Preparation
Spalls, pits and pop-outs made flat again
Cracks are lines. This is everything else: the crumbling patch by the garage door, the pitted area where something corrosive sat, the shallow craters where aggregate popped out, the holes left when old racking got unbolted. A coating follows the shape of what is underneath it, so all of it has to go flat first.
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Tell us the space and rough size. Or call (941) 504-9132.
Detail
Spalling, pitting and pop-outs are different problems
Spalling is concrete flaking or breaking away in sheets and chunks, usually because water got in and something underneath corroded or expanded. It tends to show at edges, at the garage door threshold, and anywhere water has been sitting. Spalled areas are always bigger than they look, because sound concrete does not stop where the visible damage stops.
Pitting is a field of small shallow holes, generally chemical: battery acid, pool chemicals, fertiliser stored on the slab, or road salt tracked in. Pop-outs are conical craters where a single piece of aggregate near the surface expanded and blew the cap of concrete off it.
They matter for different reasons. Spalling is a bond problem, because the concrete around it is compromised. Pitting and pop-outs are mostly a flatness problem, but a deep pit under a thin coating becomes a pinhole and then a failure point.
Sounding the slab before we patch anything
Before repair material comes out we sound the floor. A chain drag or a hammer across the surface changes note over a void. Solid concrete rings. Delaminated concrete gives back a dull hollow sound, and that hollow area is concrete that has already separated from the slab below even though the surface looks intact.
Patching over a hollow-sounding area is pointless. The repair bonds beautifully to a layer of concrete that is itself no longer attached to anything, and the whole assembly lets go later, taking your coating with it. So we chip the hollow area out back to sound concrete, square the edges, and then repair.
This is why a repair area often ends up two or three times the size of the damage you pointed at. We would rather tell you that on day one than discover it under a finished floor.
Patching material has to match what happens next
The repair mortar is chosen for the system going over it. A fast-setting cementitious patch works where a thick flake build will cover it. Where a metallic or a thin gloss finish is going down, we lean on epoxy mortars and resin-based fillers, because those cure harder, shrink less and take color differently than a cement patch, which can ghost through a translucent finish.
Every patch gets ground flush after it sets, using the same tooling as the main floor, so the repair carries exactly the same profile as the concrete around it. A patch left proud of the slab shows as a raised shadow under gloss forever.
Depth matters too. Feather-edging a cement patch to nothing produces a thin brittle edge that breaks up under traffic. Where the repair needs to go thin, we saw a clean shoulder around it so the patch has real thickness at its perimeter.
Preparation
What happens before any resin comes out
This page is the preparation. It is the part of the job nobody photographs and the only part that decides whether a coating is still down in year eight.
We diamond grind every floor. Progressively finer diamond tooling runs across the slab until the surface is opened to a profile the coating can key into mechanically, with the dust going into a vacuum rather than into the house. Acid etching, which is what most retail kits instruct, barely touches a hard-troweled slab.
Then we read moisture. Florida slabs sit on sand with a high water table and move vapor upward continuously; trap that under a film-forming coating and you get bubbling and delamination that can only be ground off and redone. Where the numbers come back high we specify a moisture-tolerant primer instead of pretending the problem is not there.
Cracks get chased out to a clean edge and filled rather than skimmed over, spalls and pop-outs get rebuilt, and any previous coating comes off entirely. Only when the slab is sound, open and dry does anything get mixed.
The finish is what you see. The grind underneath it is what decides whether you are still happy in year eight, and it is where we spend the time other quotes save money.
It is also why we will occasionally tell someone their slab needs repair before it needs a coating. A floor that should be fixed structurally is not a floor we will put resin on, because the crack comes back through and then it is our name on it.
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Concrete Floor Repair questions
How much does concrete floor repair cost?
Price follows square footage, the condition of the slab and the system you choose. A sound slab that only needs grinding costs far less to prepare than one with cracks, old coating or a moisture problem. We look at the floor and give you a real number rather than a range that means nothing.
How long does concrete floor repair take?
Most residential work is two to four days on site depending on size and system. Commercial and industrial floors are scheduled around your hours and often run nights or weekends. You get exact dates before we start, including when you can walk on it and when you can put weight on it.
Do you grind the floor first?
Always. Diamond grinding is the only way to get a profile the coating can key into, and it is the single biggest reason floors either last or fail. We do not acid etch and we do not coat over a sealed slab.
What about moisture in the slab?
Florida slabs move water upward constantly, and vapor trapped under a coating is a guaranteed failure. We take a reading before quoting. If the numbers are high we specify a moisture-tolerant primer rather than pretending the problem is not there.
Can you match a color or a look I have seen?
Usually. We carry eighteen flake blends and mix metallic per floor, so bring a photo, a cabinet door or a paint chip and we will get close. We put samples down in your own light before you commit.
Do you work outside Sarasota?
Yes. We cover a 120-mile radius from Sarasota, which is twenty-four counties from Naples up to Ocala and across to Orlando. Check the service areas page or call and ask.
Send us the space. We will send back a number.
Rough size and a photo is enough to start. We cover Sarasota and twenty-four counties around it, so tell us where you are and we will tell you when we can get there.
Pour this floor
Or call (941) 504-9132.