Industrial Tape vs. Painted Lines for Concrete

Clear floor and lane marking is vital for maintaining optimal safety and operational effectiveness in any work environment. In heavy-traffic areas, especially, it becomes important to decide how those markings should be made: with industrial tape or painted lines?

Each, of course, boasts its own benefits and drawbacks, but how does a company decide what’s best for their needs?

Making the wrong decision for your specific workplace could have costly consequences. Fortunately, we have a lot of experience with industrial floor and lane marking, so we understand how vital it is to choose correctly in the first place.

Which is Generally Better: Industrial Tape or Painted Lines?

As with many questions in life, the answer comes down to context. Some may find that one solution works well for colleagues, counterparts, and competitors within their industry, but doesn’t serve their own environment.

Alternatively, others may find that their own setting is versatile enough to permit and support either solution. For them, making a decision may come down to preference; so they might want to consider costs in time, money, and labor.

Therefore, to effectively determine if one option tends to consistently provide superior results over the other, we’ll consider their contrasts at face value. The characteristics of these two floor marking products are distinct enough that comparisons can be made based on general issues that are common for factory, warehouse, and business settings.

Industrial Tape is Less Time- and Labor-Intensive than Paint

The most popular feature of paint has become a cliche for bored souls everywhere: “it’s like watching paint dry.” This is even to mention the stress of removing paint; the process is so demanding that it becomes a consideration of its own.

Will you now, or will you ever, want to redesign or reorganize the floor markings in an area? In fact, if you want to apply designs, like hazard stripes that alternate in color, you might not even have to wait for a redesign to be inconvenienced.

With marking tape, on the other hand, you can easily apply a checkered pattern with alternating colors and barely break a sweat. Work in an anti-static, cleanroom environment? Yeah, there’s a floor marking tape with the ESD symbol printed on it.

Marking Tape Lasts Longer and Requires Less Maintenance than Paint

Tape tends to be more scratch resistant than paint, and it doesn’t fade like paint might. This longevity results in smoother operations that don’t require frequent interruptions to reapply the markings. For example, this highly reflective and durable concrete tape is specifically designed to endure intensive workplace conditions, high foot traffic, and even oil and chemical environments.

Paints Can Present a Health Hazard if Solvent-Based

Typically, paint already results in a longer delay to production than floor marking tape, but the threat of delays — and worse — become significantly increased by the presence of solvent-based paints. Venting the fumes requires regular halts, and excess buildup can present a health hazard to you and your colleagues.

Even if you’re applying marking tape in 14 different colors, all in one location, you’ll have no fumes or messy cleanup to be concerned with. So go ahead, unleash your inner artist (or organizational expert) on the floors and walls of your workspace.

Make a Mark with Industrial Safety Tape from ifloortape.com

We may sound subjective but, at ifloortape.com, we have many years of experience with floor and lane marking. In our experience, floor tape provides a level of adaptability, functionality, and personalization that paint can only compete with.

What’s your experience been? We would love to hear what you think.
If you need more reasons why industrial tape is consistently found to be superior to painted lines, then reach out to our team today.