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Concrete coatings · Garage floors

Garage floor coating

The bay is emptied, the slab is ground back past its surface film, and the finish is bonded to concrete rather than sitting on it. The grinding is most of the work and all of the difference.

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One flat fee to find out what is wrong. You are told it on the phone before anyone is dispatched, and it comes off the job if you hire us. Read our Plain Terms

A finished garage floor in a pale gray and tan flake blend, running the depth of the bay, with the slab's saw-cut control joints still visible as fine straight lines through the coating and an open door at the far left
The control joints are still readable through the finish. They are part of the slab, not a defect in the floor.

What the work is

A coated garage floor is three things in order: preparation, a base coat, and a clear coat over it. Almost everything that goes wrong goes wrong in the first one, and almost nobody quotes it in detail.

Concrete finishes with a weak, fines-rich film on top of it called laitance. It is part of how a slab is poured, not a defect. A coating rolled onto that film is bonded to the film, and when the film lets go the floor looks like it failed. Diamond grinding removes it and leaves a measurable profile for the resin to key into. That profile has a number on a published scale and you are entitled to ask which one we ground to and how we checked.

Then the slab is tested for moisture, the cracks and spalls are repaired as their own step, and only then does anything get applied. A crack that is still moving telegraphs back through a coating within a season, so it is repaired first or it is left alone and named on the quote.

We will tell you if your slab is a poor candidate. Some are. A slab reading high on moisture, or one that has been sealed repeatedly with something that will not come off, costs more to prepare than the finish is worth, and you should hear that from us before you have paid for anything.

What is included

  • Moving what you can move; we say plainly what has to be out before the day
  • Diamond grinding the full floor, with the edges and corners cut in by hand
  • Dust extraction at the machine, so the grinding does not end up in the house
  • Crack and spall repair as a named step, quoted before it is done
  • A moisture test on the slab, with the reading written down for you
  • Masking the walls, the door track and anything the coating could reach
  • Base coat, the chosen finish, and the clear coat over it

What is not

  • Emptying the garage. It has to be clear, and that is the part people underestimate
  • Storing your belongings while the floor cures
  • Structural repair of a slab that is heaving or settling. That is a different trade and we will say so
  • Coating over an existing finish we cannot verify. It comes off first, or we do not quote it
  • A date we cannot hold. Exterior aprons wait on weather; the inside of the bay does not

What is different about doing this here

St. George recorded 98 days at or above 100°F in 2024, the most on record, and the all-time high is 117°F. An attached garage here spends the summer hot. That matters twice: it is what the finished floor lives with, and it is a constraint on the work itself, because resin systems have a published application temperature window and their working time shortens as the slab warms.

The other local one is sand. The Utah Geological Survey maps wind-blown sand as one of nine adverse construction conditions for this area, and Washington County publishes it as its own hazard layer — most counties do not map blowing sand at all, which is the signal that it matters here. Wet resin holds whatever lands in it. That is a real reason the exterior half of a job gets scheduled around a wind forecast, and April is the windiest month.

What to ask anyone quoting this, us included

  • How is the slab being prepared, and if the answer is grinding, to what surface profile?
  • Which moisture test are you running, and can I see the reading?
  • Which product is going on my floor, and can I see its data sheet?
  • What happens to the cracks, and is that in the quote or added later?
  • Who is preparing the slab, and are they the same people applying the finish?

What we can show you in writing

Every line traces to a document we read in full. The number after a sentence points to the research below.

  • Concrete substrates must be mechanically prepared to remove cement laitance, existing coatings and curing compounds, and to achieve a profile that is clean, dry and free of dirt, grease and oil. Diamond grinders create that profile and remove high spots and coatings; shot blasting is described as the industry standard for surface preparation of concrete.1
  • ICRI Guideline 310.2R-2013 defines a scale of concrete surface profiles, from CSP 1 — essentially unchanged concrete with loose debris removed — through CSP 9 and beyond at exposed aggregate. Physical replica chips exist so a prepared slab can be visually accepted or rejected against the number, and most coating manufacturers specify against that scale on their own data sheets.1
  • St. George recorded 98 days at or above 100°F in 2024, the most on record, and the all-time high is 117°F on July 11, 2021. The city has had back-to-back hottest-Julys-on-record, in 2023 and again in 2024.2
  • The Utah Geological Survey maps wind-blown sand as one of nine adverse construction conditions for the St. George–Hurricane area in Special Study 127, and Washington County publishes it as its own GIS hazard layer. Utah DEQ notes that from spring through fall, high winds combined with dry surface conditions produce dust storms that can lead to extremely high levels of particulate matter.2

Where this comes from

Every line above traces to a document we read in full. The number after a sentence points to the research below; hover it for the section. If you find a line wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say so.

  1. Concrete coatings research, September 2026 Compiled from ICRI Guideline 310.2R-2013 on concrete surface preparation, the ASTM moisture test standards F2170, F1869 and D4263, ACI 302.2R and NRMCA CIP 29 on slabs and vapor retarders, Sika's published surface preparation guide, Sherwin-Williams product literature on polyaspartic chemistry, and the Utah Geological Survey and Utah DEQ material already cited in the environment research. 2 sections cited. Hover a number above for the section.
  2. Environment, water and ground research, August 2026 Compiled from the cities' own water quality reports, Utah Geological Survey Special Study 127, the Utah State Hazard Mitigation Plan, Washington County GIS hazard layers, NOAA climate records, EPA radon zones and Census QuickFacts. 2 sections cited. Hover a number above for the section.

