Access Floors

Overview:

In the networked office, people, equipment and furniture are constantly being moved. That means moving access floor panels and carpet tiles. This can be a time consuming, labor intensive process.

Access is easy and quick, panels can be removed simply without disturbing other panels or carpet.

What are ESD Access Floors:

Access floors, a raised floor (also raised flooring), is a type of floor used in office buildings (such as IT data centers) with a high requirement for servicing to carry cables, wiring, electrical supply, and sometimes air conditioning or chilled water pipes. Additional structural support and lighting are often provided when a floor is raised enough for a person to crawl or even walk beneath.

This type of floor consists of a gridded metal framework or understructure of adjustable-height legs (called "pedestals") that provide support for individual floor panels, which are usually 2×2 feet or 60×60cm in size. The height of the legs/pedestals is dictated by the volume of cables and other services provided beneath, but typically arranged for a clearance of at least six inches or 15cm.

The panels are normally made of steel-clad particleboard or a steel panel with a cementitious internal core. There are a variety of flooring finishes to suit the application such as carpets, high-pressure laminates, marble, stone, and antistatic finishes for use in computer rooms and laboratories.

Ideal for:

  • Networked Offices
  • Electronics Labs
  • 911 Call Centers
  • Clean Rooms
  • Electronics Manufacturing
  • Flight Control Towers
  • Data Centers

Access Floor Features:

  • Easy and flexible under floor access
  • Superior Static Protection
  • Meets ANSI/ESD S.20.20
  • Maximum Flexibility
  • Efficient
  • Easy to Install and Maintain
  • Improved Wire Management

Access Floor Covering Options:ESD Access Floor Options

Staticworx Carpets are engineered to permit fast and easy under floor access without the hassle of peeling up several carpet tiles, for total flexibility with workstations. Offering maximum flexibility in the office environment, without the use of adhesives, our carpet is designed to cover a Tate ConCore® access floor panel in a perfect on-to-one match. Modular carpet tile designed specifically for use with Tate Concore access panels in mission critical applications, features ultrasonically welded buttons on the underside of the tile, providing precise indexed alignment with the four matching indentations found only on Tate Concore access floor panels.

Taking The Mystery Out Of Selecting ESD Flooring

Choices Abound, But Careful Planning Is Essential In Making The Right Choice
Publication: 
Conformity Magazine
Publish Date: 
02/12/2002

Often, the most challenging and anxiety-inducing decisions buyers encounter in the course of creating a world-class electrostatic discharge (ESD) program involve the selection of the ESD floor. Unlike other components in the program, the installation of static control flooring represents a permanent capital investment, with costs of 1 1/2 to 2 times those of a standard non-ESD floor.Read more

How To Meet ANSI/ESD S20.20 With ESD Flooring

Wed, 07/27/2011
See video

Qualify ESD Flooring the Easy Way: Testing Static-Safe Flooring for Electronics Handling and Manufacturing Environments ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007, "Protection of Electrical and Electronic Parts, Assemblies and Equipment provides administrative and technical requirements for establishing, implementing, and maintaining an ESD Control Program to protect electrical or electronic parts, assemblies, and equipment susceptible to ESD damage from Human Body Model (HBM) discharges greater than or equal to 100 volts.Read more

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Dispatch Center Stays Grounded With New Equipment and Staticworx Anti Static Flooring

Case History: Police in Lowell, MA, Answer the Call
Author: 
Dave Long
Publication: 
ECPM
Publish Date: 
01/01/2010

The job of police departments is to serve and protect. In their emergency dispatch centers, staff must be prepared 24/7, responding to situations that may threaten lives in the community. But what personnel are typically not prepared for is how to deal with the "invisible threat" of electrostatic discharge (ESD). More and more, police communications centers are discovering that the need for protection also extends to the installation of the right anti-static flooring to keep work sites safe.Read more

Are You Grounded with Anti Static Flooring?: A Fault-Tolerant Flooring Solution

To Control Static in Emergency 9-1-1 Dispatch Call Centers
Author: 
Dave Long
Publication: 
ECPM
Publish Date: 
01/01/2010

Do you have the latest revision of grounding standard Motorola R56? ATIS-0600321? If you are trying to prevent ESD in spaces where telecommunication equipment is used you need to know about grounding and safety around electrified equipment.Read more

Meeting Standards: Static-Safe Flooring for Offices, Call Centers, and Other Mission-Critical Environments

What you need to reference when writing a performance specification for anti static ESD flooring for networked offices, 911 dispatch call centers, telecommunications areas, call and communication centers and FAA flight control spaces

How to Identify Misleading Carpet Tile Specifications in ESD Flooring

We recently installed esd carpet tile flooring in our new server room. The carpet tiles are made with heavy denier conductive fibers loaded into a textured graphic loop yarn. The tile sample card stated it would measure between 1.0 X 10 E6 and 1.0 X 10 E9. An independent auditor measured less than 1.0 X 10 E5 on many of the tile. The tiles in question are the most important ones because they are beneath and next to our blade servers. The rest of the floor is measuring okay. Why would these tiles measure differently than the ones in the aisle ways or are we doing something wrong? - Jason, IT Manager

No Jason, your auditor actually exposed two of the biggest deficiencies in our industry – safety and electrical certification. You have inadvertently uncovered a serious product design flaw – specific to a certain type of static control carpet tile. Your floor is more conductive on the top surface than it is through the thickness. This is likely the result of over loading the yarn with super conductive fibers.Read more

How to Identify Misleading Carpet Tile Specifications in ESD Flooring

Tue, 04/26/2011
ESD Static Control Flooring

We recently installed esd carpet tile flooring in our new server room. The carpet tiles are made with heavy denier conductive fibers loaded into a textured graphic loop yarn. The tile sample card stated it would measure between 1.0 X 10 E6 and 1.0 X 10 E9. An independent auditor measured less than 1.0 X 10 E5 on many of the tile. The tiles in question are the most important ones because they are beneath and next to our blade servers. The rest of the floor is measuring okay.Read more

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Contemplating whether to install static free flooring over bare concrete or over raised access flooring?

This Cisco Press Book excerpt outlines the benefits and drawbacks of running power, data connections, and cooling into the Data Center by way of the ceiling versus installing a raised floor system and routing it underneath. The artilce details the components involved and offers sample illustrations for both overhead and under-floor systems as well as provides common problems to watch for and avoid.

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