What we do · Traffic Coatings
Protection, Not Decoration
A traffic coating keeps water and chlorides off the concrete. Applied correctly it extends structural life substantially; applied over damage it hides it.
The structure, its age, and what you have noticed. If there is an engineer's report, send that instead — we will price what it identifies.
Exposed
A garage is a structure left outside for fifty years
Unit rates
Repair quantity is unknowable until it is opened
Parking
Where displaced cars go decides the whole program
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
It is used to make a garage look finished
Coating is visible, comparatively cheap, and produces an immediately better-looking garage. That makes it attractive as a substitute for repair rather than a complement to it — and a coating over unrepaired, chloride-contaminated concrete seals the moisture in and accelerates what is happening underneath.
Coating is also the item most often used to make a garage presentable before a sale or a refinancing. That is a legitimate reason to do it, and it is worth being clear that a fresh coating over unrepaired concrete changes how the garage looks without changing anything about its condition or its remaining life.
What a coating needs to work
- Concrete repaired first, always.
- Proper surface preparation, which is most of the labor.
- The right system for the traffic — drive lanes differ from bays.
- Correct thickness, verified rather than assumed.
- Realistic cure time before traffic returns.
Why preparation is most of the cost
Surface preparation on a garage deck means removing the failed existing coating, profiling the concrete so the new system can bond, and dealing with contamination from years of oil and tire traffic. It is dusty, slow and it accounts for a large share of the labor.
It is also the part that gets compressed when a phase runs late, and it is the single best predictor of whether a coating lasts its design life or debonds in two years. A coating is only ever as good as the surface it went onto.
How we handle it
- 01Repair concrete before any coating goes down.
- 02Prepare the surface properly rather than quickly.
- 03Apply the specified system at the specified thickness.
- 04Allow real cure time before reopening.
- 05Detail terminations, drains and upstands correctly.
Surface preparation is most of the work and most of whether a coating lasts. A coating applied over inadequately prepared concrete debonds within a couple of years regardless of how good the product was, and the preparation is the part that gets compressed when a schedule slips.
Said plainly
Where we stop
We will not coat over unrepaired concrete. It looks like a completed project, it traps moisture against contaminated concrete, and it is the cheapest way to pay for the same repair twice.
FAQ
Common questions
- Can coating substitute for repair?
- No. Over unrepaired concrete it seals moisture in and accelerates the damage.
- What decides whether a coating lasts?
- Surface preparation, more than the product.
- How long before cars return?
- Real cure time, which cannot be compressed without shortening the coating's life.
- Do drive lanes need a different system?
- Yes. Turning traffic is far harder on a coating than parked cars.
The practical side
Displaced Parking
A garage under repair has fewer spaces. Where the displaced cars go is the question that decides whether the project happens at all.
Read more →
Phasing
How the work is divided determines how users experience it and how long the whole thing takes.
Read more →
Inspection
A garage assessment should be done by a structural engineer who is not going to do the repairs.
Read more →
Budgeting
Garage restoration is predictable in kind and unpredictable in quantity, which makes it a reserve item that almost nobody reserves for.
Read more →
The Cost of Deferring
Concrete deterioration is not linear. Once corrosion starts it accelerates, which makes deferral more expensive than it looks.
Read more →
More what we do
Concrete Restoration
Salt reaches the reinforcement, the steel corrodes, the corrosion expands, and the concrete breaks away. In a Florida garage it is a matter of when.
Read more →
Expansion Joints
Joints allow the structure to move, and they are the most heavily worked and shortest-lived element in a garage.
Read more →
Post-Tensioned Repair
Many Florida garages are post-tensioned, where steel tendons are held in permanent tension inside the concrete. Repair there is a different discipline.
Read more →
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.