Floor coatings and polishing
Polished Concrete and Epoxy Floors in London, Ontario
Bare concrete floors dust, stain and soak up road salt, while a properly installed epoxy, polyaspartic or polished finish turns them into a surface you can hose off and forget about. Concrete Surface Solutions installs epoxy flooring and polished concrete in London garages, basements, retail spaces, workshops and warehouses.
Because we pour new slabs as well as coat them, every floor starts with a close read of the concrete itself: its moisture, cracks, hardness and joints. That slab knowledge, built across 20+ years and 950+ jobs, is why our coatings stay bonded, and it is why each system carries a written 5-year warranty.
We are licensed, insured and WSIB-covered, and we schedule commercial floors around your business hours.
- 20+ years experience
- 950+ jobs completed
- Licensed & insured
- WSIB covered
Where we work
Polished Concrete and Epoxy Floor Services
We coat and polish concrete floors in three settings: homes, commercial and retail spaces, and industrial buildings. Each one asks something different of the floor, so the system we recommend changes with the room.
Bare concrete is porous and fairly soft at the surface. Left uncoated, it sheds dust, absorbs oil and salt brine, and in a garage the chlorides that drip off your car every winter slowly scale the top of the slab, the same damage you see on unsealed driveways.
A coating or densified polish closes that surface off. The floor becomes easier to clean, brighter under lighting, and far more resistant to the stains and scaling that make a garage or shop look tired.
Garages and basements
Flake and polyaspartic garage floors that shrug off salt brine and hot tires, plus metallic and polished finishes for finished basements. New or replacement slabs come from our garage floors and concrete pads service.
Commercial and retail
Polished concrete for showrooms and offices, and quartz systems for kitchens, washrooms and clinics. It is one part of our wider commercial concrete services for London businesses.
Warehouses and shops
Densified and polished slabs for forklift traffic, and chemical-resistant coatings for service bays. Structural slab work is handled by our warehouse and industrial concrete floors team.
Options
Choosing a Floor System
The right system depends on traffic, chemicals, sunlight, moisture in the slab and the look you want. Garages need salt and hot-tire resistance, showrooms want shine with little upkeep, and basements need moisture tolerance more than anything.
The four options below cover almost every floor we are asked about, and several can be combined, such as a flake base under a polyaspartic topcoat.
Polished and Densified Concrete
Polished concrete is the slab itself, ground flat with progressively finer diamonds, hardened with a lithium silicate densifier and honed to the sheen you pick, from matte to high gloss. With no coating to peel, it is the lowest-upkeep floor we install: dust mopping and an occasional auto-scrub keep it clean.
It suits dry interior slabs in showrooms, offices, warehouses and modern basements. It will not hide patches or cracks, and it is not ideal where salt brine pools all winter.
Epoxy Flake Garage Floors
Our most-requested garage system is a 100% solids epoxy base coat with a full broadcast of vinyl colour flakes, scraped smooth and sealed under a clear topcoat. The flake texture hides imperfections, adds grip and makes salt stains and tire marks hard to spot.
A two-car garage is usually finished in 1 to 2 days. Flake blends range from salt-and-pepper greys to darker mixes that disguise winter grime.
Because it suits nearly every garage, this is the system we quote first for most homeowners.
Metallic and Quartz Epoxy Systems
Metallic epoxy suspends metallic pigments in a clear resin that is worked by hand into a marbled, three-dimensional finish, popular in basements, bars and showrooms. Quartz systems broadcast coloured quartz sand into epoxy for a dense, slip-resistant floor suited to commercial kitchens, washrooms and labs.
Metallic floors need an anti-slip additive in the topcoat where they might get wet, and both systems need a moisture-tested slab.
Polyaspartic Topcoats
Polyaspartic is an aliphatic polyurea coating that stays clear in sunlight instead of yellowing like standard epoxy. It cures fast enough to walk on in a few hours and park on in about 24, and it can be installed in cooler weather than epoxy.
We use it as the topcoat over flake garage floors and for one-day installs. It costs more per square foot than epoxy alone, and it is worth it wherever sun or hot tires hit the floor.
| System | Best for | Look | Back in use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polished concrete | Showrooms, offices, warehouses | Matte to high gloss, natural grey | Same day |
| Epoxy flake | Garages, workshops, mudrooms | Textured, speckled colour | Walk in 24 hours, park in about 72 |
| Metallic epoxy | Basements, bars, showrooms | Glossy, marbled | Walk in 24 hours |
| Quartz epoxy | Commercial kitchens, washrooms, labs | Fine, sandy texture | About 24 to 48 hours |
| Polyaspartic | Garages, fast commercial turnarounds | Clear gloss, UV-stable | Walk in hours, park in about 24 |
If you are torn between two systems, think about the worst day the floor will see. A garage that takes slushy tires from January to March needs grip and chemical resistance before shine, while a basement rec room with no vehicles can put appearance first and pick metallic or polished.
Surface prep
Surface Prep Makes or Breaks a Coating
Nearly every peeling garage coating we are asked to replace failed because of preparation, not product. A coating only bonds to clean, open, dry concrete, so grinding, moisture testing and crack repair get as much time as the coating itself.
Diamond grinding
We grind the slab with diamond tooling to a profile similar to medium sandpaper, known in the trade as ICRI CSP 2 to 3, using HEPA dust extraction. Acid etching, the do-it-yourself shortcut, leaves residue and an uneven profile that coatings struggle to grip.
Moisture testing
Many older London garages and basements were poured without a vapour barrier, so moisture rises through the slab and blisters coatings from below. We test with calcium chloride kits (ASTM F1869) or in-slab relative humidity probes (ASTM F2170) and use a moisture-mitigating primer when readings call for it.
