Garage Floor Coatings in Plymouth, MN

Garage floor coatings for Plymouth's 1970s to 1990s homes

Hennepin County data in the city plan shows home building picked up in the 1970s and peaked in the 1980s. More than 8,300 homes went up in that decade alone. About two in three homes counted in 2016 date from 1970 to 1999. The oldest, now past 50, sit mostly in the south and east around Parkers Lake and Medicine Lake.

The city's own plan says Plymouth is approaching full development, so upkeep matters more than new building. Most new homes after 2009 went up in northwest Plymouth, which is now largely developed too. A newer slab has fewer winters on it and often needs less repair before coating.

We diamond grind the slab, fix cracks and chips, and test for moisture. Grinding also removes old paint or a peeling kit coating. Next comes a high-solids base coat and polymer flake, then a scrape for even texture. A UV-stable polyaspartic topcoat seals the floor and hardens in 6 to 8 hours.

What does road salt do to a garage floor in Plymouth?

Three agencies clear Plymouth's roads. The city plows 332 miles of streets and 940 cul-de-sacs. Hennepin County handles roads like Rockford Road and County Road 101, and MnDOT takes Highway 55 and I-494. City crews pre-treat roads with brine they make themselves and aim for bare pavement on main roads, hills and bridges.

Plymouth is careful with salt. In 2023 the state pollution agency featured its crews for cutting salt to an average under 1,900 tons a season. It matters here: Parkers Lake, where Plymouth began in 1855, is on the state's impaired-waters list for chloride.

Your garage floor still gets its share. Slush from I-494, Highway 55 and the county roads rides home on your car and melts onto the slab. Deicers keep the concrete surface wetter and add freeze-thaw cycles, which leads to scaling: flaking and pitting. In the Twin Cities, about 75 days a year the temperature swings across freezing.

We grind away the weak, scaled surface and do crack and pit repair before any coating goes down. One coating maker rates its flake system excellent against a 20 percent salt solution. Brine sits on the coating instead of soaking into the slab. A rinse or a mop through the winter keeps it off the floor.

Shop and warehouse floors along I-494, Highway 55 and Highway 169

Plymouth says it has nearly 53,000 jobs and Minnesota's fourth-largest economy by gross business sales. A 2016 Hennepin County study named the I-494 and Highway 55 area a freight-intensive cluster. Most businesses there are in manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing. Another business center runs along Highway 169 between Rockford Road and Bass Lake Road.

Warehouse slabs take forklift and pallet-jack traffic, and shop floors take oil, brake fluid and road salt. We install commercial and industrial floor coatings built for heavy equipment, foot traffic and chemical exposure. OSHA's walking-working surfaces rule counts spills, snow and ice as floor hazards. Quartz and textured topcoats add grip at wet entries.

Much of this building stock is older, and some of it is changing use. The commercial buildings on the southeast corner of I-494 and Highway 55 mostly date from 1975 to 1989. The city also plans for older industrial buildings southeast of Medicine Lake to shift toward office use. For a warehouse, showroom or office that wants bare concrete, polished concrete floors are the alternative to a coating.

Plymouth basement floors and free estimates

The city's 2040 plan notes that many older Plymouth homes were built with drainage to protect their basement foundations. Its building division even publishes a handout on finishing an existing basement. University of Minnesota Extension notes that more Minnesota basements are being finished as living space.

A basement slab sits on damp ground, so moisture vapor moves up through the concrete toward the drier room. Humid summer air can also condense on a cool floor and look like a leak. We test the slab first and use a moisture-resistant primer when the reading calls for it. Then comes the finish: flake, solid color, metallic, stain and seal, or polished concrete.

We come over from our Otsego base down I-94 and I-494, about 23 miles to City Center. At the free on-site estimate we measure the floor and check it for cracks, pits and moisture. We also bring samples of our two dozen flake color blends. The estimate spells out the system, the mil thickness and the repairs for your floor.