Mile High Coatings Podcast

Flood-Proof Floors: The Water-Resistant Wonder of Epoxy

• David Nanninga • Episode 3

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Can Epoxy Flooring Be Installed In Residential Homes, Or Is It Only For Commercial Spaces? 

Tired of replacing water-damaged flooring or maintaining high-traffic areas? You're not alone. Flooring challenges plague homeowners across Colorado's Front Range, but there's a solution that's transforming spaces from basements to garages, patios to commercial facilities.

President David Nanninga breaks down why epoxy flooring systems aren't just another pretty surface—they're game-changers for practical homeowners. When basement flooding ruins carpet, requiring costly replacement, epoxy shines (literally and figuratively) as you can simply mop up water without damage. This water-resistant quality alone has converted countless homeowners after experiencing the heartache of traditional flooring failures.

Cost-conscious renovators take note: quality epoxy applications typically cost less than luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and mid-grade carpet options while outlasting them substantially. David shares that his own basement installation has remained virtually unchanged after nine years with zero maintenance beyond regular cleaning. For garages, the company actually supersedes standard epoxy with polyaspartic coatings—the "crème de la crème" offering superior durability, abrasion resistance, and next-day usability compared to epoxy's seven-day cure time.

The diamond grinding preparation process ensures excellent adhesion to concrete, preventing the peeling and failure that plague DIY applications. Even outdoor installations outperform expensive tile and high-maintenance stamped concrete options. Discover why more Colorado homeowners and businesses are choosing professionally applied coating systems that combine beauty, durability and remarkable practicality. Ready for flooring that truly performs? Visit Milehighcoatings.com for a free quote or call 970-314-1023 to transform your space today.

To learn more about Mile High Coatings visit:
https://www.MileHighCoatings.com
Mile High Coatings
970-314-1023

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Mile High Coatings podcast, where we elevate your spaces to a new peak in quality. Hosted by David Nanega, president of Mile High Coatings, this podcast explores how expert residential painting, concrete coatings and epoxy flooring can transform garages, basements, patios and commercial spaces across Colorado's front range. So grab your favorite beverage, sit back and dive into the world of high-quality coatings.

Speaker 2:

Epoxy flooring isn't just shiny and durable, it's a game-changer. In this episode, we dig into what makes epoxy stand out from traditional flooring isn't just shiny and durable, it's a game changer. In this episode, we dig into what makes epoxy stand out from traditional flooring and why it becomes a go-to for homeowners and businesses alike. Welcome back everyone. This is Nick George, co-host and producer, back in the studio with David Nanenga, president of Mile High Coatings. How's it going, david?

Speaker 3:

it's going well today. How are you?

Speaker 2:

Nate good David, it always great to be back here. With Mile High Coatings, we're ready to elevate things to a whole new peak in quality. What are the benefits of epoxy flooring compared to other options?

Speaker 3:

So there are definitely a lot of options when it comes to flooring. You know, obviously you know in bas basements you've got options like LVT tile, carpet, maybe in some scenarios hardwood could be an option and of course, just treating the concrete directly with polished concrete is an option. And then you've got, of course, the the coating side of things and there's definitely a few different options that we always explore when it comes to basements. We have a few different applications. We can do things like what we refer to as a grind and seal, so if you think about it like a clear coat, just a clear sealer, maybe a shiny sealer over the concrete.

Speaker 3:

We can do other epoxy applications that people see online. They kind of see that kind of marbly, swirly look is what people refer to it as, but that would be a metallic epoxy system and probably our most popular application for a basement would be a dye and seal. To answer your question with respect to the benefits of epoxy over some of your traditional options like carpet, or obviously the LVT is certainly a really popular option in basements right now. What does that stand for? Lvt luxury vinyl tile.

Speaker 3:

so thank you so it's kind of like those planks that mimic hardwood. You know all kinds of obviously tons of different colors and everything there's really with respect to luxury vinyl tile there's a pretty wide range of price.

Speaker 3:

I mean you can get pretty cheap or you can be fairly expensive, which kind of brings me to one of my. One of the benefits of epoxy is it's relatively inexpensive, especially compared to most LVT options. It's again carpet. You can range in price with carpet. So I'd say most it's going to be, it's going to be less expensive than most probably mid, mid grade carpetsets. Of course you can get some cheap carpet that's probably going to be cheaper than you know a stainless concrete application.

Speaker 3:

So so, besides price and cost, probably one of the main benefits or I should say one of the reasons why people call us and explore coatings in basements is because they've experienced a recent water issue, whether it's a water heater leaking, exploding, whatever you want to call it, or maybe they had a leak from outside or a flood or something and they've realized and maybe it's not the first time that that's happened.

