Garage Floor Epoxy Paint Repair – Colorado
Garage Floor Epoxy Paint Repair
Many of our clients throughout Colorado have had their concrete resurfaced with coatings available at the big box home improvement stores. The result looks great for the first day or two followed by disappointing deterioration.
Chips and Peeling
The first thing that starts to happen are small chips that come off the floor. Then if you drive your car on the floor you may see the coatings peel right off under your tires. The floor starts getting dirty and before you know it, the floor looks worse than before and you’re out some hard earned money. In some cases the coating will peel off the surface in sheets.
Why Coatings Fail
There are a few things happening that cause a floor coating to fail.
- Concrete Moisture – Your floor, though it may seem hard as rock, is still curing. Concrete cures slowly over time. It takes 100 years before curing stops. Your floor is in perpetual motion. It also is full of tiny air holes. When your concrete was first pored, the moisture had to work it’s way out through the surface. The moisture leaves a trail of air holes. Imagine hundreds of tiny straws in the concrete. Moisture pushes upwards and salts along with it. Only premium polyureas and epoxies can withstand this problem.
- Etching Concrete – Most hardware quality epoxies come with an acid etch solution to profile the surface. In theory this is correct. Floors need to be profiled to add surface area for the coating to stick to. The problem is that the etching solutions are weak and diluted to begin with and not very effective. But the big issue is that you are soaking the floor with water, the enemy off all coatings. It will take weeks for the floor to dry. However you likely applied the coating the next day trapping moisture in the floor. To compound the problem, when you washed the acid etch off the cement surface some of it got trapped in the air holes. Eventually moisture pressure pushes the acid in the air holes to the surface which starts to eat the epoxy, hence chipping and peeling.
- Inferior Quality – Face it. You get what you pay for. The products at the home improvement stores are inexpensive, low performing coatings. You can improve their performance by grinding or shotblasting the concrete, but stay away from acid etching. Even a properly prepped floor is not the solution. Floors take a beating and concrete is a difficult surface. The only solution is a high performance system if you want a floor that performs over the long term.
Crack Filler - Thru 4 Inch Slab, Top To Bottom
The Solution
We provide a high quality coatings system. Our system includes grinding the top level of the cement floor. This step removes the high spots making the floor flat. It also opens up cracks and airholes.
We fill the cracks with a polyurea that flows to the bottom of the cracks and absorbs into the walls on the crack. It cures below grade and is activated by moisture. Most crack fillers never fully cure and stay mushy in the crack. They also only fill the top inch of the crack. Moisture pressure pushes these inferior products out of the way causing coating failure.
We also fill any damaged holes in the floor.
The next step is application of our polyurea prime coat. This is a thin application that absorbs into the concrete. The prime coat is perfectly compatible with our polyurea crack filler. They bond together. We see so many floors where the crack filler is only a band aid and does not bond to the epoxy top coat.
Our next coat is a high build performance coating of our polyurea. No need to worry about tire marks, dripping grease or de-icing salts. The floor is easy to clean and looks excellent for years.
If you have experienced garage floor epoxy paint failure and need a repair solution give us a call. We’re based in Colorado in Denver and in the Rockies. We have associates nationwide who can provide you with a remediation solution in your local area.
