Epoxy Coatings: Transforming and Protecting Your Concrete Floors

Have you ever wondered which types of coverings were available for your home’s concrete floors? There’s nothing less inspiring than a bare concrete garage, deck, or basement floor; and when you’re looking at flooring options, the challenge isn’t just to find a covering that looks good: it’s finding one that’s long-lasting and don’t cost a fortune.

With alternatives like tile, mats, and ornamental overlays available, there’s no shortage of flooring options to choose from; however, none of them have the appeal, durability, or especially strength that epoxy coatings for floors have. Epoxies don’t just enhance the appearance of bare concrete floors, though: they even help seal and protect them. That’s why if you’re considering adding life to a dull concrete floor or hallway, you need to hear the whole story about what they have to offer.

Beautifying and Protecting Concrete Floors with Epoxy Coatings

With their wide range of colour pigments and natural reflectivity, long-lasting concrete topping epoxies let you create affordable, one-of-a-kind floor coverings that are as hard-wearing as they are attractive. They’re the perfect way to transform otherwise dreary, lifeless floors into stunning surfaces that can enhance any room or space. But more than that though, they help protect your home’s aggregate floors from the unsightly damage and hazardous deterioration that could ultimately pose a home health risk.

The fact is, despite their incomparable sturdiness, concrete surfaces, especially floors, are incredibly vulnerable to chipping, cracking, and staining. Free-flowing, quick-curing epoxy floor coatings, however, are formulated to give bare concrete surfaces a strong, custom covering that looks great, goes on smoothly, and evenly fills and protects joints and seams. Epoxies don’t leave any part of your floor unprotected, making them the perfect sealant that offers:

• Unequalled wear, scratch, and abrasion resistance;

• Exceptional bonding, as well as anti-slip properties; and,

• Protection from harmful UV and chemical exposure.

From automotive fluids leaking on your garage floor, to detergent spills in your mudroom, high-performance epoxy floor levellers offer a top coating that’s as resilient as they are stunning. Depending on the type and amount of traffic your concrete surfaces see, you can expect a correctly applied, cured, and maintained epoxy floor coating to hold its seal and lustre for up to 20 years without any problems. And given the inherent risks that are attributable to concrete dust, that’s a long-term investment in your family’s health and safety that’s well worth making.

Epoxy Coatings Eliminate the Risk of Dangerous Concrete Dusting

Although dropping toolboxes and dragging heavy workbenches are sure ways to scratch a bare concrete floor, they’re also precursors to a condition that’s significantly more impactful than poor aesthetics: concrete dusting. Dusting is the result of concrete floors wearing away under car and foot traffic, or even cleaning and sweeping, and it can lead to a range of respiratory tract illnesses, including bronchitis, silicosis, or lung cancer. This is where concrete floor coatings reveal their health benefit.

A high-quality concrete epoxy coating lets you put an end to toxic floor surface degradation, with the added assurance of other health advantages that include:

• Chip and peel resistance. Epoxy-based floor coatings aren’t prone to chipping or peeling, and won’t allow softening water, moisture, or potentially hazardous chemicals to be absorbed.

• Straightforward cleanups. Unlike bare concrete floor surfaces, correctly applied concrete toppings are easy to clean, both wet and dry, and won’t trap or release dust, mould, or bacteria.

• Visible cleanliness. Even though epoxy coatings can become dull and lose their glossiness under heavy traffic, they can easily be returned to their clean, well-polished freshness with minimal effort.

And when it comes to draining standing water away from garages, decks, or patios, the levelling properties of concrete coatings allow you to create sloped toppings for easy evacuation of fluids that would normally lead to excess absorption or carbonatation on uncoated floors.

Epoxies Let You Improve Your Lighting and Lower Your Utilities

Although it’s easy to overlook, even concrete flooring can make a powerful difference in room lighting. And if you have a garage, hallway, or basement with a darkened and worn concrete floor, then you’re already aware that these bare, light-absorbing floors don’t make for a very enthusiastic living, working, or storage space.

The reflectivity of epoxy floor toppings, however, not only brightens rooms, it makes them feel more welcoming. A well-lit room is an inviting one, which is why epoxy coatings are the preferred covering when it comes to:

• Making cleanups easier. Not only are cleanups easier when you have a concrete floor topping, but having the opportunity to sweep and mop in a well-lit space means that there’s less of a chance for dirt and grime to go unnoticed.

• Making spaces larger. Spaces look and feel larger with reflective epoxy floor coatings: an advantage that’s especially favourable when you have smaller, more closely confined areas.

• Making rooms more useful. The added luminescence that a high-quality concrete coating produces allows you to utilize a room or space for a greater range of activities than would have been possible with just a bare floor.

The truth is, that a highly reflective floor topping can increase the brightness of any room or workspace by as much as 300%, making it a valuable contributor to reducing your utility bills too.

The Final Word

At the end of the day, while concrete flooring may make up the sturdy foundation of your home, bare concrete floors are problematic. They’re unattractive at best, and can also pose a long-term health hazard that shouldn’t be ignored. They need to be covered, which means the challenge for homeowners is not only to cover them affordably and effectively, but also elegantly.

Long-lasting concrete topping epoxies are the perfect solution for safe, attractive flooring. They’re the uniquely attractive option that’s guaranteed to keep your flooring’s inherent health hazards firmly sealed underfoot.