Concrete grinding, staining and epoxy floors
Patios, walkways, garage floors and shop floors. Ground back to sound concrete, then coated, stained or sealed depending on what the slab will carry. The same preparation argument as everything else on this site.
Concrete Grinding, Staining & Epoxy
Concrete is where preparation stops being an argument about quality and becomes an argument about whether the finish stays down at all. That is true of a garage floor under epoxy and it is just as true of a patio under a solid grey finish. Both go over whatever the slab was already doing.
There is also no repairing it discreetly. A failed coating gets ground off and done again, and an outdoor slab has weather and lichen working on it the whole time. That is the whole reason the work in front of it is worth paying for.
Step 01
Grind and profile, do not just clean
The slab gets mechanically ground so the coating has a profile to key into, and so the sealed skin on the surface of the pour is taken off. Oil spots get treated, cracks and spalls get filled, and control joints get handled deliberately rather than coated over and left to crack through.
A clean floor and a prepared floor look almost identical to a homeowner. They behave nothing alike in year two.
- Mechanically ground and profiled
- Oil and contamination treated before coating
- Cracks, spalls and pitting filled
- Control joints handled, not painted over
Step 02
Moisture, the thing that decides it
A slab on grade in this climate moves water upward more or less permanently. Coat it while it is doing that and the vapor pressure pushes the coating off from underneath, which is the failure that gets blamed on the product every time.
So the slab gets checked for moisture before anything goes down, and if the reading says wait or says use a different system, that is what goes in the proposal.
- Moisture checked before anything is applied
- System chosen for the reading, not for the catalogue
- Honest answer where a slab is not a candidate
- Cure times respected before the space goes back in use
Step 03
Coatings and sealers
Flake systems and solid color epoxy for garages, shops and basements, with a topcoat chosen for how the floor is actually going to be used. A floor that parks a car needs different chemistry from a floor with a workbench and a welder over it.
Where the concrete should still look like concrete, a penetrating sealer instead. It goes into the slab rather than sitting on it, so there is no film to peel.
- Flake and solid color epoxy systems
- Topcoat matched to how the floor gets used
- Penetrating sealers for bare concrete
- Garages, shops, basements, patios and walkways
Step 04
Patios, walkways and a solid grey finish
An outdoor slab arrives with lichen staining, a weathered top layer and usually a crack or two. Patio and walkway get mechanically ground together, with dust extraction running the whole time, so what comes off the slab goes into a vacuum instead of across your beds and your siding.
Cracks get filled first, and then the color. On an outdoor slab we put it down solid rather than translucent, because a translucent stain shows every fill and every patch the weather got to first, and the whole point of grinding was to stop the slab looking like that. Solid grey over a ground slab reads as one surface. Skip the grinding and the same finish sits on lichen and old sealer, and outdoors that lifts at the edges inside a year.
- Lichen staining and the weathered top layer ground off
- Dust extraction running through the whole grind
- A crack filled, and still a line you can see
- Solid grey finish, or a sealer to keep bare concrete
Before you sign
What your written scope covers
Same document on every job. A very clear scope of work ensures you know exactly what you are getting, and there is more on how we put one together over on our standard.
Get it in writing- Square footage, and the condition it starts in
- How the slab is being prepared, and to what profile
- Cracks and joints, and what filling them will not fix
- The moisture reading, and what it means for the system
- The exact system and topcoat going down
- Cure time before you can walk on it and park on it
Often booked together
While we are already at the house
Exterior Cleaning
Three jobs that sell as one visit. Surfaces washed with a mild detergent that kills mold and mildew spores, glass and tracks cleaned inside and out, and gutters cleared by hand and flushed.
Read more →Exterior Painting
Built on preparation, integrity and long-term protection. Our exterior process goes far beyond adding a fresh coat of color. It is about preserving the structure of your home and delivering a finish that truly lasts.
Read more →Interior Painting
Walls, ceilings, trim, doors and stairwells. Every piece of millwork prepped to PCA Level 3 or 4, every wall quoted at the level it can genuinely reach, and all of it written down before we start.
Read more →
Get a written estimate for concrete grinding, staining & epoxy
Free, and no pressure. Serving Everett, Marysville, Arlington, Lake Stevens, Snohomish and the rest of Snohomish County, plus North King County.