A flake floor chosen under your own garage light
Flake covers a lot of sins in a slab, provided the blend suits the room it lands in. So the samples come out to the walkthrough, and you choose the color standing on the Douglassville concrete it is going to cover.
Holding the samples on the actual slab
A blend that looks right on a screen can look wrong on the floor. Chip color reads very differently under a garage light than it does in daylight, and a tan that seems warm outside can land somewhere else entirely once the overhead door is down and the ceiling fixture is doing all the work.
That is why Jimmy brings physical samples to the walkthrough and puts them down on your concrete. Look at them with the door up, and again with it closed and the lights on. It takes a few minutes and spares you years of living with a color you only half like.
Customers mention this part a lot. One wrote, “He fully explained the process to us and helped us pick out and match the color.” Ask Jimmy what he would pick for your space and you will get a straight answer.
If the floor has to sit well with something already in the room, such as cabinets or a painted wall, point it out and the samples can go down right beside it.
Why chips cover a patched slab better than gloss
Almost no slab reaches us perfect. Divots, cracks and old patches get cut back, filled and leveled flush before any coating goes near them, so the surface underneath is sound. Sound and invisible are two separate things, though. A repair can still differ a touch in texture or tone from the concrete beside it.
Lay a flat gloss color over that and the finish tends to telegraph every patch, because one even sheen makes each small change beneath it easier to spot. A hand broadcast flake works the other way. The chips break the surface up visually, the eye follows the pattern, and the repairs drop out of sight.
On real concrete, the kind with some history in it, that makes flake the finish that holds up best to being looked at every day. A solid color can be lovely on a perfect slab. Around here there are very few of those, and we would rather tell you so at the walkthrough than after the topcoat.
Cobra Epoxy and Flake Coatings, PA HIC 177204Choose the flake in the room it is going into. Daylight flatters every blend.
Six steps from bare gray concrete to a sealed floor
The build order stays the same from job to job. What changes is how long each step takes on your particular slab.
Grind
The whole floor is ground down to clean, open concrete, which is what the rest of the system needs to hold onto.
Repair
Cracks and divots are cut back, filled and brought flush with the concrete around them before any coating goes on.
Base coat
The base coat goes down over the ground and repaired slab, ready to take the flake while it is still wet.
Broadcast
Flake in your chosen blend is thrown across the base coat by hand, working from one side of the room to the other.
Scrape back
Once the base has set, loose chips are scraped away so the surface is even and ready for the final coat.
Topcoat
A polyaspartic topcoat seals the chips in and becomes the surface you walk on, sweep and park on.
One system for a new garage and an old outbuilding
Douglassville has both kinds of floor. Newer houses back from the 422 come with attached two car garages on flat modern slabs. Older river side properties have detached garages and outbuildings poured at various points over the last century, many of them never level to start with.
The flake system is the same on each. On a newer slab the grind and repair move quickly and the floor is usually finished in two days. On an old pour, repair takes more of the schedule and the flake does more of the work hiding what came before. A small number of old slabs need concrete work first, and you will be told when yours is one of them.
Every product in that system is made in the USA, and it has been that way since the company started. We stick with these materials because we have seen them last on floors close enough to the shop that we can go back and look.
When the floor is done, you get the warranty in writing. Residential interior floors carry a true lifetime warranty. For a detached garage or an outbuilding, Jimmy goes through what the written warranty covers at the walkthrough, so you know before the grinder comes out.
Tell us what the floor looks like now and hear back within a business day.No hidden fees, no surprises, just flawless floors.
Flake floors along the Schuylkill and the 422
Douglassville is nine miles from our Boyertown shop, so we are around the area often. Birdsboro, Pottstown and Reading all fall inside the same fifty or so mile stretch we cover.
Not sure whether your place is inside that? Pick up the phone and ask before ruling us out.
Questions
Asked about flake before the walkthrough
The questions Douglassville homeowners bring up most.
Why does the sample look different in my garage?
Because the light is different. Chip color reads one way in daylight and another under a garage fixture, and the gap is often bigger than people expect. That is why Jimmy sets physical samples down on your own floor at the walkthrough, where you can judge them in the room itself.
What if I am stuck between two blends?
Set the two side by side on your own concrete and judge each one in both kinds of light, daylight through the open door and the ceiling fixture after dark. Most people find one falls away quickly. When neither does, Jimmy will tell you which he would choose for that room and why, so you are not left flipping a coin.
What goes on over the flake?
A polyaspartic topcoat, applied last, once the loose chips have been scraped back. It locks the flake in place and becomes the surface you walk and park on. Like every other layer in the system we install, the topcoat is a product made in the USA.
Is flake worth it on an old outbuilding floor?
Usually, and it is often the best finish for one, since those slabs were rarely level to begin with. The exception is concrete in bad enough shape that it needs real concrete work before any coating. If that turns out to be your floor, Jimmy will say so at the walkthrough.
How long does a flake floor take to install?
On a straightforward garage with a flat modern slab, two days from bare gray concrete to the finished floor. An older, uneven pour needing more repair can run longer. You will know which of those you have after the walkthrough, well before anything is booked on the calendar.
How quickly will someone get back to me?
A callback comes within a business day of your message, and the walkthrough usually happens that same week. If you have photos of the concrete, email them to jfaust@cobraepoxy.com. They help Jimmy see the floor ahead of time and bring along the samples most likely to suit it.
Book a walkthrough
Pick the blend on the slab it will cover
Tell us what the space is, whether that is a newer attached garage or an old outbuilding, and roughly what shape the concrete is in. Jimmy calls back within a business day and brings the samples out when he comes.
Made in the USA products, OSHA certified equipment, PA HIC 177204. Military, police, fire and hospital workers get a discount, and a referral saves both you and the friend who sent you. Reach Jimmy at (484) 942-3219 or send the details through the contact page.
Describe the floor
Keep it short. Jimmy will ask the rest.
Other work in Douglassville
Most flake floors we lay here are garages, covered in more depth on the garage epoxy flooring page, and the same chips go down in a basement floor coating once moisture has been checked. Slabs with real damage begin with concrete crack repair, and business floors are handled under commercial epoxy flooring. The full flake epoxy flooring page goes deeper on the system, finished blends are in the gallery, and the Douglassville and Berks County pages cover the rest of the area.