Mapei resin flooring explained
Mapei is an Italian building chemicals group best known in the UK for tile adhesives, grouts and screeds. It also makes resin flooring, under the Mapefloor name and that part of the range is far less well known than the rest of the catalogue. This page sets out what Mapefloor actually covers, how the systems differ from one another and where a contractor would specify Mapei rather than one of the dedicated resin flooring manufacturers.
Surface Specialists has no commercial relationship with Mapei. Everything below is drawn from information published on the manufacturer own site.
Who is Mapei?
Mapei is a family-owned Italian manufacturer of adhesives, sealants and chemical products for the construction industry. The company was founded by Rodolfo Squinzi in Milan in 1937, is still headquartered there and is still run by the Squinzi family.
Scale is the thing that sets Mapei apart from the specialist resin manufacturers. Mapei reports more than 90 subsidiaries operating across more than 50 countries, a similar number of manufacturing plants and a workforce above 12,500. Resin flooring is one range inside a catalogue that also covers tiling, waterproofing, concrete admixtures, sports surfaces and underground construction. That breadth is both the strength and the reason the resin range gets overlooked.
Mapefloor is the resin flooring range
Mapefloor is the brand Mapei uses for its resin floor coverings. It spans epoxy and polyurethane chemistry, running from thin protective treatments through self-levelling coatings up to polyurethane cement systems for heavy industrial use.
The naming follows a logic once you see it. An I prefix indicates an epoxy product. SL indicates a self-levelling grade. W indicates water-dispersed. System numbers describe a complete build-up rather than a single component. CPU denotes the polyurethane cement family. Anything called a Finish is a topcoat rather than the body of the floor.
The Mapefloor systems people ask about
The table below covers the products most often named in a Mapei specification. Every entry is listed on the Mapei UK product catalogue at the time of writing. Confirm the current data sheet before anything is ordered, because ranges are revised regularly.
| System | What it is | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Mapefloor I 300 SL | Two-component epoxy, laid as a smooth self-levelling coating at roughly 2 to 4mm or as a slip-resistant multi-layer build from around 0.8 to 3.5mm | The workhorse epoxy. General industrial and commercial floors where chemical resistance and cleanability matter |
| Mapefloor System 31 | Multi-layered epoxy dressing | Floors needing a textured, slip-resistant surface built up in layers |
| Mapefloor System 33 | Solvent-free epoxy dressing | Enclosed areas where solvent content is a constraint |
| Mapefloor CPU+ | Polyurethane cement range, comprising CPU+/Primer, the CPU+/MF self-smoothing mortar and the CPU+/TC topcoat | Food and beverage production, wet processing and anywhere hot washdown or thermal shock rules out epoxy |
| Mapefloor Comfort System AL | Self-levelling, elastic, UV-resistant aliphatic polyurethane coating system | Areas needing some give underfoot plus colour stability under daylight |
| Mapefloor Finish 58 W | Polyurethane finish coat | Applied over a resin body to set the final appearance, sheen and wear surface |
| Mapefloor I 500 W | Multi-purpose epoxy treatment | Thin protective and sealing duties rather than a full floor build |
| Mapefloor I 914 | Two-component epoxy protective coating for concrete with a priming function and used for skim coating bridge decks before asphalt | Civil engineering and infrastructure work rather than factory floors |
| Primer SN | Two-component epoxy primer with fillers | The preparation layer under most of the epoxy systems above |
Mapei also lists a Mapefloor Parking System for multi-storey and podium decks, where the requirement is crack bridging and waterproofing rather than chemical resistance.
Mapefloor CPU+ and polyurethane cement
Polyurethane cement is the part of the Mapefloor range that matters most on demanding sites. It is a different material from epoxy rather than a stronger version of it.
An epoxy floor softens and eventually debonds when it is repeatedly hit with hot water. Polyurethane cement expands and contracts at close to the same rate as the concrete underneath, which is why it survives steam cleaning, thermal shock and the 60 degree and above washdown cycles found in food production. Mapei reports installing its first UK CPU+ floor for a healthcare manufacturer in 2025, describing it as a self-levelling polyurethane system that is waterproof and resistant to chemical and physical attack.
If your site has hot washdown, steam, freezer thresholds or aggressive food acids, polyurethane cement is the category to be looking at whichever manufacturer supplies it. Our food and pharmaceutical flooring page covers the requirement in detail.
