Epoxy Flooring Birmingham covers Gardendale and the north Jefferson County communities along I-65 for garage floor coatings, workshop floors, basements, patios and driveways.
The housing, and the concrete it left
Gardendale grew through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s as a north Birmingham suburb along the interstate, and the housing reflects that: single-storey ranch and split-level houses on generous lots, most with attached one or two-car garages.
Those slabs are now fifty to seventy years old and they follow a consistent pattern. The concrete itself is typically dense and well cured, poured when time and materials were less rushed than they are on a modern build. What sits on top of it is decades of accumulated history.
Deep oil staining from cars that leaked through the seventies. Surface pitting. Chipped control joint edges. And very often a layer, or several, of grey or red floor paint applied at some point along the way.
The good news is that older concrete generally takes a coating better than new concrete does, because decades of use have already opened the surface that a grinder would otherwise have to cut through. The work is in removing what is on top, not in the slab itself.
Garages that are really workshops
This is the Gardendale characteristic that actually changes what we specify.
A high proportion of garages here are working spaces: a bench along one wall, a compressor, a welder, a project car, a lift in some cases. That is a different environment from a garage that holds a family SUV.
What it means practically:
More chemical exposure. Brake fluid, solvents, degreasers, cutting oil and battery acid. The topcoat needs genuine chemical resistance rather than being chosen on appearance.
Point loading and impact. Jack stands, engine hoists, dropped tools and rolling toolboxes. Film build matters more here, and a thin decorative system will not last.
Hot tyres on a working bay. A project car driven in and out regularly gives you the same hot tyre problem a service bay has, and it is the reason a flexible polyurea base is the right choice rather than a rigid epoxy.
Grip. A workshop floor gets oil and coolant on it, and a glossy floor with a film of oil is dangerous. Aggregate in the topcoat is not optional in a working garage.
If you have a lift, or plan to fit one, tell us. The coating has to terminate cleanly around the base plates rather than run underneath them, and that is worth planning rather than cutting in afterwards. Our auto shop floor coating page covers the detailing.
Detached garages and outbuildings
Common on the larger Gardendale lots: a detached garage, a shop building or a pole barn with a concrete floor, often added later than the house.
Those slabs vary enormously in quality, because they were frequently poured by whoever was available rather than by the original builder. Some are excellent. Some are thin, uneven, or poured without a vapour barrier onto bare ground.
Unheated detached buildings also swing further in temperature than an attached garage, which is another argument for a flexible system.
We would want to look at these rather than quote from a description, because they are the least predictable concrete in the metro.
Colour in a working garage
Different advice from a family garage. In a workshop, mid-tone greys with a flake blend hide oil drips, tyre marks and swarf far better than either light or dark.
Light floors show every drip. Dark floors show every speck of dust and make it harder to find a dropped bolt, which sounds trivial until you are looking for one.
A mid-tone warm blend also handles the red clay that comes in on boots, which is the same advice we give everywhere in this metro.
Basements
Less common in Gardendale than in the older parts of the metro, since a lot of the ranch stock is slab on grade. Where they exist, they are typically from the same era as the house and predate routine vapour barrier use, so they get tested before quoting.
See basement floor coating for what that involves.
Getting to you
Gardendale is around twenty minutes north up I-65 and it is a routine area, so surveys are same week with no travel charge. We cover the surrounding north Jefferson communities on the same basis, including Fultondale, Clay and Pinson.
The honest version
A Gardendale garage floor is usually a good candidate, and the concrete is frequently better than a modern equivalent. What varies is how much is on top of it and how deep the oil has gone.
We grind a test patch before quoting on any floor with paint on it, because the difference between one layer and three is the difference between a normal day and a long one, and you should see that in the quote rather than in a variation afterwards.
For the full process, see garage floor coating.
Common questions from Gardendale
Our garage is really a workshop. Anything different?
Yes. More chemical resistance in the topcoat, more film build for point loads and impact, and aggregate for grip because oil on a glossy floor is dangerous.
We have a lift in the garage.
Tell us before we quote. The coating terminates around the base plates rather than running underneath, and that detail is where poorly done workshop floors start peeling.
Our 1960s garage floor has paint on it.
It grinds off. We cut a test patch first, because one layer and three layers are very different days of work.
The floor is soaked in oil from decades of use.
Degreasing then grinding handles most of it. Where oil has wicked very deep, the worst areas occasionally need cutting out, and that is better found before quoting.
We have a detached shop building. Can you coat that?
Usually. Those slabs vary a lot in quality because they were often poured separately from the house, so we would want to look rather than quote blind.
What colour works in a workshop?
Mid-tone warm greys with a flake blend. Light shows every drip, dark makes it hard to find a dropped bolt.
Get a free quote
Tell us the space and roughly how big it is. We'll come measure it, and you get the scope and the price in writing.