt. Jacob Dilick, the PMEL facility manager.
Dilick explained that wear and tear on the floor meant that the floor potentially lose compliance with technical specifications required to provide Test, Measurement & Diagnostic Equipment (TMDE) tests and calibration.
Some of those technical specifications included specific chemical resistances and nonconductive continuous flooring such as a laminate coat as opposed to floor tiles. The project took a little over a month and saw the PMEL crew relocate temporarily to another location near by.
The flooring project covered an area of approximately 15,500 sq. ft. and cost $590,000.
“A contractor had to add vapor barriers, prepare the floor, and applied three coats of chemical resistant non-conductive epoxy floor coatings, to meet minimum resistance of 1 x 109 ohms, and make the floor aesthetically pleasing,” said Arcadio Garcia, Structures Engineer Technician, 412th Civil Engineer Squadron. “Also, the contract included priming, preparing, and painting all laboratory walls.”
The project overall included extensive coordination between Garcia and his team with multiple contractors. For example, the paint contractor could not start their portion of the project and until the moving contractor finished moving equipment out of the PMEL, Garcia explained.
The finished repair project now means that the PMEL section can continue to provide TMDE tests on equipment which directly impacts the test mission without fail.