Garage, basement and commercial floors ground open, moisture tested and coated to a written system you can check against what went down.
Kenosha Epoxy Flooring brings 20+ years of concrete floor work to garages, basements and commercial buildings in Kenosha, WI. We install epoxy garage floors, polyaspartic coatings, flake and metallic systems, polished concrete and commercial floors for warehouses, kitchens and shops, and every one of them starts with the same step: opening the slab mechanically and testing it before anything is applied.
A floor coating is only as good as the concrete under it and the preparation that went into it. We grind or shot blast instead of acid etching, we test for moisture as a written line item, and we read the cracks, joints and old coatings before we quote. When a slab needs repair or replacement before it can be coated, we tell you that first.
Our proposals name the product, the system build and the finished thickness, so what was quoted can be checked against what went down. Homeowners get a written contract before any deposit is taken, and commercial clients get a schedule built around the hours their building has to keep running.
What we do
Epoxy flooring and concrete coatings for Kenosha, WI
Ground, moisture-tested epoxy garage floors built to handle Kenosha road salt, brine and hot tires, with the full system named in writing.
Polished concrete for Kenosha warehouses, showrooms and homes, ground in stages and densified for a hard, low-maintenance floor.
Fast-curing polyaspartic floor coatings for Kenosha garages and commercial floors, resistant to UV ambering, salt and hot tire pickup.
Basement floor epoxy for Kenosha homes, built on a moisture-tested, ground slab with drains, sump pits and wall edges detailed properly.
Marbled metallic epoxy floors for Kenosha homes, showrooms and commercial spaces, built on a flat, ground and moisture-tested slab.
Crack, spall, joint and scaling repair for Kenosha concrete floors, with an honest call on when a slab needs replacing instead.
Commercial epoxy floors for Kenosha warehouses, plants, shops and service bays, with joints filled first and work scheduled around operations.
Full-broadcast vinyl flake epoxy floors for Kenosha garages, basements and shops, sealed under a clear topcoat that handles salt and hot tires.
Diamond grinding and shot blasting for Kenosha concrete floors: coating and mastic removal, leveling and surface profiling before a new floor.
Static-dissipative and conductive ESD epoxy floors for Kenosha electronics, lab and data spaces, grounded and tested after installation.
Seamless urethane cement and resin floors for Kenosha restaurant and institutional kitchens, coved at the walls and built for hot washdown.
We have spent more than twenty years grinding, repairing and coating concrete floors. That time is where our habits come from: testing moisture before coating, refusing to acid etch, and naming the exact system in writing. It is also why we can usually tell from the first look at a slab what it will need.
Every slab we coat is opened with a diamond grinder or shot blaster to a measured surface profile, so the epoxy bonds to sound concrete rather than to the weak top skin and old sealer that an acid wash leaves behind and that peels within a season.
No garage or basement floor gets a coating until moisture testing has been done and written into the scope. Wisconsin does not require a vapor retarder under an unconditioned attached garage slab, so a dry-looking floor can still push vapor up, and we test rather than assume.
Kenosha winters put road salt and calcium chloride brine on every tire that pulls into a garage, so our garage systems use topcoats chosen to resist chloride and hot tire pickup rather than the thin single-coat finishes that soften and lift by the second spring.
Never do we schedule a cure by the calendar alone. We read slab temperature and the dew point spread at the surface, and when an unheated garage is too cold to cure properly we say it should wait for spring rather than lay down a coating that blushes and stays soft.
Our service area crosses into Illinois, where 35 Ill. Adm. Code Part 223 limits the VOC content of the coating an installer may apply. We pick products for the side of the state line the job sits on, so an Illinois floor never gets a coating that is only legal in Wisconsin.
An epoxy garage floor job starts with a walk of the slab: cracks, joints, old paint, drains and how water leaves the room. Then comes grinding, repairs, moisture testing, the base coat, any flake or quartz broadcast and the topcoat. We give you the walk-on and drive-on times before we begin.
A coating laid over sealed, painted or smooth troweled concrete has nothing to grip and lets go in sheets. We grind the slab to an ICRI concrete surface profile that matches the system, usually a CSP 2 or 3 for a garage coating, and vacuum the dust as we go.
Wisconsin’s dwelling code requires a vapor retarder under a home’s floor slab but not under the slab of an unconditioned attached garage, under SPS 322.38. That means many garage slabs have no sheet beneath them, so we test before we coat and pick a primer to match the reading.
SPS 321.203 sets the garage floor itself: noncombustible, impermeable to petroleum, at least 4 inches thick on granular fill and sloped to the door or a floor drain. Its own note says it does not require sealing the concrete, so a coating is your choice, and we treat it as protection rather than compliance.
