Lasting Coatings: How Mile High Coatings Prep Concrete For Epoxy And Polyaspartic

 What Steps Are Taken To Prepare A Surface Before Applying A Coating?

A flawless floor doesn’t start with the coating—it starts with the cut. We pull back the curtain on the surface prep that separates a sleek, long-lasting finish from a peeling disappointment, showing you exactly how we turn tired slabs into durable, beautiful spaces across Colorado’s Front Range.

David Nanninga breaks down the real mechanics of adhesion in clear terms. You’ll hear why diamond grinding is our go-to for garages, basements, and patios, how HEPA-powered dust control protects against hidden failures, and when shot blasting delivers the deeper profile needed for moisture vapor barriers and cementitious urethane systems. We also explain the common pitfalls of acid etching, why it leaves a dusty boundary layer, and how that one shortcut often leads to costly re-dos.

Beyond concrete, we explore how epoxy and polyaspartic systems bond to wood steps, subfloors, and even steel when the surface is properly abraded. Expect practical timelines, too: what a typical two- to four-hour prep window looks like, how crack repair and joint fill factor in, and why many residential projects can be prepped and coated in a single day. Whether you’re a DIYer weighing options or a homeowner who wants it done right, you’ll leave with a clear checklist for success and a better grasp of how professional prep turns chemistry into performance.

If you’re ready for a floor that actually lasts, subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs it, and leave us a review. To get a free price quote, visit MileHighCoatings.com or call 970-314-1023.

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

Transcript

Welcome And Show Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Mile High Coatings Podcast, where we elevate your spaces to a new peak in quality. Hosted by David Naniga, 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_01 0:35

Before the transformation begins, surface prep is everything. Learn the behind-the-scenes steps that ensure a flawless finish. Welcome back, everyone. Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer in the studio with David Nanaga, president of Mile High Coatings. David, how's it going?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Pretty good. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Oh, I'm okay, and we're very happy to have you back on. So let's get into it. What steps are taken to prepare a surface before applying a coating?

Diamond Grinding Explained

Shot Blasting For Aggressive Profiles

The Problems With Acid Etching

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Oh, uh, that's a really good question. A lot of people uh tend to be curious about that. Primarily when we prepare a concrete floor uh before we're gonna coat it, and that could be you know a number of different coating options that we have, whether it's epoxy or polyaspartic or uh one of our stained concrete applications, we pretty much always start by diamond grinding the floor. And so how I describe a diamond grinder uh to people is it's like a big sander for concrete. So, you know, people may be familiar with you know hardwood floors and maybe refinishing a hardwood floor. So that typically involves sanding the floor. So it's it's kind of like that for concrete. However, um a diamond grinder is pretty aggressive overall and it can produce a lot of dust. So we have a dust collection uh hooked up to the diamond grinders. They have HEPA, there's big three big HEPA filters in the dust collectors, and uh they pretty much do, I won't say a hundred percent collection, but it's it's very near a hundred percent collection to where, you know, I mean, you can you can dime you can grind that floor, that concrete floor and um essentially not not have any dust. And so what that does, what what the purpose of that is to to grind up the floor, it's it's basically creating scratches in the concrete. And those scratches create surface area. So we want to create porosity and surface area um so that when we apply the coating, it has a lot of surface area uh to to bond to and it can kind of sink down and really grab onto the concrete. Um if you don't do that, that that surface, if it's not scratched up and rel if it's relatively smooth, um, you have less surface area to bond to, you know, potential sort of impurities, um, you know, uh things that can be on top of the concrete, uh dirt, grease, oil, uh just just whatever over potentially years of use of the concrete. Or even if it's brand new, we still diamond grind it. If there's already a coating on the floor, which which happens, you know, we might go redo, you know, an old coated floor. Uh, we still diamond grind the the grinder will remove that existing coating and and and take us back down to the concrete. That way we can really ensure that that we have a good substrate to bond to. Uh there are other options or or ways to prepare uh a floor. You know, that we do we do applications that that require a much more aggressive, uh, it's called surface profile than just that than a diamond grinder will provide. One of those profiles um is created by a shot blaster. So a shot blaster is a machine that basically it's shot like like you might see in a shotgun. Um and it basically just gets blasted down onto the concrete. It's a it's a self, it's a self-contained machine and it and it basically just just throws shot at the concrete. And and as you move along, uh when you when you kind of look at the uh at the prepped concrete, it it can kind of resemble, you know, if if you're going straight enough, it can it can kind of resemble like like cornrows almost. Um and so so that's really aggressive if we're doing a moisture vapor barrier system or maybe a um you know a urethinized uh cement that that really needs aggressive uh profile. And so those are probably the two most common ways. Um there is kind of a DIY uh way to prep a floor, which we don't recommend. And I that because when I very first started out before uh when we first started doing coatings, like literally the first probably 15 to 20 floors we did, um, we used to do the sort of the more DIY method, and that was uh by acid etching it. Um acid etching is just really not a great way to prep concrete. It it's slightly effective, but what happens is that acid reacts with the concrete and in sort of uh it kind of eats that top layer of the concrete and and it creates a little bit of porosity, but what happens is that is um you know, there's really no vacuum. You apply acid and as it as it dries, um, it produces what's called latency, which is essentially super fine dust. And that dust just kind of kind of settles into the concrete. And so you have to be really diligent about really making sure it's clean and it's and it's hard to to really get all that latency removed. So basically what happens is, you know, DIY, you know, it's it's easy to do, it's easy to apply acid, you know, to a to a garage floor, for instance. Um, and then you know, homeowner rinses it off, usually not good enough, and they, you know, they coat the floor. And then what happens is that's kind of like if you were to put tape on a dusty windowsill. You can imagine that tape is not sticking to the windowsill very well. It's mostly sticking to the dust, and so you're not gonna have good adhesion. So it's it's probably the easiest analogy I could use to um to putting a coating on a on an acidessed floor. It's just you're not gonna have great long-term adhesion. And I see these all the time because homeowners, they do the floor, and literally it could be weeks later. Typically they they wait months or maybe even you know a year or two, and they call us, they call us and they say, hey, you know, floor's failing, it's peeling, you know, it looks terrible. And so they call us, we diamond grind the whole floor, get it cleaned up, and we re-coat it, and then there's never any issues after that. Those are probably the most common ways to prepare a concrete floor um for our uh performance coatings.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

