Commercial & Industrial Epoxy in Los Angeles, CA

Commercial & Industrial Epoxy is the service we offer to Los Angeles businesses that need a concrete floor coating to handle real work. Commercial epoxy flooring seals the slab against oil, chemicals and water, cuts down on concrete dust, brightens the space and makes the floor faster to clean. Wikipedia describes Los Angeles as the largest manufacturing center in the United States by employment, home to the Port of Los Angeles and to one of the oldest film and television industries anywhere. That adds up to a huge range of working floors: warehouses, fabrication shops, auto repair bays, production shops, breweries, kitchens, gyms, retail floors and office back rooms.

Matching the system to the floor

There is no single commercial coating. We start by asking what the floor actually sees:

• Forklifts, pallet jacks or carts, and how heavy the loads are
• Oils, fuels, solvents, cleaners or food acids that hit the floor
• Hot water, steam or wash-downs
• Rolling tool chests, jack stands or dropped parts
• Customer foot traffic and how the floor needs to look

A light-duty storeroom may only need a two-coat epoxy or polyaspartic. A busy shop floor usually needs a thicker build. HomeAdvisor lists 100 percent solids industrial coatings as a separate, higher-cost category for good reason: they go on thicker and stand up to more. We explain the options in plain terms and put the chosen system in writing.

Downtime is part of the plan

For most businesses, the biggest cost of a new floor is the days it is out of service. Bob Vila's guide points out that a business may have to shut for a day or two during a coating job. We plan for that. We can coat in phases so some of the floor remains usable, work over weekends or slow days, and use fast-curing polyaspartic topcoats that HomeGuide says take traffic in about 24 to 48 hours rather than the week epoxy may require. We go over the schedule with you before quoting.

Prep on commercial slabs

Commercial slabs often come with history: old paint, failed coatings, adhesive from removed flooring, embedded oil, saw cuts and damaged joints. We diamond grind to remove all of it and open the concrete, then repair spalls, cracks and joints. Joints that carry forklifts are filled with a material made for that load. Moisture testing matters even more on large slabs, because one damp area can lift a big section of coating. When a slab reads too wet, we switch to a primer that tolerates moisture, or we let you know before any work begins.

Earthquakes, cracks and older buildings

Los Angeles sits among active faults, and Wikipedia notes the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused about $12.5 billion in damage. Many older commercial buildings show cracking from settlement and past shaking. We repair stable cracks so the coating is continuous. Cracks that are clearly moving are flagged before we coat, since a coating will crack over them, and in some buildings the right answer is to treat them as joints.

Safety and cleaning

Coated floors can be slick when wet or oily, so we add aggregate to the topcoat where workers walk, in wash areas and near doors. Light colors reflect more light and make a shop brighter. Line striping for walkways, work cells and storage areas can be built into the coating. Cove bases, where the coating turns a few inches up the wall, help wash-down areas stay sanitary because water and dirt have no seam to collect in.

Heat, sun and loading docks

Warehouse doors in the Basin and the Valley stand open much of the day, and the sun and heat that come in with them affect the floor near the door. Standard epoxy yellows in UV, so floors in the sun's path get a UV-stable topcoat. On hot days, especially during the September and October heat waves Wikipedia describes, we schedule coats early to keep working time under control.

Questions to settle before we quote

A few details make a commercial quote accurate: the hours the space can be closed, whether equipment or racking can be moved, what cleaning chemicals your staff use, whether the floor needs to meet any food-safety or customer-facing look, and where the power and water hookups are. If you lease the space, check what your lease says about floor finishes and get the landlord on board early. We can provide product data sheets for landlords, property managers or your own safety staff before the job is scheduled.

Keeping a commercial floor in service

Auto scrubbers and pH-neutral cleaners keep coated floors looking right. Keep grit off the floor with mats at entries, because grit under wheels is what wears a topcoat. In high-traffic lanes, a scheduled recoat of the topcoat every few years is far cheaper than a full redo.