Every slab is diamond ground and moisture tested before a coating goes down, and the proposal names the product and the finished thickness.
Berwyn Epoxy Flooring has spent 20+ years installing epoxy flooring in Berwyn, IL, with garage floor epoxy, basement floor coatings, polyaspartic and flake systems, metallic epoxy and polished concrete for homes and commercial buildings across the near west suburbs. Every job starts the same way: the slab is opened with a diamond grinder or a shot blaster, tested for moisture, and read for cracks and old coatings before a product is chosen.
Most floors we see in Berwyn are old concrete. A large share of the city’s homes went up before the Second World War, so a typical garage or basement slab has decades of paint, patches and adhesive on it, and nothing underneath it to stop vapor. We build the floor system around that, rather than around a product sheet written for new construction.
The proposal you get names the product, the number of coats, and the finished thickness, so what was quoted can be checked against what went down. When a slab needs repair or replacement before it can carry a coating, we say so in plain words before anyone signs.
What we do
Epoxy flooring for Berwyn garages, basements and businesses
Ground, moisture-tested epoxy garage floors for Berwyn alley garages, built with a salt-resistant topcoat that holds up to hot tires.
Densified, mechanically polished concrete for Berwyn basements, shops and commercial spaces, with the sheen and aggregate exposure chosen up front.
Fast-curing, UV-stable polyaspartic floor coatings for Berwyn garages and businesses, installed over a ground and moisture-tested slab.
Moisture-tested basement floor epoxy for Berwyn bungalows and two-flats, with old paint ground off and a system matched to the slab underneath.
Marbled metallic epoxy floors for Berwyn basements, showrooms and storefronts, built on a ground, flattened and moisture-tested slab.
Crack, spall, joint and scaling repair for Berwyn garage, basement and commercial slabs, with an honest call on when replacement makes more sense.
Commercial epoxy floors for Berwyn-area warehouses, auto shops, clinics and storefronts, sized to the traffic and scheduled around operations.
Full-broadcast vinyl flake epoxy floors for Berwyn garages and basements, with blends and chip sizes chosen from samples on your own slab.
Diamond grinding and shot blasting for Berwyn slabs, removing old paint, mastic and coatings and leaving a measured profile for the next floor.
Conductive and static-dissipative resin floors for electronics, lab and server spaces near Berwyn, grounded and resistance tested at hand-off.
Urethane cement kitchen floors with integral cove bases for Berwyn-area restaurants, bakeries and food service, installed around service hours.
We have been grinding, repairing and coating concrete for more than twenty years, long enough to see what an epoxy floor looks like five and ten winters after it went down. That history is why our scope starts with moisture and preparation rather than with color charts, because the failures that come back are almost never about the color.
Every slab is opened with a diamond grinder or shot blaster to a measured ICRI surface profile, so the epoxy floor coating locks into sound concrete rather than sitting on a film of old sealer and etching residue the way a kit job does after an acid wash.
No basement or garage slab is coated before it is tested, because a prewar Berwyn floor often has no vapor retarder below it. The test is priced into the proposal, so moisture is handled before the floor blisters rather than sold as a fix after it does.
Garage systems are chosen for the calcium chloride brine and rock salt your tires carry in all winter, so the topcoat resists the salt film and freeze-thaw cycling rather than clouding and peeling the way a thin single-coat paint does by March.
Detached garages behind Berwyn bungalows are reached and staged from the alley, with grinding dust captured by a vacuum on site so nothing is washed toward a storm inlet rather than hosed into the gutter between the garages.
Warranty exclusions are read to you before the job is sold, with moisture named first, so you know exactly what the coverage holds rather than discovering the fine print after the first problem.
An epoxy garage floor starts with a walk of the slab, a moisture reading and a look at every crack, then a written proposal naming the system. On install days we grind, repair, apply a 100% solids base coat, broadcast flake if chosen, and finish with a wear-rated topcoat, then hand back the keys with a written timeline for foot and vehicle traffic.
Most homes in the bungalow neighborhoods have a detached one- or two-car garage facing the alley, and that is where our crew sets up. Equipment, vacuums and material stay in the alley footprint, so the yard, the gangway and the house stay untouched while the floor is ground and coated.
A coating can only grip what it touches, and on an old garage floor that is usually a layer of paint, sealer or oil-soaked cream. Grinding removes it down to sound concrete and leaves a texture the epoxy bites into, which is why a coating rolled over sealed or painted concrete lifts in sheets once hot tires start pulling on it.
Older garage slabs were often poured straight on the soil with no vapor retarder, and today’s building code still lets a detached garage skip one. We test with an ASTM F2170 relative humidity probe or an ASTM F1869 calcium chloride kit, and read the result against the ASTM F710 guidance of 75 percent relative humidity or 3 pounds per 1,000 square feet per day.
Hairline shrinkage cracks are routine and get filled and ground flush as part of the job. Cracks with one side higher than the other, slabs that rock underfoot, or floors sinking toward the drain point to soil movement under the concrete, and a coating will crack right along with them, so we tell you when the slab should be replaced first.
