Welcome To Vanguard Concrete Coating
Of Grand Rapids, Michigan
Concrete Floor Repair & Coating Services
We're a Grand Rapids, Michigan based concrete
flooring expert specializing in concrete polishing, floor cleaning, installation of polyurethane and epoxy floor coatings of indoor cement surfaces,
and the restoration of concrete floors for industrial, commercial, and residential clients.
For our commercial & industrial flooring clients this usually involves
manufacturing floors, chemical containment areas, food processing areas,
production floors, warehouse floors, as well as bathroom floors, and/or break
room floors in factories. For residential flooring clients this primarily
involves their cement garage floors. See our high quality repair work by
visiting our
commercial concrete photos and/or
residential concrete photos.
Resinous Floor Coatings
Concrete floor
coatings are special resins (most often polyurethane or epoxy) that when
properly applied create an impenetrable coating, or layer on cement
preventing the transmission of water and contaminants while at the same time
keeping the structure safe. Installation of resinous flooring is commonly used
for sealing, waterproofing, repairing, restoration and resurfacing of concrete.
Flexible polymer coatings are used on multi story and pre-cast cement
structures such as parking ramps and mechanical rooms, waterproofing the levels
below and protecting against chemicals and physical abuse. Oil, Salt and other
chemicals can cause damage to structures, especially in high traffic areas.
Resinous floor coatings can be used to prevent, reduce and repair damage in such
areas. The most common types of Resinous flooring systems include epoxy coating,
epoxy resurfacer or epoxy mortar, urethane coating, urethane mortars, polyurea,
as well as polyaspartic coating application.
By focusing on
cost-effective coating technology that protects the environment while protecting
concrete surfaces, Vanguard Concrete Coating provides users with safe, long-term
epoxy flooring & finishing protection that reduces maintenance and expenses.
Concrete Polishing Services
Concrete
polishing is the process of mechanically and chemically transforming concrete to
an attractive easy to clean finish with various levels of gloss options and
aggregate exposure. Simply put, polishing concrete is similar to sanding wood.
Heavy-duty concrete polishing machines equipped with progressively finer grits
of diamond-impregnated abrasives are used to gradually grind down surfaces to
the desired degree of shine and smoothness.
Concrete
polishing begins with the use of coarse diamond segments bonded in a metallic
matrix. These segments are coarse enough to remove minor pits, blemishes,
stains, or light coatings from the floor in preparation for final smoothing. The
next steps involve fine polishing of the concrete surface using diamond
abrasives embedded in a plastic or resin matrix. Crews use ever-finer grits
until the floor has the desired sheen.
During the
polishing process an internal impregnating hardener or densifier is applied. A
concrete stain or dye can also be added. The densifier sinks into the
concrete and is invisible to the naked eye. It not only protects the concrete
from the inside out, it also hardens and densifies the concrete. This eliminates
the need for a topical coating and aids gloss retention. A concrete dye or
stain can also be added to the process to provide color concrete
options.
Vanguard offers
several forms of surface preparation including shot blasting, diamond grinding,
and scarification. We know that preparation is the key to great finish. Over
80% of coating failures can be attributed to improper or in sufficient prep. It
is important to provide a clean surface free of contaminants and defects with a
profile or texture.
Epoxy Floors
The most common
type of polymer flooring installation is the epoxy floor. Epoxy flooring
installation can accomplished by squeegeeing the epoxy, roller epoxy
application, epoxy slurry and broadcast as well as Epoxy power Troweled
resurfacer where the epoxy is screed applied normally at 1/4 inch and a mixture
of epoxy resin and blended aggregates are combined to make an epoxy mortar which
is then finished with hand trowels and power trowels in order to resurface and
restore the concrete surface. An epoxy floor coating may be applied as thin as a
coat of paint or up to 3/8 of an inch and in areas in need of repair may be
several inches in thickness if needed. Industrial epoxy flooring installation
requires well trained applicators, specialized preparation, and working
knowledge of the proper epoxy coatings or epoxy resurfacers for the individual
application. Epoxy floor coatings may offer varying degrees of chemical
resistance, ultraviolet resistance, as well as speed of cure time and
installation thicknesses. As a general rule the faster it dries, the higher the
chemical resistance, the better the UV stability and the thicker the floor the
more it will cost. This is why it is important to understand the epoxy flooring
installation to compare on product or installation with another rather than just
picking the least expensive product or epoxy flooring installer.
Material Sales and Installation Training
Services
We offer
material sales for the do it yourself application as well as on the job training
Service / Market Area for industrial jobs when bidding on work in Ohio, Indiana,
Northeastern Illinois, and Michigan; For small residential jobs (garage &
basement) we generally only bid on work within 50 miles of Grand Rapids, MI.
For larger projects we work in cities such as Muskegon, Traverse City, Mount
Pleasant, Midland, Bay City, Saginaw, Flint, Howell, Lansing, Jackson, Battle
Creek, Kalamazoo, South Haven, Benton Harbor, St Joseph, Holland, Grand Haven
and Grand Rapids.
Industrial Floor
Commercial Floor
Residential Garage
& Basement Floors
Concrete Flooring / Cement Flooring
Terms:
To the far
left are buttons to our interior industrial, commercial and residential
web pages. Listed below are some direct links with flooring definitions.
Cement vs Concrete - concrete is
composed of cement (aka portland cement) water, sand and aggregates
and various admixtures to alter the concretes various properties.
Cement is what holds concrete together. While concrete is sometimes
called cement by lay people when describing their basement and
garage floors, the terms are not interchangeable.
Shotblasting - The leading
industry technique in floor surface preparation, removal, and repair
procedures in a dust free environment.
Scarification - The most common method of cementitious coating
and resurfacer removal.
Diamond Grinding - The least
aggressive form of mechanical surface prep that can be used for
cleaning and thin film coating removal.
Acid Etching - chemically etching
a cement floor in preparation for sealer or epoxy coating.
Concrete Polishing - heavy-duty
polishing machines equipped with progressively finer grits of
diamond-impregnated segments or disks are used to gradually grind
down surfaces to the desired degree of shine and smoothness.
Concrete Densifiers - Sodium,
potassium or lithium silicate formulation that penetrates the
concrete and reacts with calcium hydroxide formed in hydration,
filling pores in concrete and making the surface denser and less
porous.
Epoxy Flooring - epoxy resins are
thermosetting resins known for excellent surface and sub-surface
adhesion, mechanical properties, and chemical resistance.
Polyurethane Flooring -
polyurethane resins, commonly referred to as urethane, are
thermosetting or thermoplastic resins and demonstrate moderate
chemical resistance and good resistance to diluted acids and alkali.
Polyurethane resins generally offer moderate adhesion, but good
resistance to shrinkage and excellent flexibility.
Polyaspartic Flooring
- Polyaspartic is a type of polyurethane (actually a polyaspartic
aliphatic polyurea). Polyaspartic floor resins overcome many of the
short comings of other resin coatings by providing a very fast
cure, chemically resistant, UV stable coating, that can be applied
as thin as an epoxy paint or as thick as a self leveling epoxy.
Concrete Stains - two categories
of concrete stains - reactive and nonreactive. Reactive stains are
water-based acidic solutions containing metallic salts that react
with the concrete's lime content; Non-reactive stains are
water-based acrylic stains that don't rely on a chemical reaction to
impart color.
