Epoxy Flooring

Never was it a better time to turn your ugly gray garage or basement concrete floor into a beautiful, livable space with epoxy flooring. Our 4-layered coating systems use a moisture-mitigating 100%-solids epoxy as the primer coat and two 100%-solids polyurea-polyaspartic as clear topcoats.

We use the best properties of each coating type to create the most durable epoxy flooring on the market. (You’ll find no low quality “1-day polyurea” coating systems here).

Refurbishing Your Garage or Basement with Epoxy Flooring

Epoxy flooring can be applied over any properly prepared concrete substrate, whether indoors or out. By “properly prepared”, we mean using an industrial-grade propane diamond grinder; etching with muriatic acid simply doesn’t create a proper concrete profile.

Spaces that are frequently coated include residential patios, walkways, driveways and basements. But we also coat commercial and retail concrete spaces, like warehouses, grocery stores, dog kennels and offices. In fact, we can coat any concrete space, indoors or out, residential, commercial or retail.

Livable Square Footage

Refreshing your ugly and dirty concrete garage floor or basement will give you more livable square footage in your own home (as well as enhance your home’s resale value!). Did you know that much of the dust and dirt in your garage actually comes from the concrete floor itself? Concrete degrades over time and creates the dust that gets tracked into your clean house.

A close look at your concrete shows it’s extremely porous. The pores hold dirt and bacteria making proper cleaning of the space next to impossible (unless you use a high-pressure hose which will only further degrade the concrete).

But there’s a simple solution that’ll keep your concrete space clean, easy-to-maintain…and moisture, UV, stain and impact-resistant. Epoxy flooring! If you want to upgrade your home’s basement or garage (or any concrete space), start with the floor.

Epoxies Aren’t the Only Coating Type

When most people think of concrete coatings, they think “epoxy”. Lately, people are also hearing about polyureas and polyaspartics. The reality is, there are several different concrete coating products.

There are standard 100%-solids epoxies, water-borne epoxies, moisture-mitigating epoxies, polyurethanes, and polyurea-polyaspartics. (We hyphenated “polyurea-polyaspartic” because they are one-and-the-same. For the chemistry nerds our there, a polyaspartic is just an aliphatic polyurea).

But what’s important to know is that each coating type has its own benefits…and drawbacks. We’ll discuss the most used coating types, epoxies and polyurea-polyaspartics below.

Epoxies

Epoxies can be applied thickly (they’re called “high-build” coatings), burying small substrate imperfections. Water-borne and moisture-mitigating epoxies can mitigate substrate moisture problems too. How? These slower-curing products allow for deeper concrete penetration and bonding than a fast-curing polyurea. And this is super important because moisture-related issues are the number 1 reason for coating system failures.

The drawback? Epoxies tend to amber or chalk when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light. In addition, they’re susceptible to staining and tire lift. So as good as a moisture-mitigating epoxy is as a primer coat, they’re not so great as final, protective top coats if they happen to be exposed to sunlight.

Polyurea-Polyaspartics

Polyurea-polyaspartics are precisely the opposite. Their fast-cure, impact, stain and UV resistance properties makes them incredible top coats (or color coats). But they have one major Achilles heel. Fast-curing polyurea-polyaspartics cure faster still in the presence of concrete moisture. Because they cure so quickly in the presence of moisture, these products can’t penetrate the concrete nearly as well as a slower-curing, moisture-mitigating epoxy. That is, polyurea-polyaspartic are very poor “direct-to-concrete” (primer) coatings.

(“1-day” applicators use polyurea-polyaspartics as both the primer coat and the top coat. This is risky in the present of medium to high concrete moisture. They use the quick-curing products as both primer and top coat to get the job done in the promised “1-day”. The result? They tend to delaminate over time and it’s why “1-day” contractors won’t warrant for “moisture-related issues”.

The various coating types – epoxies, polyurethanes, polyurea-polyaspartics – can be layered, one on top of the other, to create a multi-layered “coating system”. Typical full-flake coating systems consist of 3 layers…but quality systems can consist of more.

Coating systems may include:

(a) An initial primer coat (a coating applied direct to concrete)

(b) In some cases, a color or “sandwich” coat

(d) One or more clear topcoats

So, if coating systems consist of multiple layers of coatings, why not use the best properties of each coating type to create the best coating system? This is exactly what expert installers do. They use a moisture-mitigating epoxy as the primer (direct-to-concrete) coat and polyurea-polyaspartics as the protective top coats (never as direct-to-concrete primers).

But, if you use an epoxy as the primer coat, don’t you need to worry about “chalking and fading” if exposed to UV light? Well, no. In a full-flake system, the epoxy primer coat is covered in a thick layer of flakes…it literally never gets to see the light of day!

The start of the process begins with an evaluation of your space to be coated. We’ll assess concrete moisture (using a moisture meter) and evaluate the condition of your concrete. Are there any cracks, pitting, efflorescence, or staining? When this consultation is complete, at your cue, we’ll schedule the installation.

On the first day of installation, we’ll bring our propane diamond grinders, hand grinders, and HEPA-filtered vacuums to create the perfect concrete profile, ensuring the first epoxy primer coat perfectly penetrates and bonds to the concrete canvas.

Following concrete grinding, we begin by applying the first moisture-mitigating epoxy primer coat (we’ll never apply a polyurea-polyaspartic direct-to-concrete; this is a sure sign of an amateur application). In our flaked systems, we then broadcast your selected flake blend into the wet primer coat. This completes Day 1 of the installation.

On Day 2, we reclaim unadhered flakes and buff down the adhered flakes to create a smooth substrate. We’ll vacuum and then top it off with 2 protective, clear 100%-solids polyaspartic topcoats. In the second polyaspartic coat, we add aggregate to create an anti-slip surface.

Your Dream Garage or Basement Epoxy Flooring

Treat yourself by transforming your ugly gray garage or basement into a man cave, she-shed, gym, gaming room or home office.

East PA Garage Floor Coating is your local, expert installer of quality, industrial-grade concrete epoxy flooring. We’re a 2-day installer…you’ll not find any “1-day polyurea” systems here. Call us for your free estimate at (570) 498-2628.

If you’d like to explore our coating systems, click here: https://www.garagefloorcoatingpa.com/full-flake-epoxy-flooring/. Your dream garage or basement awaits.