Preparation
A new wearing surface when patching stopped making sense
There is a point where a slab has too much wrong with it to patch and coat. Too many repairs, too much unevenness, a surface that has worn back past the paste into exposed aggregate. Resurfacing puts a fresh layer of engineered material over the whole floor and gives you a new surface to work from.
Pour this floor
Tell us the space and rough size. Or call (941) 504-9132.
Detail
When resurfacing is the honest answer
The tipping point is usually one of three things. The repairs have multiplied to the point where you are patching most of the floor anyway, so a continuous overlay costs about the same and looks far better. Or the slab is genuinely out of level, and a coating, which is only a couple of dozen mils thick, cannot correct a slope or a dip you can see across a room. Or the surface has worn back so far that the aggregate is exposed and there is no consistent paste left to bond to.
None of that means the slab is bad. The structure underneath is usually perfectly sound. It is the top few millimetres that have given up, and that is exactly what an overlay replaces.
The alternative is demolition and a new pour, which means a jackhammer, a skip, and weeks. Resurfacing is measured in days.
What goes down and how thick
For flatness problems we use a self-levelling polymer-modified overlay. It is poured, spread and then allowed to find its own level, which corrects dips and undulations that no coating could. For texture and wear we use a trowelled or broadcast overlay, which is a stiffer mix worked by hand, and which can carry a finish texture directly.
On outdoor concrete, and pool decks in particular, a textured overlay does two jobs at once. It gives you a fresh surface and it gives you slip resistance that bare worn concrete had lost.
Thickness runs from a skim of a few millimetres up to a proper build, depending on what has to be corrected. We work that out from the survey, not from a rule of thumb.
The overlay still needs everything prepared underneath
This is the part people assume they are buying their way out of. An overlay is a coating in bond terms. It needs a profiled substrate, it needs the moisture question answered, and it needs delaminated areas removed first, because an overlay poured across a hollow section will crack along the edge of the void within a season.
So resurfacing does not skip preparation. It usually needs more of it, because the overlay is thicker and heavier than a resin coat and puts more demand on the bond. Typically that means a shot blast or an aggressive grind to reach the deeper profile these materials want.
Once the overlay has cured we can treat it as a brand new floor. Grind it, coat it, polish it, broadcast flake into it, whatever the plan was. You get a fresh start on the same structure.
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 Resurfacing questions
How much does concrete resurfacing 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 resurfacing 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.