What you get
The step that decides how long your epoxy floor lasts
Almost every failed epoxy floor we get called out to look at failed for the same reason: nobody prepped the concrete. Someone rolled a coating over a sealed, dusty or oily slab and the bond never had a chance to form. We mechanically profile every floor we touch — no acid etching and hoping — then chase and fill the cracks, patch the pits and pull the old coating off if there is one. It is the slowest day of the job and the only one that decides how long the floor lasts.
Concrete has to be opened up before anything will stick to it. A troweled or sealed slab is effectively closed at the surface, so we run diamond grinders with vacuum shrouds until the profile is right, or shot blast where the contamination runs deeper. Cracks get chased out into a V with a crack saw and filled with a structural repair resin rather than smeared over — a crack that is only skimmed will telegraph straight back through the finished floor within a season. Spalled and pitted areas get patched and re-leveled. Oil and grease are their own problem: they wick down into the slab, and heat or foot traffic pulls them back up through a fresh coating, so contaminated concrete gets degreased and tested before anything else happens, and old failing coatings come off entirely before we start. Every prep job we do leads into one of our epoxy systems — that is the whole point of it. We are not a concrete contractor who also sells coatings; we install epoxy floors, and this is the day that decides whether yours lasts fifteen years or fifteen months.
- Diamond grinding and shot blasting with vacuum dust control
- Crack chasing and structural filling, not a skim coat over the top
- Spall, pit and edge repair with re-leveling where the slab needs it
- Removal of failed coatings — old paint, sealers and peeling epoxy
- Degreasing and testing so oil-contaminated concrete will take a bond
- Included in every epoxy floor we install — never quoted as an optional extra
Before & after
What prep and a proper system do
Drag the divider. Left is the kind of slab we start with, right is the finish.
Before
After
Questions about epoxy floor prep & repair?
(217) 417-5950One call and we can usually tell you what your slab needs, roughly what it costs, and when we could get to it.
Prefer to type it out? Send the quote form instead or email dpflooringservicesllc@gmail.com.
Straight talk
Why nearly every failed epoxy floor failed here
When somebody calls us about a floor that is peeling, we already know most of what we will find before we arrive. Acid etching instead of grinding is the most common cause. Etching is sold as a shortcut in every DIY kit: pour it on, rinse it off, coat it. It barely opens the surface, it leaves a salt residue behind if it is not neutralized and rinsed perfectly, and it does nothing at all to a slab that has been power-troweled hard or previously sealed.
Coating over contamination is second. Oil and transmission fluid wick down into concrete over years. A grind makes the surface look clean while the contamination is still sitting half an inch down, and the first warm week pulls it back up through the new coating.
Skimming cracks instead of chasing them is third. A crack that is filled flush without being cut out will keep moving with the slab and telegraph straight back through the finished floor, usually inside a season. And coating a wet slab is fourth: no moisture test, vapor drive underneath, blisters by summer. All four are prep failures. None of them are the epoxy's fault.
How the install runs
Four steps, no surprises
You will know the schedule, the price and the cure dates before we start grinding.
Assess and test
We look at what is actually on the slab — bare concrete, a sealer, a failing coating, oil — and we moisture test. On a floor that has already failed once we want to know why, because whatever caused it is still there.
Strip and decontaminate
Failed coatings come off entirely rather than being coated over. Oil-contaminated areas get degreased and re-tested. This is the step people skip and it is the reason they end up calling somebody like us a second time.
Profile the concrete
Diamond grinding with vacuum shrouds for most floors, shot blasting where the contamination or the traffic runs deeper. We are opening the pores of the concrete so the epoxy can key into it mechanically rather than just sitting on top.
Repair, then coat
Cracks get chased out into a V and filled with structural resin. Spalled and pitted areas get patched and re-leveled. Control joints get treated. Only then does the epoxy system go down — and only then is it worth anything.
What it costs
Pricing for epoxy floor prep & repair
Epoxy is priced by the square foot, and we will not quote a floor we have not seen — a number pulled over the phone helps nobody. Here is what actually moves it:
- Prep method — a diamond grind versus shot blasting a contaminated slab
- Linear feet of cracking and joints that need chasing and filling
- Square footage of spalling, pitting or delaminated surface to patch
- Whether a failed coating has to come off before anything else happens
Where we do it
Epoxy Floor Prep & Repair near you
Available everywhere in our 50+ mile service area. These are the towns we work in most often — if yours is not listed, call anyway.
- Epoxy Flooring in Champaign, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Urbana, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Savoy, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Mahomet, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Rantoul, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Bloomington, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Normal, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Decatur, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Danville, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Monticello, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Tuscola, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Paxton, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Clinton, IL
- Epoxy Flooring in Tolono, IL
Questions
Epoxy Floor Prep & Repair FAQs
My epoxy floor is peeling. Can you fix it or does it all come off?
It depends on how much of it has let go and why. If a small area has failed on an otherwise well-bonded floor, we can cut back to sound material, re-profile that area and blend a repair in — though on a solid color it will likely be visible. If the failure is widespread, or the original prep was the problem, it all has to come off, because anything we put over a coating that is already releasing will come up with it. We will tell you which one you have got, and we will tell you straight.
Is a DIY kit ever worth it?
Honestly, on a brand-new, perfectly clean, bone-dry slab in a heated garage, a good kit applied carefully will look decent for a few years. That describes very few real garages in Central Illinois. The kits are thin, they are one-part or low-solids two-part, they rely on acid etching, and they include nothing for crack or spall repair. The failure mode is not subtle — it is hot tires taking the coating off in sheets — and stripping a failed DIY floor costs more than doing it properly would have.
How dusty is the grinding?
Far less than you would expect. We run vacuum shrouds on the grinders connected to HEPA dust extraction, which captures the great majority of it at the head. There will still be a fine film to clean up and we do that ourselves before we leave. In a basement this matters more than anywhere else, and it is one of the reasons we will not work without proper extraction.
Ready to quote epoxy floor prep & repair?
Free, itemized, on-site quotes anywhere in the service area — and no trip charge to come look.