What Is an Epoxy-Sealed Decorative Concrete Finish?
A clear topcoat over decorative concrete does three things: it deepens and saturates the colour underneath, it adds a gloss level you cannot achieve with a penetrating sealer, and it puts a sacrificial wear layer between traffic and the surface you care about.
The systems we use are built in layers. A primer matched to the substrate and its moisture reading, a clear epoxy build coat that fills, levels and bonds, and a wear coat that takes the abuse. On interior work with limited daylight, that wear coat can be epoxy. Anywhere sunlight reaches it, the wear coat must be a polyaspartic urethane, because standard epoxy ambers noticeably under UV within a season or two in Toronto.
Preparation decides everything. Coatings do not fail in the middle of the film, they fail at the bond line or from moisture vapour pushing up through the slab. So we mechanically profile by grinding or shot blasting, we moisture test before we specify anything, and we prime accordingly. A coating applied over a sealed, unprofiled or damp slab is a peeling problem waiting to happen, regardless of how good the product is.
What’s Included
- Substrate assessment and slab moisture testing
- Mechanical profiling by grinding or shot blasting
- Repair of spalls, cracks and surface defects
- Primer matched to substrate and moisture reading
- Clear epoxy build coat
- Epoxy or polyaspartic urethane wear coat
- Anti-slip aggregate broadcast at entrances and wet areas
- Controlled cure and staged return to service
Common Problems We Solve
Coatings That Peeled
The most common reason people call us about coatings is that the last one failed. Nine times out of ten the cause is moisture from below or inadequate profiling. Stripping the failed system, testing properly, and specifying a moisture-tolerant primer fixes it permanently.
Yellowed Exterior Epoxy
A clear coating that has gone amber cannot be restored, only stripped and replaced. Doing it again with a UV-stable polyaspartic is the answer. It costs more per square foot and does not need doing twice.
Decorative Surfaces Losing Their Colour
Stamped, stained and coloured concrete in high-traffic areas wears at the surface where the colour lives. A clear wear coat takes that abrasion instead, and can be refreshed without touching the decorative work underneath.
Chemical Exposure
Workshops, commercial kitchens, plant rooms and garages see oils, solvents and cleaning chemicals that penetrating sealers do not stop. A properly specified epoxy system does.
How Much Do Coating Systems Cost in Toronto?
Coated decorative finishes run $6 to $12 per square foot. Drivers:
- Product system. Interior epoxy costs less than a UV-stable polyaspartic urethane.
- Preparation. Stripping a failed coating, or heavy profiling, adds significant labour.
- Moisture mitigation. A slab with high vapour transmission needs a specialised primer, which costs more.
- Number of coats. Build coats and wear coats each add material and a day of programme.
- Anti-slip. Broadcast aggregate adds a step and is not optional in wet areas.
- Access window. Overnight and weekend work carries a premium against downtime.
Coating or Polishing?
We get asked this constantly, and the honest answer depends on the slab and the use.
Polish when the slab is sound and reasonably hard, when you want the lowest possible lifetime cost, and when there is no chemical exposure the concrete itself cannot handle. Polished concrete has no failure mode because there is no film.
Coat when you need chemical resistance, when you want a colour or effect the concrete cannot produce, when the slab is too soft or too damaged to polish to an acceptable finish, or when you need a specific gloss level on a decorative surface such as stamped or stained concrete.
We recommend polishing whenever it is the better fit, even though it is usually the smaller invoice. Selling a coating onto a floor that should have been polished creates a maintenance liability for the owner and a callback for us.
Send us the floor area, its current finish, the exposure it sees and whether it is interior or exterior, and we will come back with a written published-rate quote inside two hours.
