Disposable protective sheeting for decks and floors

Abstract

Disposable protective sheeting for covering decks and floors during construction and the like. The protective sheeting includes a first layer of a barrier material impervious to liquid and pervious to vapor and a second layer of an overlay material providing a slip-resistant upper surface that is bonded to the first layer. Alternatively, the sheeting can be a single layer of barrier material treated to be slip resistant. The sheeting can be provided in rolls and temporarily secured to the decks and floors at the construction site or pre-installed onto decking materials off-site. When construction is complete, the disposable protective sheeting is removed to expose a contamination and damage free surface.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims priority benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 663,830 filed on Mar. 21, 2005, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated herein in its entirety.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH [0002] Not Applicable REFERENCE TO MICROFICHE APPENDIX [0003] Not Applicable FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0004] The present invention generally relates to materials and methods for building construction and, more particularly, to materials and methods for protecting decks and floors during building construction. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0005] In building construction, after either a basement or a crawl space has been completed, floor joists are installed and decking material is nailed to the floor joists to form a deck. The decking material is typically plywood, oriented strand board, composite particle board, or the like. Once the deck is formed, external and internal walls are constructed and nailed...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides improved materials and methods for protecting decks and floors. It involves a disposable protective sheeting that includes a barrier layer and an overlay layer for slip-resistance. The sheeting is secured to the deck or floor with adhesive. The invention also includes a decking material with the protective sheeting temporarily secured to the panel. The protective sheeting can be removed when the project is near completion. The invention offers a high-quality, reliable, efficient, and low-cost solution for protecting decks and floors."

Problems solved by technology

During new construction, remodeling or rebuilding, it is frequently necessary to replace or overlay damaged or contaminated decking material with new decking material.

Construction projects typically take at least several months to complete, during this time the upper surface of the deck is exposed to rain, snow, tracked-in mud, joint compound, dust, saw dust, paint, and other materials.

Thus, the decking material often absorbs moisture causing edge swelling, raises-up, warps, and delaminates The decking material can also become caked with these materials and the decking material is virtually impossible to clean effectively because it has rough surfaces.

From a cosmetic standpoint, the decking material looks very bad when covered with this contamination.

Additionally, the adhesive used to secure certain flooring materials may not adhere effectively to the decking material because of this contamination and work loose prematurely.

Furthermore, there are environmental issues as dust and other materials remaining on the decking material after construction are trapped below the flooring material and may eventually work their way out from under the flooring material to create problems for occupants with allergies to such materials.

When damage and / or contamination are severe, it is necessary for the builder to incur significant costs to sand, treat or seal the existing decking material or to replace the existing decking material with new decking material before the final flooring is installed.

It is noted that other types of decks and floors can also be damaged and / or contaminated such as, for example, decks and floors of modular and manufactured housing during construction, decks and floors of trucks, trailers, storage facilities, storage containers, and the like during transportation and / or storage of messy or dirty materials, and new or existing floors whether wood, carpet, tile, linoleum, cement, stone, vinyl, or terrazzo, and the like.

Additionally, builders frequently incur significant costs installing neutral colored carpeting, wood floors, tile and the like in “spec” properties simply to cover up the contamination so they look presentable to prospects.

This is obviously very expensive and often may need to be removed and replaced to satisfy a buyer, incurring further unanticipated expense.

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