Epoxy Floor Coatings

Epoxy Floor Coatings in Cincinnati, OH

Epoxy fails for one reason far more often than any other: the slab was not prepared. A coating rolled over a cleaned but unground floor is bonded to the surface laitance, not the concrete, and it peels in sheets the first time a hot tire sits on it.

River City Restoration diamond grinds every floor we coat. Grinding opens the pores of the concrete, removes contaminants and old coatings, and gives the epoxy the mechanical profile it needs to actually hold. It is the slowest, dustiest and most expensive part of the job, and it is the part a cheap bid leaves out.

We install full flake broadcast systems, solid color builds, metallic epoxies, and industrial urethane and polyaspartic topcoats. Ian specifies the system around what the floor will actually take: forklift traffic, hot tires, food service washdown, battery acid or solvent exposure each point to a different product.

Floors we coat

• Residential garage floors and workshops
• Auto shops, service bays and dealerships
• Warehouse and distribution floors
• Commercial kitchens and food-processing areas
• Breweries, taprooms and bottling floors
• Showrooms and retail spaces
• Basements and finished lower levels
• Mechanical and equipment rooms
• Coved, sloped and drain-integrated systems

Prep, patch, prime, build, topcoat, and nothing skipped

We start with a moisture test. Concrete that is passing vapor from below will push almost any coating off the floor, and no amount of prep fixes it. If the slab reads high, we install a moisture-mitigating primer rather than pretending the problem is not there.

Then the floor gets diamond ground to a profile appropriate for the system, and every crack, spall, pop-out and control joint gets repaired with a polyurea or epoxy mortar that will not telegraph through the finish. Joints that need to keep moving stay flexible; joints that were only shrinkage control get filled solid.

The coating goes down in coats, not in one thick pass: primer, build coat, flake broadcast if the system calls for it, then scrape and vacuum, then two clear topcoats. Polyaspartic topcoats let a garage take foot traffic the same evening and vehicles the next day. A traditional epoxy build needs several days. We will tell you which timeline your space requires before you schedule around it.

Frequently asked about epoxy floor coatings