Speaker 3:

So they realized, man, this is really terrible having to clean up my carpet and having to do water mitigation. So one of the real benefits that you experience with epoxy or with our dye and seal or concrete stain application is it's literally you can just mop it up, use a wet vac and clean up the floor and you're not dealing with replacing the flooring. So that's a huge benefit for people that might be nervous about experiencing a water issue. Then, aesthetically, you know, it's a really popular, you know, application for people that are kind of going for maybe kind of that simple aesthetic. Maybe some people might call it industrial kind of aesthetic, but it's just a really popular application these days when people are finishing their basements. It's extremely durable. It's not going to wear down, it's not going to get matted like carpet.

Speaker 2:

Is there any maintenance With carpet? You've got to do maintenance right.

Speaker 3:

True, absolutely. I would say it's virtually maintenance-free. Of course it can scratch. I always tell people to treat it, you know, like you would treat it like a hardwood floor. Can a clear coat scratch? Of course it can, but a lot of times I feel like for that to happen you have to be almost intentional to make it scratch. So from a maintenance standpoint it's literally just, I mean just clean it again like you would a hardwood floor or tile even. But from a recoding, ongoing maintenance standpoint it's pretty durable.

Speaker 3:

I've got the dye and seal application in my own basement and it's been down for nine years and it's great. I mean it's basically as good as the day it was done. It looks the same Over time. The clear coat as it gets cleaned even a microfiber has very subtle abrasion. It goes from maybe a semi-gloss gloss to settles into a nice satin sheen, super easy to clean and there's virtually no maintenance. We have virtually nobody that's ever has come back, even you know from 10, 12, 15 years ago, and say, hey, I need another coat, another clear coat in my basement. I mean it's, once it's down, it's, it's good to go.

Speaker 2:

So it outlasts vinyl.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, it's extremely durable. Foot traffic in a household isn't going to impact you know it's not going to wear the coating down.

Speaker 3:

I mean, that's outdoor carpets kind of rare these days, but tile People certainly still do tile on outdoors and obviously those options are extremely expensive relative to our outdoor polyaspartic applications that we do a lot, that we do a lot, and so from an expense standpoint, again, the coating application is likely going to win in that scenario. Durability it has excellent adhesion to concrete. We always diamond grind the floor to make sure we have really good adhesion, so you're very likely not going to experience coating failure in that regard. Another thing that's quite common that I see is obviously a patio can crack and so if you have tile, I mean certainly it's going to crack your tile. I guess another option would be stamped concrete or a stamped overlay, and I see you know that stuff cracks too, and stamped concrete, stamped overlay, requires a lot of maintenance and you maintenance and resealing of that which we do that, but we just don't actually install sand concrete, and so, again, there are some real benefits to the coatings on patio applications, porches, sidewalks, things like that.

Speaker 3:

We do a lot of those, especially in the summertime, of course.

Speaker 3:

With respect to garage floors, you know, epoxy is certainly the most popular by far application for when people are considering coating their garage floor.

Speaker 3:

And I keep saying epoxy just because that is the kind of the blanket general term. But we actually use the polyaspartic, which is what I often say is the creme de la creme of coatings. It's extremely durable, it has superior adhesion to concrete, it has superior abrasion resistance, it'll cure extremely fast so that you're returned to service, meaning you can use it the next day, basically, whereas epoxy can be up to seven days to cure, and so probably the only other option that I really see on garage floors and they're not all that common is the tile floor. I think one of the common brand names might be Swiss Tracks. You know, it's kind of those interlocking tiles and we have certainly pulled up those flooring types to do epoxy, and it's amazing how much dirt and how much wear is underneath of the tiles, from water and moisture seeping in and you lift up those floor tiles, you know you think your floor is clean or whatever and it really can degrade the concrete quite a bit.

Speaker 3:

There's been a few times where someone calls us in to coat a floor and they have the tile floor and they're like, hey, can you just rip us out, rip this out and throw it away for me and do the floor.

Speaker 1:

And have the tile floor and they're like, hey, can you just rip us out?

Speaker 2:

rip this out and throw it away for me and do the floor, and so so we show up and we rip it out and, holy cow, the concrete's in bad shape, so anyway yeah, In the third episode I'd like for you to be thinking about answering a question that I had about what aesthetic customization design options are available to homeowners that they may not expect right now, but we'll do that in the next episode. Thanks for breaking that down, David. As always, your insights are rock solid and I'm sure your listeners are walking away with a whole new appreciation for epoxy. We'll see everyone next time.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the Mile High Coatings podcast. Ready to give your space a fresh, durable finish, visit milehighcoatingscom for a free price quote or call 970-314-1023. At Mile High Coatings, we're not just painting walls, we're setting a new peak in quality. Until next time, keep your standards high and your coatings higher.