The brine Cook County crews spray on roads dries on your car and drips off as a salty slush every time you pull in. On bare concrete it soaks in, recrystallizes and pops the surface in flakes, which is the scaling you see near the garage door, and a sealed resin floor keeps it on top where a squeegee can move it out.
Epoxy needs slab temperature and the dew point spread at the surface inside the product’s window to cure hard. A heated garage can be coated in January, but an unheated detached garage spends much of the winter too cold, and we would rather book you for April than leave a soft floor that never fully cures.
A tire coming off a highway run is hot enough to soften a weak coating, and when it cools it can bond to the surface and pull a patch away as you back out. Proper grinding, a full-strength 100% solids base and a polyaspartic or urethane topcoat are what stop hot tire pickup, not a thicker coat of paint.
A hardware store kit is a water-based coating a few mils thick, applied after an acid wash with a roller. A professional system starts with mechanical grinding, uses a 100% solids epoxy and a separate topcoat, and builds a film many times thicker, which is the difference between a floor that peels in a season and one that holds.
The price of a garage floor moves on preparation more than on size. Removing old paint, repairing spalls and cracks, adding a moisture-mitigation primer, and the choice between solid color, partial flake and full broadcast flake account for most of the difference between two quotes on the same two-car garage.
Nearly every manufacturer warranty excludes failures caused by moisture vapor from the slab, along with structural cracking, chemical spills left standing, and damage from snowplow blades or steel jack stands. We put that list in front of you at the estimate, moisture first, so the coverage is understood before the work starts.
A basement slab sits in the soil, so it is always taking on some moisture from below. Before we talk color, we run a plastic sheet test under ASTM D4263 as a quick screen and follow it with probe or calcium chloride testing, because the result decides which primer and which system the floor can carry.
A basement under a century-old bungalow or two-flat may carry several coats of paint, patched trenches from old plumbing, and tile adhesive from a recreation room long gone. We scrape and test each layer to find out what is bonded and what is not, then grind it all off before a new system goes on.
Berwyn runs on combined sewers, which carry storm water and household waste in the same pipe. In a heavy rain that pipe can surcharge, and water comes back up through the lowest opening in the house, which is usually the basement floor drain, so we keep the drain grate accessible and the floor sloped toward it.
A floor that has taken sewer water needs cleaning, disinfecting and full drying before any coating goes near it, and the old paint film usually has to go. We grind the contaminated surface off, retest moisture after the slab has dried, and only then quote a system rather than sealing contamination under a fresh coat.
An overhead sewer conversion or a backflow valve is what actually keeps sewage out of a Berwyn basement, and the city has offered help with both. If that work is coming, we suggest doing it first, because the plumbing trench through the floor has to be patched and cured before a coating can bridge it.
The white powder on an old basement floor is salt left behind as water moves up through the concrete and evaporates. It tells us moisture is active in the slab, and coating over it without grinding and testing first is one of the surest ways to get a floor that bubbles and peels.
When testing shows vapor emission above what a standard epoxy will tolerate, a moisture-mitigation primer is applied directly to the ground slab. It is built to resist much higher vapor pressure, and the topcoats go over it, which is often what makes a damp prewar basement coatable at all.
A coated basement floor cleans up after washer leaks, sawdust and dropped weights in ways painted concrete does not. For a home gym we often add rubber mats over a flake floor, and for a laundry area we add slip-resistant aggregate near the machines where water lands.
Basement prices move on how much old paint and adhesive has to come off, how many trenches and cracks need patching, and whether testing calls for a mitigation primer. Tight stairways that limit equipment size and rooms divided by walls also add time compared with an open garage.
A floor coating is not radon mitigation, and we never sell it as one. In Illinois radon mitigation is licensed through the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, so if your test came back high we point you to a licensed mitigator and coordinate so their suction point is sealed correctly into the finished floor.
A flake floor is a base coat with colored vinyl chips broadcast into it while wet, then scraped and topcoated. Blend colors and chip size change the look from speckled to nearly solid, and a full broadcast hides dust, tire marks and small slab flaws better than any solid coating can.
Metallic epoxy uses mica pigments that move as the coating levels, leaving a marbled, three-dimensional finish no two floors share. It takes a flat ground slab, careful mixing and a crew working the pattern in a short window, which is why we keep it to basements, showrooms and rooms where the look is the point.
Polished concrete is the slab itself, ground in stages, hardened with a lithium silicate densifier and polished to the sheen you pick. How deep the grind goes decides whether you see only the cream, a salt-and-pepper fleck, or full exposed stone, and an old patched slab will show every patch.
High gloss shows the depth of a metallic floor but also every footprint and dust trail. Satin and matte topcoats hide scuffs and tire marks better in a working garage, and we often suggest them over flake floors where the chips already provide the visual interest.
Colored quartz sand broadcast into the base coat gives a floor color and grip in one layer. It is the system we turn to for wet areas, ramps and commercial spaces where slip resistance matters, and the texture can be tuned by the size of the quartz and the number of topcoats.
