Casework Completion Components for a University Laboratory | Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia

The Solution

Labs USA supplied the components as a matched set from the same manufacturer and finish family as the installed casework: two side base filler panels sized up to eighteen inches wide by the base cabinet height, one four inch high applied backsplash, and a one quart unit of black epoxy adhesive for bonding the splash to the work surface.

A filler panel does more than hide a gap. In a laboratory it closes an open cavity that would otherwise collect dust, spills, and dropped consumables in a place nobody can clean, and it gives the end cabinet a finished, wipeable vertical surface at the point where people brush past it with carts and stools. Because the panel is manufactured in the casework line’s own finish and gauge, it matches the cabinet fronts in colour, sheen, and durability. A site-cut substitute matches none of those and becomes the first thing a facilities inspection notices.

The four inch high applied backsplash serves the same purpose horizontally. Where a work surface meets a wall there is always a joint, and in a laboratory that joint is where liquid goes. An applied curb of the same resin material as the top, bonded with the manufacturer’s epoxy adhesive, turns that joint into a sealed upstand: a spill on the bench stays on the bench instead of running behind the casework, down the wall face, or into the cavity behind the cabinet.

The adhesive was specified rather than assumed. Resin work surfaces and applied curbs are bonded with a two-part epoxy tinted to the surface colour, which cures to a joint as chemically resistant as the top itself. Silicone caulk, which is what usually gets substituted on site, is not a structural bond, is not resistant to the same reagents, and discolours where it is exposed to routine cleaning agents. Ordering the correct adhesive with the components is a few dollars; correcting a failed silicone joint later means lifting the splash.

All three items were supplied with crating and freight on the same eight to ten week manufacturing schedule as the parent casework line, with optional installation available. For projects that need the full package rather than completion components, the same casework, work surfaces, and fittings are covered on the Labs USA lab casework hub, alongside lab cabinets, lab tables, and lab furniture.

Advantage

The reason to buy completion components from the casework source, rather than fabricate them, is that laboratory casework is a system with a defined finish specification. The cabinet exteriors are finished with a chemically cured coating tested against a list of reagents. The work surfaces are specified for chemical, heat, and impact resistance. A filler panel or splash made from generic material sits in the same room, gets cleaned with the same disinfectants and solvents, and fails first.

In a university teaching laboratory, that failure is also a visible one. Teaching labs are toured, photographed, and inspected. Spot-repaired trim in the wrong colour and silicone that has yellowed at the backsplash are the details that make a new installation look old, and they are almost always the cheapest part of the original order.

There is also a hygiene and maintenance argument. An open gap at the end of a cabinet run, or an unsealed joint at the wall, is a place that cannot be cleaned. Filler panels and applied curbs eliminate both, which is why they appear in laboratory casework specifications rather than being treated as optional trim.

Labs USA supplies these components on their own, not only as part of a full package, which is what lets a general contractor or a facilities group close out a room without reopening a casework contract. The same range covers lab casework, lab cabinets, resin and phenolic work surfaces, sinks and fittings, laboratory tables, and bench level exhaust snorkels.

Return on Investment

The return on completion components is asymmetric: the parts cost very little relative to the casework package, and getting them wrong costs a great deal more than getting them right. A site fabricated filler that has to be replaced means a second mobilisation, a second crate, and a second disruption to a room that is already in use.

On a teaching laboratory, the second return is service life. The casework and work surfaces in a room like this are specified for decades of student use. Trim that degrades in two years turns a long-life installation into a rolling maintenance item, and the maintenance visit costs more than the panel.

The third is closeout. On a construction schedule, an open item in a laboratory is a held retention line and a delayed handover. Identifying the fillers, splash, and adhesive early enough to run on the casework manufacturing schedule is what keeps the room from being the last thing on the punch list.

The fourth is standardisation. When completion components come from the same manufacturer as the casework, the university’s facilities group has one specification and one source for the next room, rather than a record of what was improvised in this one.

Supporting Laboratory Projects Across Kennesaw and Metro Atlanta

Metro Atlanta runs a high volume of laboratory construction across a small number of building types: university teaching and research space in Kennesaw, Marietta, and along the I-75 corridor, hospital and diagnostic laboratories inside the perimeter, and analytical and manufacturing laboratories out through Alpharetta, Duluth, and Norcross. Most of it is renovation inside existing structures, which is precisely the condition that produces out-of-square walls and non-modular cabinet runs.

General contractors working those projects rarely need a whole casework package late in a job. They need the two panels, the splash section, and the adhesive that finish what is already installed, in the right finish, on a schedule that matches the closeout date. Being able to buy those items as a small order from a laboratory casework source is what keeps them out of the site-fabrication trap.

Labs USA supplies laboratory casework, work surfaces, fittings, and completion components to projects throughout Georgia, including Kennesaw, Marietta, Acworth, Woodstock, Atlanta, Alpharetta, Duluth, Athens, and Augusta. Full lab casework packages, laboratory cabinets, lab tables, and lab furniture are quoted from the room, and small completion orders are quoted the same way.