Hairline shrinkage cracks are normal and we fill them before coating. A crack that has opened wide, shifted in height or keeps growing tells us the slab is still moving, and a coating will follow it. When we see that, we say the slab needs repair or replacement before we quote a finish.
Rock salt and calcium chloride deicers ride in on tires and sit in puddles on the floor all winter. On bare concrete that brine works into the surface and scales it. A sealed, coated floor keeps the salt on top where it can be squeegeed out to the drain.
Epoxy needs a warm enough slab to cure, and Kenosha’s lakeshore and inland stations average more than 120 freezing nights a year. A heated garage can be coated in January. An unheated one often cannot, and we would rather tell you to wait for spring than install a floor that never cures right.
A tire coming off a warm highway softens some coatings and pulls them off the floor when the car parks. Thin, low-solids finishes are the usual victims. We use 100% solids epoxy bases and polyaspartic or polyurea topcoats that hold up under a hot tire.
A store-bought epoxy kit is mostly a thin water-based coating applied over acid-etched concrete. A professional floor starts with grinding, uses higher-solids materials at a measured thickness and is built in layers. The difference shows up the first winter, when salt and hot tires find the weak spots.
The size of the garage matters less than its condition. Old coatings to remove, crack and joint repair, moisture that calls for a mitigation primer, flake density and topcoat choice are what move the number. We quote after seeing the slab, with each item named.
Almost every coating warranty excludes failure caused by moisture vapor coming up through the slab. We read the exclusions out before the job is sold, moisture first, so you know what is covered and why we test before we coat.
A basement slab sits in the ground, and the ground is rarely dry. Before we coat a basement floor we test it, because the reading decides whether a standard primer will hold or whether the floor needs a moisture-mitigation system first. We do not skip this step to save time.
Groundwater pushing up against the underside of a slab can drive moisture through concrete that looks and feels dry. That pressure is what lifts a coating off in blisters months later. Testing tells us how hard the slab is pushing before any coating goes on.
The white powder on many basement floors is efflorescence, salts carried up by water as it moves through the concrete and left behind when it evaporates. It is a sign of moisture movement, and it has to be ground off and the cause understood before any coating will stay bonded.
Drains, sump pits and the joint where the floor meets the wall are where a basement coating usually fails first. We detail those edges, keep the slope to the drain and stop the coating cleanly at the sump so it can still be serviced.
If a basement has flooded or taken in water, the slab holds that water long after the surface dries. We let it dry, retest, and fix the source where we can before coating. Sealing a wet slab only traps the problem under a new floor.
When testing shows more moisture than a standard primer can handle, a moisture-mitigation primer goes down first to hold back vapor. It adds cost and a step, and we only specify it when the numbers call for it, with the reading written into the scope.
Older Kenosha houses often have basement floors that are thin, patched and painted several times over. Each layer has to come off before a new coating can bond. We grind down to sound concrete, show you what is underneath and quote the repairs before the finish.
A coated slab makes a durable base for a playroom, laundry area or home gym, and it cleans easily. For rooms where people stand or exercise, we can add texture for grip, and we talk through mats and rubber flooring that will sit on top.
A floor coating is not radon mitigation, and we do not sell it as one on either side of the state line. Radon reduction is a separate system. If radon is a concern, test for it and talk to a mitigation specialist before or alongside your floor work.
A vinyl flake broadcast hides dust, tire marks and small imperfections in the slab. Chip size and blend change the look: small chips read as a fine speckle, larger ones as a terrazzo-like pattern. Full broadcast floors get a clear topcoat to lock the flake in.
Metallic epoxy floors use pigments that move as the coating is worked, leaving a marbled, three-dimensional finish. No two floors look the same. The finish shows every flaw in the slab, so preparation and a smooth base coat matter even more than on a flake floor.
Polished concrete is the slab itself, ground in stages and hardened with a lithium silicate densifier. How deep we grind decides the look: a cream finish shows little stone, while a deeper cut exposes the aggregate. Each slab polishes a little differently.
High gloss shows off color but also shows dust, scratches and tire marks. Satin and matte finishes hide daily wear better and read as less slippery. We help you choose the sheen based on how the room is used rather than how it looks on a sample board.
Quartz aggregate broadcast into the coating gives color and slip resistance in the same step. It suits wet areas, ramps, commercial kitchens and locker rooms. The texture can be tuned by how much topcoat goes over the quartz.
A solid color coating is the simplest finish and often the right one for a workshop, utility room or warehouse aisle. It is easy to clean, easy to touch up and makes painted lines and safety markings stand out.
Many epoxies yellow, or amber, when exposed to sunlight through an open garage door or window. Polyaspartic and polyurea topcoats resist that change, which is why we use them where a floor sees daylight.
Saw-cut lines can divide a floor into a pattern, and borders can frame a showroom or lobby. Logos can be inlaid during the build. We plan these in the proposal so the layout is agreed before any coating goes down.