Crack and joint repair
Cracks are routed and filled, spalls patched and control joints either honoured or filled to suit the system. Larger damage goes to our concrete repair and resurfacing crew before any coating starts.
Garage floors add one more test: hot-tire pickup. Tires coming off a warm highway soften thin or poorly bonded coatings and peel them up in tire-shaped patches, which is why we build garage systems thick and finish them with a polyaspartic or urethane topcoat.
Our process
Our Floor Coating Process
Every coated floor goes through the same six stages, with cure times adjusted for the system and the season. A two-car garage usually takes 1 to 2 days; commercial floors are phased so areas stay usable.
- Prep
Move-out, diamond grinding of the whole floor and edges, and vacuuming with HEPA extraction. Moisture readings are taken now.
- Repair
Cracks, spalls and pitted areas are filled and ground flush, and joints are prepared to suit the system.
- Prime
A penetrating epoxy primer, or a moisture-mitigating primer where readings are high, locks the coating into the concrete.
- Broadcast
Flake or quartz is broadcast into the wet base coat to full refusal, then scraped and vacuumed once hard. Metallic floors are worked by hand at this stage instead.
- Topcoat
A clear polyaspartic or urethane topcoat seals the surface, with anti-slip additive where the floor may get wet.
- Cure
Foot traffic returns in hours to a day and vehicles in roughly 24 to 72 hours, depending on the system. We leave care instructions on site.
Pricing
Floor Coating Cost in London
Epoxy flake floors in London typically cost $6 to $10 per sq ft, full polyaspartic systems $8 to $12 per sq ft, metallic epoxy $10 to $15 per sq ft, and polished concrete $5 to $12 per sq ft. Prices include grinding, minor crack repair and the topcoat.
| System | Price per sq ft | Two-car garage (about 440 sq ft) |
|---|---|---|
| Polished and densified concrete | $5 to $12 per sq ft | $2,200 to $5,280 |
| Epoxy flake | $6 to $10 per sq ft | $2,640 to $4,400 |
| Polyaspartic system | $8 to $12 per sq ft | $3,520 to $5,280 |
| Metallic epoxy | $10 to $15 per sq ft | $4,400 to $6,600 |
| Quartz epoxy | Quoted per project, based on area, cove base and drains | |
Typical 2026 London ranges before HST. Polished concrete ranges from a basic grind-and-densify at the low end to a high-gloss finish at the top.
What moves a floor coating price the most:
- Condition of the slab and amount of crack repair
- High moisture readings needing a mitigating primer
- Removing an old coating or paint
- Floor area, since small floors cost more per sq ft
- Cove base up the walls in commercial spaces
- After-hours or phased commercial scheduling
Why us
Why Choose Us for Floor Coatings
We back our coating systems with a written 5-year warranty, spelled out in plain language. Just as important, we install them like concrete contractors, starting with the slab rather than the colour chart.
5-year written warranty
Coverage and exclusions are listed on our concrete warranty page, so you know where you stand before the first grind.
Slab knowledge first
Garage slabs we pour are built to the 32 MPa minimum in the 2024 Ontario Building Code, and we read existing slabs with the same eye before coating them.
Moisture tested every time
No floor gets coated on a guess. Readings are recorded and shared with you before we choose the primer.
Licensed, insured and WSIB-covered
A certificate of insurance is available on request. Ask for our WSIB clearance certificate and confirm it on the WSIB clearances page.
Service area
Epoxy and Polished Floors Across London and Nearby Towns
We install epoxy and polished concrete floors throughout London, from family garages in Byron and Oakridge to shops and warehouses in the industrial areas along Highway 401. Woodstock and Ingersoll both have large industrial areas on the 401 corridor, where warehouse and shop floors take forklift traffic every day and benefit from densified or coated surfaces.
Homeowners can see the rest of our residential concrete services, and facility managers can explore our full range of commercial concrete work.
FAQ
Floor Coating FAQs
The two questions we answer most often for garage floor customers. For commercial floors, we cover system choice in detail during the site visit.
Epoxy or polyaspartic for an Ontario garage?
For most Ontario garages the best answer is both: an epoxy base coat with flake, sealed under a polyaspartic topcoat. Epoxy builds thickness and bond at a lower cost, while polyaspartic stands up to salt brine, sunlight and hot-tire pickup, which is when warm tires soften and lift a weak coating.
A full polyaspartic system cures faster and costs more, at $8 to $12 per sq ft compared with $6 to $10 per sq ft for an epoxy flake floor. Plain epoxy without a UV-stable topcoat will yellow where sunlight reaches it through an open door.
Can you coat a cracked garage floor?
Yes, as long as the cracks are repaired first and the slab is no longer moving. We rout and fill cracks with rigid epoxy or a flexible polyurea filler depending on whether they move, and patch spalls before the base coat goes down.
A floor that has sunk or heaved needs concrete leveling and slab lifting or full garage floor replacement first, because no coating can hold a moving slab together.
Free estimate
Get a Floor Coating Quote
Tell us the room, its rough size and how you use it, and add a photo of the floor if you can. We reply within one business day and test moisture and check cracks at the site visit.
You will get a written quote that names the system, the prep and the cure time, so there are no surprises on install day.
- Call or text (226) 243-3585
- Email info@concretesurfacesolutions.ca (attach photos or drawings here)
- Monday to Saturday: 7:00am - 9:00pm
Sunday: 9:00am - 6:00pm
Directions, office hours and what happens after you reach out are on our free concrete estimate page.
Call (226) 243-3585