Garage floors built for road salt
A Pennsylvania garage takes brine off the car all winter and hot tires all summer. Those are two different attacks on the same slab, and a hardware store kit survives neither.
What road salt actually does to a garage slab
From December through March, every car in Allentown comes home carrying brine off the road. It drips onto the same square yard of concrete under each wheel, sits there, and soaks in. Salt is far harder on a slab than oil is, because it does not just stain, it draws moisture and works into the pores, and where it reaches reinforcing steel it corrodes it from inside.
On an uncoated garage floor the visible result is spalling: the top surface flaking away in patches, usually starting where the tires park. Once that starts it accelerates, and at a certain point the floor needs repair rather than coating. That is why we would rather coat a garage before the spalling starts than after.
The other half of the year is hot tire pickup. A tire that has been on Route 22 in August comes home a great deal hotter than the concrete, softens a weak coating, and lifts it away when the car moves. It shows up as bare patches exactly where the wheels sit. Only a properly ground, primed and topcoated system resists both problems.
Cobra Epoxy and Flake Coatings, PA HIC 177204Salt in winter, hot tires in summer. A garage floor here has to survive both or it has not survived.
Allentown garages we work in
Rear alley garages
Detached, single width, often reached only from the alley. Sometimes the van cannot get to the door at all and everything is carried, which we plan for rather than discover.
Attached suburban bays
Newer stock on the edges of the city with two or three car garages. Straightforward access, usually done in a weekend.
Twins and rowhome garages
Small footprints where the floor is also storage, workshop and laundry. Those take a heavier broadcast because the floor gets dragged on as much as driven on.
Slabs that already spalled
Patched and rebuilt before coating. If the top layer is failing, a coating over it only hides the problem for a season.
How the job runs
The first day is grinding. Diamond tooling takes the surface down past oil, tire marks, old sealer and whatever kit a previous owner rolled on, leaving open concrete with a consistent profile for the primer to key into. On a garage that has been in use since the fifties this is most of the work and it is the step cheap quotes skip.
Cracks and spalled areas get rebuilt with a rigid patching compound while the slab is open. Control joints are treated deliberately, either honored and left visible or filled, depending on whether the slab is still moving.
Then primer, a full broadcast of flake to refusal so the base coat is completely covered, the excess scraped back, and two clear topcoats. Full refusal matters: a thin scatter of chip leaves base coat exposed between the pieces and that is what wears through in the traffic lanes within a couple of years.
The topcoat is where salt and hot tire resistance actually live, so that is where we spend rather than on a thicker color coat. Most single and double garages are a weekend, and you can park on it a couple of days after the final coat.
Send the details over and Jimmy will call inside a business day.Spalling starts where the tires park. That is not a coincidence, it is brine.
Where we work in Allentown
The whole city and out across Lehigh County. Alley access, tight turns and carried equipment are normal here and get planned into the walkthrough rather than becoming a surprise on the day.
Questions
Garage questions from Allentown
The ones that come up on nearly every walkthrough.
Will it handle salt off the car all winter?
That is what the topcoat is chosen for. A properly built system seals the concrete so brine cannot get into the pores, and the salt sits on the surface where it rinses off. Giving the floor an occasional rinse in the middle of winter helps and is not essential. What does not survive is a thin water based kit, which is what most spalled garages in this city had on them.
My floor is already flaking in patches. Is it too late?
Usually not, but it is repair before it is coating. Spalled areas get cut out and rebuilt so the surface is sound, then the whole floor gets treated as one. That costs more than a straightforward garage and it is the honest price. What we will not do is coat over failing concrete and let you find out in a year.
Can you get to a garage off a back alley?
Nearly always, though sometimes not with the van. If the alley is too tight we park on the street and carry, which adds time to the day. It is normal city work and it goes into the quote at the walkthrough rather than appearing afterward.
How long before I can park on it?
Foot traffic the next day, vehicles after about seventy two hours. Cold slows the cure, so a January install takes longer than a June one. We would rather tell you three days and have you back early than promise two and be wrong.
Is flake worth it over a plain color?
For a garage, yes. The flake adds thickness, hides tire marks and scuffs that a solid color shows constantly, and gives grip on a floor that will be wet every time a car comes in during a storm. It also means a repair blends in rather than showing as a patch.
Do you coat the coved base up the wall?
We can, and in a garage that gets washed out it is worth doing. It stops water getting behind the coating at the wall junction, which is a common failure point. It is a small extra rather than a different job.
Book a walkthrough
Book a walkthrough for your garage
Tell us the size, whether the floor has started flaking anywhere, and how we would get equipment to it. Jimmy will call inside a business day and come and look before quoting.
Made in the USA product, OSHA certified crew, PA HIC 177204. Call (484) 942-3219 or send the details over.
Tell us about the floor
A quick description is enough to start. Expect a call back within a business day.
Related work in Allentown
Garage work often runs with a basement floor in the same visit, and the flake system is the same one in both. Spalled or cracked slabs need repair first. Full detail on the main garage epoxy flooring page, finished floors in the gallery. We cover Allentown and Lehigh County.