Commercial floors carry heavier loads, more traffic and tighter schedules than a home garage. They often need thicker systems, joint fill, chemical resistance and phased work. We plan the job around production, inspections and access before we quote.
Kenosha’s freeway belt holds distribution floors measured in hundreds of thousands of square feet, cut with joints that forklifts cross all day. We fill those joints with a semirigid filler before any coating goes over them, so wheels do not break the joint edges.
Wisconsin’s food processing plant rule, ATCP 70, asks for floors that are smooth, durable and easy to clean. Food plants need coatings that stand up to sanitizers, hot water and traffic without trapping residue. We match the system to the products and cleaning schedule.
New and remodeled kitchens in the county go through Kenosha County Public Health plan review, and the Wisconsin Food Code follows FDA guidance on coved floor and wall junctures. Where hot washdown would take an epoxy off, we use urethane cement instead.
Healthcare and campus buildings cannot close for long, and their floors see carts, cleaning chemicals and constant foot traffic. We phase the work, use fast-cure systems where they fit and keep dust contained so other areas stay open.
Oil, coolant, dropped parts and anchored machines are hard on a floor. We specify chemical-resistant systems, plan around equipment that cannot move, and seal around anchors so fluids do not work under the coating.
Boat storage and service buildings see trailers, fuel, solvents and winter salt. A coated floor makes spills easier to contain and clean. We detail drains and doors so water does not sit at the edges.
Electronics and sensitive equipment need floors that bleed static away rather than store it. Static-dissipative and ESD floors are built to a specified electrical resistance range, with grounding points planned into the layout and testing at the end.
Cold rooms need coatings that tolerate low temperatures and the thermal shock of washdown. Installing them often means coordinating with the refrigeration schedule. We pick systems rated for the room temperature and plan the cure around it.
Illinois limits the VOC content of coatings an installer may apply, under 35 Ill. Adm. Code Part 223. Wisconsin relies on the federal architectural coatings rule, 40 CFR 59 Subpart D, which binds the manufacturer. We choose products to fit the rule for the job’s location.
Many buildings cannot stop for a floor. We schedule warehouse, plant, kitchen and shop work around operating hours, including overnight and weekend windows, and stage areas so the building keeps running while the floor is done.
Kenosha Epoxy Flooring provides epoxy-flooring throughout the greater Kenosha area, with the same crews and the same standards on every job.
Good to know
Price follows the slab more than the square footage. Grinding, crack and joint repair, a moisture-mitigation primer if testing calls for one, the number of coats and the topcoat chemistry all move the number. We quote after seeing the floor, and the proposal names the product, the system build and the finished thickness so you can compare bids line by line.
Most two-car garages run over a few days: one for grinding and repairs, then the coats, then cure time before you drive on it. The calendar is set by slab temperature and the dew point spread at the surface, so a cold or damp stretch can add a day. We tell you the walk-on and drive-on times before we start.
Wisconsin issues no license for floor coating work. What can apply is a local permit, which varies by city and village, so we confirm with the local inspector whether a job needs one before it goes on the schedule. On the Illinois side the rules on the product itself are stricter, which we cover in the proposal.
Acid etching leaves a thin, uneven profile and residue that can weaken the bond, and it does little to old sealers. A diamond grinder or shot blaster removes the weak top layer and opens the surface to a measurable ICRI concrete surface profile, which is what a coating actually grips.
Depending on the slab, we use the ASTM D4263 plastic sheet test as a quick screen, ASTM F1869 calcium chloride kits for vapor emission, and ASTM F2170 in-situ relative humidity probes for a reading from inside the slab. The results decide the primer, and they are written into the scope rather than left as a guess.
Both have a place. A 100% solids epoxy base coat builds thickness and bond, while a polyaspartic or polyurea topcoat resists ultraviolet ambering and hot tire pickup and cures faster in cool weather. Many of our garage systems use an epoxy base with a polyaspartic top for that reason.
Usually, but the old material comes off first. Paint, sealers and failing epoxy are ground away until we reach sound concrete, because a new coating is only as strong as the layer underneath it. If the old coating hides damage, we show you before quoting the rest.
No coating stops a slab from moving. We fill and repair cracks so the surface is level and sealed, but a coating is a film that follows the concrete under it, and an active crack can reappear through it. Where a slab is heaved or broken, we say plainly that it needs repair or replacement first.
Yes. Jobs south of the state line fall under Illinois limits on the VOC content of coatings an installer may apply, under 35 Ill. Adm. Code Part 223, while Wisconsin leaves that to the federal rule on manufacturers. We choose products for the side of the line the floor is on.
Coverage depends on the system and is written into the contract. Before the job is sold we read out the exclusions, moisture first, because vapor pushing up through a slab is the most common reason a coating fails and most product warranties do not cover it.
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