This work

What it looks like on the job.

No caption names a town: these were not all shot in Washington County and we will not imply otherwise.

  • A garage bay finished in tan and brown flake, with a sectional door part-raised on the left, daylight from two high windows, and white walls
    One bay, finished. The joint lines running across it are the slab's, not the coating's.
  • A wide garage with a brown and tan flake floor, two slim white steel posts rising from it, a sectional door raised on the left and a white door and electrical panel on the right
    The coating runs up to and around the posts rather than stopping short of them.
  • A low view across a dense tan, brown, black and white flake garage floor toward a sectional door part-raised, with daylight coming in beneath it
    Floor level, which is where you see whether the flake is dense enough to hide the slab.
  • A garage in use with a gray, white and black flake floor, a rail of hanging coats and a dartboard on the far wall, a wall shelf, and exercise equipment left out on the floor
    A garage in use, not a showroom.
  • A tan flake garage floor seen from inside the bay, meeting the plain concrete driveway at the door line, with a stone-faced house across the street beyond
    Where the coating stops at the door line, and the driveway concrete starts.
  • A long garage bay finished in tan flake, strip lights overhead, looking down its length to an open door and steps at the far end
    A deep bay, looking down its length.
  • A garage with a brown and tan flake floor, a wall-hung tankless water heater and utility sink on the back wall, a white door beside them and two small framed pictures
    The floor goes under and around the equipment rather than stopping at it. This is the same garage as the bare slab further down.
  • A garage with charcoal-painted walls and a gray flake floor, a bright patch of sunlight falling across it from the open door, and a white door on the right
    A dark room and a gray floor. It shows dust less than a light one and heat more.
  • A garage floor in a gray and white flake blend where the coating is carried several inches up the wall as a continuous base rather than stopping at the floor line
    The coating carried up the wall as a base, so there is no open joint at the floor line for water to sit in.
  • An empty garage with a pale tan flake floor and the sectional door raised, its inner face covered in framed comic and hot-rod artwork, with palm trees and a street outside
    An empty bay, door up.
  • A garage floor in a blue, gray and white flake blend, with a water heater in the far corner and two red extension cords hung on the wall above
    Flake is sold as a blend, and the blend is chosen. This one is blue.
  • A brown flake garage floor with a hard diagonal line across it where sunlight through the open door meets shade, and a flat-head mop resting on the surface
    The same floor in sun and in shade. Sunlight is why the color you pick indoors is not the color you live with.
  • The front of a stucco and stacked-stone house with two garage doors open, showing coated flake floors inside both bays against the plain concrete driveway outside
    From the street, with both doors up.
  • A gray and white flake garage floor photographed from above at an angle, with two white sectional garage doors closed at the top of the frame
    From above, where the coverage is easiest to judge.
  • A close view of a finished flake floor, showing individual tan, black, brown and white chips locked under a clear gloss coat
    Close enough to see the individual chips under the clear coat.
  • A low close view along a tan and white flake floor, a band of reflected light running across it, with a doorway out of focus beyond
    Full-broadcast flake: chips are thrown until the base coat will not take any more.
  • The corner where a tan flake floor meets a stucco wall and the galvanised track of a garage door, the coating running cleanly into both angles
    The corner behind the door track. It is the hardest place to finish and the first place to look.
  • A hand holding a heap of gray, charcoal and pale tan vinyl flake chips above an open white bucket of the same
    The chips before they are thrown. They are vinyl, and they go on by hand.
  • Dozens of square flake color samples and two bound sample decks fanned out on a white table, showing blends from pale greys and tans through to blue and black
    The blends, as samples. Pick from the chip in daylight, not from a photograph on a phone.
  • A ground-level view along the threshold of a garage door, showing a blue and white flake floor inside ending in a clean edge against the plain concrete driveway outside
    The edge at the threshold, which is where a floor is finished well or is not.
  • A garage slab still wet after washing, the windows, ceiling and wall cabinets above reflected in the standing water on its surface
    Washed down. The mirror is water, not a finish.
  • An empty garage before work, bare gray concrete with several black buckets and a dust sheet set down in the middle of the floor and a green tape line masked along the right-hand wall
    Before. The garage has to be empty, and that is the part homeowners underestimate.
  • A garage floor part-way through, the pigmented base coat rolled out across the slab and still wet, the lower walls masked in a dark band, before any flake has been thrown into it
    The base coat, still wet. The flake goes into this, not onto it, which is why there is no second chance at the timing.
  • An empty garage seen from the driveway through its open door, the bare gray slab running out to meet the driveway, with a generator and a red tool chest standing just inside
    Before, from the driveway.
  • An empty garage with a bare gray concrete slab, a wall-hung tankless water heater on the back wall, a white door beside it and two small framed pictures
    Before. This is the same garage as the finished brown flake floor above, and even a slab that looks clean is carrying a surface film that has to be ground off.

The rest of garage floors

  • Flake floor

    Vinyl chips broadcast into a wet base coat and locked under a clear top coat. The common finish, and the one in most of the photographs here.

  • Solid color floor

    One color, no chips. The plainest finish, and the one that shows every repair in the slab beneath it.

  • Metallic floor

    A pigmented resin worked while wet so the color moves. No two are the same, which is the point and also the risk.

  • Grind and seal

    The concrete itself is the finish. Ground back, then sealed. Nothing is added on top to fail.

The quote is the number. There is no second number.

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