It sounds quite risky too for a homeowner to do it themselves, too, with these methods, like safety-wise.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Um It can be. Yeah, I mean, it's I I'd say it's it's more risky than the fact that there's a pretty good likelihood it's probably gonna fail. And so they're gonna end up wasting their time and money. That that's probably the biggest risk to them overall. Um, and and sure, there are some sort of uh I guess safety precautions that you would want to take when when you're mixing or diluting acid. Uh, you know, there's a few different acids that that that are commonly used when when acid etching a floor. But you know, as long as you're you know basically using common sense, it should be safe.

Safety And DIY Risks

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yeah, we hope, we hope people do. That's why we call your company, right? Um, and then uh a couple more questions for you. Just how how different is a prep method for concrete versus wood or other materials? And then how long do homeowners need to, you know, be ready to um, you know, have the area available to you guys for, you know, how long does a process take usually to do this?

Prep For Wood And Metal

How Long Prep Takes

Wrap Up And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Okay, so so we do like wood steps a lot, and um, so we'll scuff those up. So same idea, you're you're essentially creating surface area. You want to kind of abrade the surface, cleans it a little bit, but also um again, you're creating scratches in in the wood, in the substrate to to promote adhesion. Um we've seen that the the coatings, epoxy or polyaspartic bond to like wood steps or even wood subfloors very, very well. I I don't I can't recall ever having um a floor delaminate or peel off of wood. I mean, it's once it's on there, it's it's good. I mean, it's more certainly more durable than than paint. It bonds extremely well. Um, can also be coated on on steel or metal. Um again, say same idea. You want to abrade and create surface area because you know, steel surfaces tend to be pretty smooth. And so there's uh there's some different ways to uh you wouldn't necessarily diamond grind steel, but there's uh, you know, there's other ways, uh typically like shop blasting or uh not shot blasting, sandblasting, um, which is what you would do on a steel surface. You know, th those types of substrates aren't as common, you know, at least from a residential perspective, but but certainly, you know, in commercial industrial applications, coating, coating steel uh is is very common and popular. So typically, you know, a common garage floor, two or three car garage, you know, pretty average is gonna take us oh two to four hours, let's say, to to prep in in most cases. And that that's gonna be um adequate. Um so what we do is we show up, we hook up our equipment, we bring a generator. So we have a generator on site, so we're not um you know, using the homeowner's power uh or or at least their you know, their 220. And um we we start start the process. And again, depending if there's if there's a coating that needs to be removed, that takes a little bit longer. Um and then as far as the prep process, you know, you there could be crack repairs, there could be some scaling or spalling repairs that needed to be um done so we can do C patching. Um sometimes people opt for us to fill in the saw cuts or control joints, and so that has to be taken into consideration. That's why why you kind of have like a two to two to four hour window. And so once the diamond grinding is done, uh we'll you know, we vacuum up the floor and everything using our those big powerful um HEPA vacuums. And um, and so we we do a pretty thorough cleaning you know, before we start applying the coating. So in most cases, um half a day or less. You know, big commercial space, I mean, the the the prep could be, you know, the majority of the job, and then you know, the coating is is a much smaller sort of time time commitment in the whole process. So for instance, you know, most garage floors, you know, say up to a bigger three-car garage, we can typically prep and coat in one day.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Well, uh, David, thanks again. Uh, that was a really great breakdown. I understand a lot more about service prep. And uh we'll we'll catch you next time. Thank you, David.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Sounds good.

CTA And Contact

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Thanks for tuning in to the Mile High Coatings Podcast. Ready to give your space a fresh, durable finish? Visit MileHighCodings.com 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.