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All garage floor coating professionals agree that the concrete prepping work carried out before laying down the floor coating material is as crucial to the final success and the longevity of the coating work as the type of epoxy used for the job.
In fact, most cases of coating failure are attributable to shoddy concrete prepping work.
This is what Jake Lowry, CFO of MotorCity Floors and Coatings in Novi, MI says about it:
“When it comes to concrete prepping work, let’s say we get to a floor first thing in the morning. We’re there between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM. The first thing we do is identify (a) if there’s a current coating on the floor. All this will be in the notes from when we come out and do our quote from the beginning from our salesperson, so they’ll know exactly what’s to look forward to in the preps. (b) Whether or not there’s pitting going on from salt, which is pretty common here in Michigan. And (c) if there are cracks throughout the floor that need to be fixed.
The very first thing they do when they go in: they’ll diamond-grind the entire floor. They’ll use a 5-inch or a 7-inch along all of the seams and along the sides of the garage to make sure that we’re grinding the entire surface, getting a nice opening-up of the pores of the concrete. That way, our coating can then bond to it properly.
After we do our initial pass, our initial buzz, we go ahead and make our repairs, with our product MR 50 or a polygrout.
After we do that, we let it sit for about 45 minutes or so. Then we grind those areas that we just prepped, and only then we are ready to apply the coating to the floor.”
Summary: Concrete prepping work for an epoxy floor coating job
- Evaluate the condition of the concrete (existing coating, pits, cracks)
- Diamond-grind the floor, including all seams and all sides
- Repair the pits and cracks with MR50 or polygrout
- Let the repair material sit for 45-60 min and apply the base coat
Garage floor coating professionals use best practices to prep up the concrete so that the support on which the base coat will rest offers maximum adherence. Likewise, filling up dips and crevices with the correct products helps the coating paint to be laid down evenly over the concrete, to obtain a beautiful, shiny and flat surface. Without concrete prepping work, your floor coating will peel off, break down, discolor, and look shoddy.
MotorCity Floors and Coatings has a long experience of indoor and outdoor floor coating work, and uses a mix of polyurea and polyaspartic coating paints for maximum longevity and minimum clean-up effort. Serving residential, commercial, and industrial clients, we offer a large palette of colors. From neutral tones to denser hues, we create a brand-new floor, easy to look at, easy to work on, and easy to live with.
We invite you to call our garage floor coating professionals: They will offer practical advice in picking a floor coating color and type best suited to your application.
MotorCity Floors and Coatings has its headquarters in Novi, MI. We are floor coating specialists, serving families and businesses in the entire Detroit metro area.
