Colorado Garage Floor Coatings
If you're looking for garage floor experts in Colorado's front range, there's a good chance you've already compared and contrasted polyaspartic floor coatings and epoxy floor coatings. Each system provides its own set of unique benefits. Regardless of the product that you choose, the most important step in the concrete coating process is surface preparation.
Why do I need to prepare concrete prior to coating it?
Garage floor coatings will not just protect your concrete against the dirt and grime brought by the Colorado weather but also make your space look clean and sharp. Nonetheless, the attention is in the detail. An expert concrete coating professional will cost more than a fly-by-night operation for two prumary reasons: 1. They are using premium grade floor coating products, and 2. They pay close attention to surface prep.
When it comes to thin mil coatings, which epoxies and polyaspartics are the most common, premium grade products will create tension, as they cure, and start to pull on themselves. As a result, the product manufacturer has selected a specific Concrete Surface Profile (CSP) that can only be achieved through concrete surface preparation. The two most common methods of achieving the correct CSP are shot blasting and grinding. Achieving the specified CSP will give the floor enough texture for the coating to grip, like velcro.
Once the proper surface profile is achieved, it must be cleaned/vacuumed. When it comes to epoxies and polyaspartics, absorption is really important. Concrete has micro-pits in its surface. If the coating can flow into the micro-pits, similar to tree roots in the ground, the coating will literally fuse itself to the surface. Any small amounts of dust and debris has the potential of interrupting the fusing process and ruining the bond.
Floor Coating Failure
When a concrete coating fails, it doesn't one day decide to give up. It's just the day on which Its final attachment has finally broken down. That's when you, the floor owner, notices it because it starts to peel from the floor. If your garage floor coating is failing, the culprit is either bad preparation or an unforeseen environmental condition.
If the floor is not properly prepared, that process can start within a week of it being installed. It may have never properly attached to your floor. Environmental conditions, taking place below the concrete floor, are less likely reasons your floor coating is peeling off but certainly still happen.
Either way, most garage floor coatings should never delaminate and remove themselves from the floor other than poor surface preparation. That's why it's so important that you hire a professional and experienced garage floor coating expert.
