Small borough, close creek, old concrete
Schwenksville sits low on the Perkiomen, which makes the moisture question the first one worth asking.
Schwenksville slabs, honestly assessed
Schwenksville is a small borough on Route 29 sitting right on the Perkiomen Creek, and its position is the first thing we think about when somebody calls from here. Properties low to a creek behave differently to properties up on a ridge, and a slab in a borough like this one has usually been dealing with ground water for a hundred years.
None of that stops a floor being coated. It changes the order of the conversation. We measure the slab before we specify the system, a moisture tolerant primer goes in where the number calls for it, and if a particular basement genuinely needs a drainage problem sorted first then that is what we will tell you. That answer costs us the job occasionally and it has never once cost us a warranty claim.
Above ground it is a straightforward small borough. Detached garages, workshops and outbuildings, plus a lot of exterior concrete, steps, stoops and paths, that takes a battering every winter and is cheap to protect while it is still in one piece.
A practical note for a borough this size. Small jobs are welcome here. A single set of steps, a stoop, a one bay garage. We would rather do a small job properly in a town we are already driving through than turn it down, and the price reflects that we are local rather than that we are travelling.
Made in the USA product. OSHA certified crew. A true lifetime warranty on residential interiors.
Cobra Epoxy and Flake Coatings, PA HIC 177204How the work runs
Every floor follows the same four stages regardless of the town it is in. The slab gets diamond ground with dust extraction until we are down to clean open concrete. Cracks, divots and pitting get filled and levelled. An American made base coat goes down and the flake is broadcast into it by hand until the surface is full. The next day the excess is scraped and vacuumed back and a polyaspartic topcoat seals the whole system in.
Most residential jobs are two days on site. You can usually walk on the floor that evening, and a garage is ready for the car after about three days once the system has hardened enough for hot tyres. Commercial work gets phased into sections so nobody has to close.
What changes between one job and the next is not the method, it is the diagnosis. The blend, the texture, the topcoat and whether a moisture tolerant primer is needed all get decided at the walkthrough, standing on your concrete, rather than picked off a list beforehand.
Services here
Where to start
Everything we do is available in Schwenksville. These three come up the most, and the full list is here.
Basement Epoxy Flooring
Cut in by hand around posts, pits and stairs, because that is where a basement floor is judged.
Patio Epoxy Flooring
Joints cut and treated, drainage falls kept, texture chosen for wet feet.
Garage Epoxy Flooring
Two days from bare grey slab to a finished floor with a lifetime warranty on it.
Nearby in Montgomery County: Gilbertsville·Pottstown·Limerick·Royersford·Collegeville·Harleysville·Skippack·Pennsburg·East Greenville·Trappe
What a Pennsylvania winter does to a slab
This part of the state runs through roughly forty freeze and thaw cycles between November and March. Water works into the pore structure of the concrete, freezes overnight, expands by about nine percent and pushes the surface apart from the inside. It thaws in the afternoon, travels deeper into the space it just made, and does it again the next night.
Nothing dramatic happens on any single night, which is exactly why nobody acts until the damage is obvious. Five or six winters of it turns a smooth trowelled surface into a pitted, dusty one, and it accelerates as it goes because every new pit holds more water than the flat surface it replaced.
Sealing the surface removes the water from the equation entirely. That is the whole mechanism and the whole fix.
On the map
Schwenksville is 15 miles from the shop
We are based in Boyertown and run roughly fifty miles out, so Schwenksville is comfortably inside the normal working radius. Local reference points around here include the Perkiomen Creek and the Route 29 corridor.
Nearby towns we also cover include Collegeville, Limerick, Royersford. If you are on the edge of that and not sure, call and ask rather than assuming. It costs nothing to find out.
Questions
Questions from Schwenksville
What people here tend to ask before they book a walkthrough.
What if the reading comes back bad?
Then you get told, along with what would need to happen first. Usually that is drainage work outside the house, grading, downspouts or a perimeter drain, and it is somebody else trade. Once it is sorted the floor is a straightforward job. We have had plenty of customers come back a year later having done exactly that.
What about road salt and shovels?
Both are fine on a properly built exterior system. Salt is what attacks the cement paste in bare concrete, and a sealed surface simply keeps it on top where it can be washed off. A plastic shovel is no problem at all. What we would avoid is a steel blade dragged hard across any finished surface.
What do I need to clear out first?
Everything. The slab has to be completely clear to be ground, including whatever is stacked in the corners and behind the furnace. That is the single biggest thing that keeps a basement job on schedule, and a surprising number of people use it as an excuse to get rid of half of it.
What happens to the cracks in my slab?
They get repaired before anything is coated. Cracks, divots, pits and spalled areas are cut out where they need it, filled and levelled so the finished floor is flat. Coating over a crack simply prints its shape through the surface, and it will open again anyway.
Do you charge extra for distance?
Not within the normal radius, no. At the far edge, and for a genuinely small single item, we will have an honest conversation about whether the trip stands up on its own or whether it is better paired with something else nearby. What we will not do is quietly price the drive in and hope it goes unnoticed.
Does the warranty transfer if I sell the house?
Ask us at the walkthrough and we will tell you plainly for your job rather than giving you a general answer here. What is worth knowing is that a coated garage or basement is a genuine selling point, and being able to show a buyer written paperwork from a local company that is still trading twenty minutes away carries real weight.
Do we need to move out?
No. Interior work is contained to the room being done, with doorways masked and extraction running on the grinders. People stay in the house for garage and basement jobs as a matter of routine. What is worth doing is keeping pets out of the working area, mostly for the noise.
Is the work subcontracted out?
No. Cobra is deliberately small, which means Justyn is on the floor and Jimmy has seen every job that goes out. We could take on more crews and more trucks tomorrow, but the standard is only reliable while we are standing next to it, and the reviews are the thing we would lose first.
Book a walkthrough
Book a walkthrough in Schwenksville
Tell us what needs coating and roughly what condition it is in. Jimmy gets back to you within a business day and comes out to walk it with you.
Everything goes down in American made product by an OSHA certified crew, and residential interior floors carry a true lifetime warranty. PA HIC 177204.
If it is easier to talk, call (484) 942-3219. Photographs of the concrete are genuinely useful, so email jfaust@cobraepoxy.com if you have some. Everything also goes through the contact page.
Tell us about the floor
Tell us what you have got. Jimmy gets back within a business day and books a time to walk the space.
Schwenksville sits in Montgomery County, one of four counties on our patch. See the full service area, browse what we coat, look through the gallery, or get in touch.