What the work is
A patio or porch coating goes over the existing slab. The surface is washed, ground back, repaired and then finished — flake, a texture, or a color, depending on what the space is for.
The reason to do it is usually appearance: an old tinted or stamped slab that has faded unevenly, worn through in the traffic lanes, or carries pale scars from earlier repairs. A coating gives that one surface again without the cost, mess and disruption of demolition.
The reason not to do it is movement. A slab that is cracking because it is moving will crack the coating too, and reasonably quickly. We look at what the cracks are doing before we quote covering them, and if the answer is that the slab is going, we will tell you that a coating is money spent twice.
Outside, the texture is not decoration. A patio has to stay walkable when it is wet, and that is a function of how coarse the broadcast is. We will talk about that before the color.
What is included
- Washing and grinding the existing slab
- Assessment of the cracks, and a plain account of which are cosmetic
- Repair as its own quoted step
- The texture agreed before the color
- Masking walls, planters, posts and anything adjoining
What is not
- Covering a slab that is actively moving. We will tell you rather than take the job
- Demolition and a new pour. That is different work with a different price
- Matching the existing color of an adjoining uncoated slab. It will not match
- A smooth finish anywhere it will be walked on wet
What a patio here is actually up against
Sun first. With 98 days at or above 100°F in 2024 and an all-time high of 117°F, an unshaded patio slab in this county spends a third of the year hot enough to matter to both the surface and the people on it. Texture and color both change how that feels underfoot.
Then water, in the specific way it arrives here. Southwest Utah has a defined monsoon season, and St. George has recorded a 78-day dry spell ending with monsoon onset. That pattern — months of nothing, then a heavy cell — is the worst case for drainage and the reason a patio that sheds water properly is worth more than one that looks good dry.
What to ask anyone quoting this, us included
- Are these cracks moving, and how do you know?
- How coarse is the texture, and what will it feel like barefoot?
- Where does the water go once this is coated?
