Garage flooring installation
The floor that turns a garage into a real room
Bare concrete is porous. It drinks up oil, coolant and the salt brine that comes off DelDOT's winter roads on your tires, and it powders under your feet. No amount of scrubbing brings it back.
A coated floor shuts that off. We diamond grind the slab, fill the cracks and pinholes, roll the base coat, broadcast the flake by hand, then lock it all in under a clear topcoat. Mike quotes it himself, so the man who prices your garage is the man who knows what it needs.
Done parking on stained concrete? Call Best Choice Flooring.
What does road salt do to a garage slab?
It gets inside it. Brine drips off the car, soaks into open concrete and sits there, and when the temperature swings around freezing the water in those pores expands and pushes the surface apart from within. That is why so many Kent County garages have a pitted, flaking strip where the tires sit and clean concrete at the back. A sealed floor stops the salt getting in at all, so it stays on top where a mop reaches it. The same logic runs through every epoxy floor we install.
That is the same slab first thinking behind all the concrete floor work we do.
What happens on installation day?
We clear the floor, mask the walls and grind. The diamond grinder runs over the whole slab until the troweled skin is gone and the concrete is open and dull, then cracks, chips and pinholes get filled and ground flat. Once the dust is vacuumed out the base coat goes down and the flake is broadcast into it by hand until the floor is full. Then the scrape, the sweep and the clear topcoat. Nothing on that list can be rushed without showing up later, which is why the grinding takes longer than the coating.
Winter is the reason it matters here: DelDOT brines the state highways before every storm, and all of it comes home on your tires.
Park on a garage floor you are proud of
Free phone consultation first, then a diamond ground slab and a floor that mops clean all winter.
Call (302) 480-9637How soon can I park on it?
Sooner than most people expect, but not the same afternoon. Foot traffic is usually fine the day after the topcoat, and vehicles wait longer so the coating reaches full hardness before hot tires sit on it. You get the real dates for your floor rather than a number off the side of a bucket. If the garage is also your workshop or your gym, say so at the estimate: a floor that takes a bench, a compressor and dropped tools gets a harder build than one that only parks a car.
If the slab is too rough or too patched to coat, a concrete overlay resurfaces it first.
Does it have to stop at the garage?
No, and often it should not. The same systems go into basements, workshops, laundry rooms and utility spaces, and a metallic finish is a genuine feature floor for an entry hall or a bar. People usually start with the garage because that is the floor annoying them, then look at the basement once they have seen it. Tell Mike what else is on concrete while he is there and he will price it in one go rather than coming back. See the full range of epoxy systems.
Ask the man doing the work
Straight answers about your flooring questions
How long does a garage floor take?
Most two and three car garages are finished in two days. Day one is grinding, repairs, the base coat and the flake. Day two is the scrape, the sweep and the topcoat.
Do I need to empty the garage first?
Yes. The floor has to be completely clear so the grinder can reach wall to wall. Move what you can out for the two days and Mike will talk through anything heavy at the estimate.
My slab is cracked and stained. Is it too far gone?
Almost never. Cracks and pinholes are filled and ground flat before any coating goes down, and most stains grind away with the top of the slab. If the concrete has a problem a coating will not fix, you get told straight.
Will it be slippery?
Flake has texture built into it, which gives you grip. If the garage sees a lot of water and snow melt, we can add a non slip additive to the topcoat.
Can I choose the color?
Yes. Flake comes in blends, so you pick the color and how heavy the coverage is. Metallic is mixed to whatever look you are after. Mike brings samples to the estimate.
Which areas do you cover?
Dover is home base and we work across Delaware, including Smyrna, Clayton, Townsend, Middletown, Felton, Marydel and Wilmington, down to Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach and the rest of the Delaware beaches, and Ocean City, MD.