How Mapei compares to the resin specialists
Mapei is a very large chemicals group that makes resin flooring. Flowcrete, Resdev and Remmers are resin flooring businesses first. Sika sits somewhere between the two, being a large group with a genuinely deep flooring division.
In practice that difference shows up in three places. Technical support for a flooring job tends to be broader at a generalist and deeper at a specialist. Applicator networks are more concentrated at the specialists, because those firms train and audit exclusively around flooring. Range breadth runs the other way: if a project needs the screed, the resin, the tiling and the waterproofing from one supplier with one point of technical liability, a group like Mapei answers that in a way a flooring-only manufacturer cannot. None of this makes one option better. It makes them suited to different projects. The resin flooring brands hub sets out the others side by side.
Where Mapefloor floors are specified
Mapefloor systems turn up across the same environments as any industrial resin range: factories, warehouses, workshops, food and beverage production, car parks and commercial interiors.
The pattern worth noticing is that Mapei often arrives on a project that was never primarily a flooring project. A fit-out already using Mapei tile adhesives, screeds or waterproofing will frequently take the resin floor from the same source, because the specification, the technical contact and the warranty route already exist. That is a legitimate reason to choose a manufacturer, provided the system itself suits the conditions. Our resin flooring hub and the warehouse flooring page set out how those conditions are assessed.
Getting a Mapefloor system specified
Mapei sells through the trade rather than to end users, so a Mapefloor floor reaches site through a flooring contractor rather than being bought off a shelf.
The sequence is the same as for any resin manufacturer. A contractor surveys the slab, tests for moisture and contamination, measures the conditions the floor has to withstand and then specifies a build-up that carries a warranty against those conditions. Substrate condition usually determines more of the final cost than the choice of manufacturer does. Tell us what the floor has to survive and your enquiry is matched to a specialist contractor in our network who works with the appropriate systems.
Frequently asked questions
Does Mapei make resin flooring?
Yes. Mapei makes epoxy and polyurethane resin flooring under the Mapefloor name, covering self-levelling coatings, multi-layer slip-resistant builds, polyurethane cement systems and topcoats. It is a smaller part of the catalogue than tiling and screeding products, which is why the range is less widely recognised.
What is the difference between Mapefloor and Mapecoat?
Mapefloor is the flooring range. Mapecoat is the broader protective coatings brand, which includes products applied to concrete structures and to surfaces other than floors. Some Mapecoat products do appear in floor specifications, most often as a protective or decorative layer rather than the body of the floor.
Is Mapefloor CPU+ the same as other polyurethane screeds?
It belongs to the same material category as the polyurethane cement systems offered by other manufacturers. Formulations, thicknesses, temperature limits and installation detail differ between brands, so the systems are comparable rather than interchangeable. The right choice depends on the temperature range, the chemical exposure and the hygiene standard on site.
Can I buy Mapefloor products directly?
Mapei supplies the trade rather than selling finished floors to end users. Some products are available through distributors, but a resin floor is an installed system rather than a product, so it normally reaches site through a flooring contractor who specifies the full build-up.
Is Surface Specialists a Mapei approved contractor?
No. Surface Specialists has no relationship with Mapei and holds no approval from them. Enquiries are matched to a specialist contractor in our network. That contractor surveys the floor, specifies the system and carries out the work under their own accreditations.
How long does a Mapefloor floor last?
A correctly specified and correctly installed resin floor should run ten to twenty years in industrial service. Life is governed far more by substrate preparation, by system thickness and by matching the chemistry to the conditions than by which manufacturer supplied the material.
Key takeaways
- Mapei is a family-owned Italian building chemicals group founded in Milan in 1937, best known in the UK for tiling and screeding products.
- Mapefloor is the resin flooring range, spanning epoxy self-levelling coatings, multi-layer slip-resistant systems, polyurethane cement and topcoats.
- Mapefloor I 300 SL is the general purpose epoxy. Mapefloor CPU+ is the polyurethane cement range for hot washdown, thermal shock and food production.
- Mapei is a generalist that makes resin flooring rather than a resin flooring specialist, which suits projects already sourcing screeds, tiling or waterproofing from the same group.
- Mapefloor systems are installed by flooring contractors rather than bought as a finished product, so the specification comes from a survey of your slab and your conditions.
Get the right system specified
Whether Mapefloor is the right range for your floor depends on temperature, chemistry, traffic and the state of the slab underneath. Tell us what the floor has to handle and your enquiry is matched to a specialist contractor in our network who can specify against it.