A solid gray or tan floor is still the right answer for workshops, utility rooms and commercial back-of-house areas. It is easy to clean, easy to touch up, and with a proper topcoat it gives you the same chemical resistance as a decorative system for less.
Epoxy yellows, or ambers, when sunlight hits it, which matters in a garage with the door open all afternoon. Polyaspartic and aliphatic urethane topcoats are UV stable, so we finish any floor that sees daylight with one rather than leaving a bare epoxy to turn amber.
Saw-cut lines can divide a floor into tiles or a border, and contrasting colors can be laid inside them. Logos and lettering for a shop or showroom can be set into the coating, and existing control joints are either honored in the design or filled and coated over.
A commercial floor carries rolling carts, forklifts, cleaning chemicals and a schedule the building sets, not the floor. We spec heavier systems, plan for phasing and cure times around operations, and document the product and thickness for the owner’s facilities file.
Clinic corridors, exam rooms and support spaces can rarely close for a week. We work section by section with fast-curing polyaspartic or quick-cure epoxy systems, contain dust, and coordinate with facility staff on infection control so each area returns to service on a set schedule.
Restaurants along Cermak Road and Roosevelt Road need kitchen floors that survive hot water, grease and cleaners every night. In Berwyn, food plan review runs through the Berwyn Public Health District, so we confirm the floor finish and base details with your plan reviewer before the work is scheduled.
Hot washdown and thermal shock will lift a standard epoxy off a kitchen slab, so we install urethane cement there instead. The FDA Food Code calls for coved floor-to-wall junctures in food areas, and we trowel an integral cove base so water and debris have no corner to collect in.
Retail and office tenant spaces turn over between leases on short timelines. We can strip old flooring, grind out adhesive, repair the slab and lay down a polished or coated floor inside a turnover window, so the next tenant can open on schedule.
Forklift wheels and pallet jacks punish thin coatings at turning points and dock edges. Industrial bays get thicker epoxy or urethane systems with aggregate where needed, and joints are filled with semi-rigid filler so the hard wheels do not chip the edges.
Shop bays deal with oil, coolant, brake fluid and dragged jacks. We use chemical-resistant systems, detail around floor drains and trench grates, and coordinate with your lift installer so anchors are set in sound concrete rather than through a coating that will crack around them.
Electronics assembly, labs and server spaces may need static control. ESD flooring uses conductive primers, grounding points and conductive or static-dissipative coatings tested to a specified resistance range, so a person walking across the floor does not carry a charge to sensitive equipment.
The Chicago area is a 2015 ozone nonattainment area, and Illinois limits VOC content in architectural and industrial maintenance coatings under 35 Ill. Adm. Code Part 223 Subpart C. Those limits bind the contractor applying the product as well as the manufacturer, so we choose compliant products for every floor we install.
Warehouses, kitchens and clinics often cannot lose a weekday. We schedule grinding, coating and cure inside overnight and weekend windows and phase larger floors so part of the building stays in use while another section cures.
Berwyn Epoxy Flooring provides epoxy-flooring throughout the greater Berwyn area, with the same crews and the same standards on every job.
Good to know
Most two-car garage floors are ground, repaired and coated over two to three working days, and the bigger variable is the wait before you drive on it. Foot traffic usually comes back within a day, while vehicle traffic waits for the coating to reach its cure, which runs longer in a cold detached garage than in a heated one.
No. Every slab we coat is opened with a diamond grinder or a shot blaster, which removes the weak top layer and old sealers and leaves a measurable surface profile. Acid etching is the kit method, and it leaves residue and an uneven profile that a coating can lose its grip on.
Illinois issues no state license for flooring or coating work, so the rules are set town by town. Before we schedule a job we confirm that town's contractor registration, bond and insurance requirements, and on a home job we provide the written contract and consumer-rights pamphlet the Illinois Home Repair and Remodeling Act calls for.
Garage and basement systems are built on 100% solids epoxy base coats rather than water-based kit products, usually finished with a polyaspartic or polyurethane topcoat for wear and ultraviolet stability. The proposal names the exact product, the number of coats and the finished thickness so you can check it later.
Square footage matters less than people expect. The bigger swings come from the condition of the slab, how much crack and spall repair it needs, whether old paint or sealer has to be ground off, whether moisture testing calls for a mitigation primer, and which finish system you pick, from a solid color to a full flake or metallic floor.
A heated garage can be coated year round. An unheated detached garage is scheduled against slab temperature and the dew point at the surface, and when the slab is too cold for the coating to cure properly we tell you it has to wait for spring rather than coating it anyway.
No coating stops groundwater, hydrostatic pressure or a sewer backup. What a properly chosen basement system does is hold up to the moisture coming through the slab when testing shows it is within the product's limits, and we point you to the floor drain, backflow and overhead sewer questions before the floor itself.
Yes. Restaurant kitchens, clinic corridors, retail spaces and shop bays are routinely scheduled overnight or over a weekend, phased so part of the building stays open while another section cures.
Yes, and we read the exclusions to you before the job is sold rather than after. Moisture is named first, because vapor pushing up through a slab is the most common reason a coating lets go and the exclusion every manufacturer writes in.
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