Epoxy Flooring Is Built In Layers, Not Painted On
Epoxy flooring is a resin system, and the first layer is not resin at all. It is a pass with a diamond grinder, which cuts the smooth skin off the concrete and leaves a texture like coarse sandpaper. Resin soaks into that texture and locks on.
After grinding comes a primer coat, then a scatter of vinyl chips or quartz sand when the floor needs colour or traction, then a clear wear layer. That last layer is the one your tires, boots and tool carts touch every day, so it is where we spend the most thought.
We put this system down in attached garages, detached shops, basements, plants and warehouses. Homeowners mostly ask for garage floor coating or basement epoxy flooring. When the calendar says January and the job cannot wait, polyaspartic floor coating keeps curing in the cold and returns the floor to use quickly.
Road Salt And Winter Crush Wear Out Bare Garage Floors
Epoxy flooring deals with both winter attackers that come home on a vehicle in Prince George. The first is chemical. City crews spread rock salt and spray liquid brine on main roads, and the salty slush that drops off your wheel wells soaks into bare concrete and makes it scale.
The second is mechanical. The City also puts down Winter Crush and Winter Sand on hills and intersections, and those little sharp stones ride home in your tire treads. Once the slush melts in a warm garage, the stones get ground into the floor under every tire. A thin hardware store coating wears through at the tire paths in one winter, while a thick, hard wear layer shrugs it off.
Heavy Truck And Equipment Shops Need Thicker Floors
Prince George fixes the trucks and machines that keep the north working. Log haulers, skidders, feller bunchers and highway tractors roll into local bays for repairs, and those floors take a beating no house garage ever sees.
Our shop floor coating uses a thicker build and more grit in the top layer. It stands up to dropped steel, jack stands, hot oil and the snowbank that melts off a truck frame overnight. Mill buildings and process rooms get our industrial epoxy flooring, which goes heavier again and can be made to resist hot water and chemicals.
Older Basement Slabs Need A Moisture Test First
Basement epoxy flooring only holds if the slab is not pushing water up from underneath. Plenty of homes in the VLA, Van Bien and the Crescents went up long before builders laid poly under basement concrete, and vapour still moves through those floors. Over time it can pop a coating loose from below.
So we check before we price. A high reading means we start the epoxy flooring with a primer made to block vapour. A normal reading means a standard grind and coat. Newer houses in University Heights and Heritage tend to read dry, which keeps the cost lower.
Long Cold Spells Change How Epoxy Flooring Goes Down
Epoxy flooring needs warm concrete to harden the way it should. Ordinary epoxy crawls to a near stop once the slab drops under roughly 10°C, and a cold garage in January can stay under that for weeks at a time.
There are two ways around it. For an epoxy job, we put heaters in the space the day before and leave them running until the coating has set. Where heat is not practical, we switch to polyaspartic, which hardens at much lower temperatures and lets us keep working through most of the winter. In both cases, a thermometer goes on the concrete before any pail gets opened.
Warehouses And Distribution Buildings Need Floors That Last
A warehouse floor sees forklifts from the first shift to the last. Under that traffic, bare concrete dusts, wears grooves into the busiest aisles and crumbles along the saw cuts.
Our warehouse floor coating seals the slab, adds extra build in the drive lanes and comes with painted pedestrian routes. WorkSafeBC expects walking routes in a workplace to be clearly marked, and lines on the floor are the simplest answer. For new buildings going up along Boundary Road, the cleanest time to coat is before the racking arrives.
Cracked And Heaved Slabs Get Repaired Before They Are Coated
A lot of Prince George is built on fine silt and clay left behind by an old glacial lake. That ground holds water and swells when it freezes, which is why garage aprons and cold slabs here crack and shift at the joints.
A coating will not bridge a crack that keeps moving. Our concrete floor repair fills cracks, rebuilds chipped joints and grinds down lips before the epoxy flooring goes on. The repair has its own line on the estimate, so there is no surprise later.
Offices, Clinics And Stores Need Easy-Clean Floors
Commercial epoxy flooring gives a clinic, office, shop front or showroom a joint-free surface that mops up fast and takes rolling carts and office chairs. We can work after closing or across a weekend so customers never see us.
Our commercial epoxy flooring is available in solid colours, chip blends and quartz for wet rooms. Floors that deal with fuel, acid or caustic need our chemical resistant floor coating, which uses resins chosen for the exact products in that room.
A Basement Or Living Space Can Have A Decorative Floor
Some floors are for looking at as much as walking on. Metallic epoxy flooring gives a basement, home bar or living area a deep, swirling finish that reads like polished stone.
Our metallic epoxy flooring is shaped by hand while it is wet, so each floor turns out different. Under the shine it sits on the same ground and primed slab as our work floors, so it handles kids, pets and furniture.
Epoxy Flooring Prices Depend On The Slab
What epoxy flooring costs in Prince George comes down to the concrete more than the resin. A clean slab from the last few years needs far less prep than an older one with oil stains, cracks and a coating that has to be stripped first.
For a ballpark, chip garage systems land around $6 to $10 per square foot, basements $4 to $8, and heavy shop or plant floors $8 to $15. The smallest installs start near $2,500, which covers the grinder, the vacuums and setup. The estimate you get after our visit gives the actual figure.