Concrete floor prep for installers
Business-to-business surface preparation for coating installers and flooring contractors who need the substrate right.
The build-up, step by step
Every concrete floor prep job Shanks installs follows the same order, because skipping a stage is how floors fail. Taylor is on site for all of it.
Read the spec
The incoming system’s data sheet sets the profile, the moisture limit and the flatness tolerance.
Prep
Grinding or shot blasting to that profile, with joints and cracks handled to your detail.
Test and document
Moisture and bond testing with the numbers handed over, so the installing contractor is not guessing.
Hand over clean
Vacuumed and ready to coat, not swept and hopeful.
Right room, right system
Coating installers scaling beyond their own prep capacity, general contractors needing a slab ready for a specified finish, and flooring contractors facing glue removal.
Where it is the wrong call
Jobs wanting prep and finish from separate parties without an agreed spec. The profile has to be defined by somebody.
Back in service: None. The slab is handed over ready.
Compare the other systems
Why this floor costs what it costs
Nobody can price a floor over the phone honestly, because two rooms of identical size can be a day apart in work. These are the things that actually move the number:
Condition of the slab
A clean, sound slab grinds in a morning. One carrying old paint, carpet glue, or a failed coating can take a full day longer before anything can be applied.
Size and shape
Bigger floors cost less per square foot, because the setup, the mixing and the cleanup are much the same whether the room is 400 or 1,400 square feet. Cut-up rooms with lots of edges take longer than open ones.
Access
A walk-out basement with a door at grade is straightforward. Carrying equipment down a flight of stairs, or working around a building that has to stay open, adds time.
Moisture in the slab
If testing shows vapor moving up through the concrete, a mitigating primer goes down first. It is an extra step, and skipping it is how coatings fail.
What Alabama slabs do
Alabama humidity is the quiet variable in this work. Resin cures on a temperature and dew-point window, so a floor is scheduled around the weather rather than squeezed in before a storm rolls over Talladega.
Most of the housing around Anniston, Oxford and Jacksonville was poured between the sixties and the eighties, and those slabs were hard-trowelled to a tight, closed surface. They look clean and they take a coating badly until they are properly ground, which is why a store-bought kit so often lets go here within a year.
Where the trailer goesWhat the days actually look like
People are usually more anxious about the disruption than the floor. Here is what the days actually look like:
Agreeing the spec
Profile, moisture limit and flatness get agreed in writing before anything starts, so there is no argument later about whether the slab was ready.
Containment
HEPA extraction on every machine, and sheeting where the work sits next to an occupied area.
Grinding to the profile
Grinding or blasting to the agreed profile, with joints and cracks handled to your detail.
Handover
Vacuumed, documented and ready to coat, with the moisture numbers written down for your manufacturer warranty.
Keeping it looking new
Nothing to maintain here, because there is no finish. What matters is that the slab is coated reasonably soon after prep: an open, profiled surface left for weeks picks up dust, moisture and traffic, and may need a light re-grind before the finish goes on.
Anything Taylor installs comes with a walk-through at handover covering exactly this, plus what to avoid in the first two weeks while the coating reaches full hardness. If something does go wrong later, tell him about it rather than living with it.
The owner is the installer
Shanks Concrete Coatings is Taylor and Heather Shanks, working out of Anniston. Taylor trained directly with Brian Phillips, The Epoxy Dude, in southern Indiana, and he runs the grinder and pulls the squeegee on every job himself. Licensed and insured, Alabama #2602341.
If a concrete floor prep floor is not the right answer for your room, he will tell you that on the first visit rather than sell it to you. More about how Shanks works, or send over the details of your floor.
Concrete Floor Prep questions
Do you subcontract to other coating companies?
Yes. Prep is a distinct trade and plenty of installers would rather buy it than own the tooling.
Will documented moisture numbers be provided?
Yes, calcium chloride or RH probe results in writing, which is what a manufacturer’s warranty will ask for.
What profile can you hit?
CSP 1 through 5 depending on tooling and method. Name the number in the spec.
Do you travel for prep work?
Within the usual sixty-mile radius routinely, and further for larger jobs.
Can you work to another manufacturer’s spec sheet?
That is the normal arrangement. Send the data sheet, the required profile and moisture limit are read off it, and the slab is prepared and documented to that standard.
Four questions worth asking any installer
Ask these of Shanks and of whoever else you are talking to. The answers separate a floor that lasts from one that looks good for a season, and a straight installer will not mind being asked.
How are you preparing the slab?
The only acceptable answers involve a diamond grinder or a shot blaster. Acid etching and a scrub with degreaser is not preparation, and it is the single most common reason a coating lets go.
Are you testing for moisture?
On any basement or ground-level slab this should be a yes with a number attached. Vapor pressure will push a coating off no matter how good the product is.
Who is actually on my floor?
Worth asking whoever quotes you. With Shanks the person who quotes it is the person who grinds it and coats it, and that is not true everywhere.
What is the topcoat?
A UV-stable polyaspartic or aliphatic urethane holds its color. A cheap job leaves a standard epoxy as the top layer, and it will amber in daylight within a year or two.
Other systems for the same room
Concrete Floor Prep is one of twenty-two systems Shanks installs. If the room is telling you something different, these are the closest alternatives, and Taylor will happily point you at the cheaper one if it is the right answer.
Concrete Grinding
Another system Shanks installs across the same sixty-mile area.
Concrete Sealing
Another system Shanks installs across the same sixty-mile area.
Overlays
Another system Shanks installs across the same sixty-mile area.
Get a real number on this floor
Square footage, what the room is used for, and what the slab looks like now. That is enough to get you a real number on concrete floor prep.