Patio concrete coating

What a patio goes through in Arizona

The sun is what a patio coating has to live with first. A garage floor gets sun on the first few feet when the door is open. An uncovered patio gets it from late morning until the sun goes down, every day of the year. The top coat is the layer that takes that light, and the two materials behave differently under it.

So patio epoxy with us is epoxy underneath, where it bonds to the concrete and carries the flake, and polyaspartic on top, the way every job is. That is how the two materials behave in the sun. What the written warranty says about your patio is in its own words. A covered patio is not out of the sun either. The part under the roof stays in shade, but the strip along the edge takes the low afternoon sun, and on a west facing patio that strip reaches well under the roof by late afternoon.

Water is the other thing. A patio is poured with a slight fall away from the house, so rain and hose water run off toward the yard. Bare concrete soaks some of that water up. A coated patio sheds it, so wherever the fall is flat or dips, water that used to soak in now sits in a puddle until it dries. Monsoon storms leave dust in those puddles. Low spots and leveling we send out, so a patio that holds water is not a reason to go without a coating.

Grills, planters and what is already on the slab

What is on a patio matters as much as the weather. A metal planter stand or a wet pot leaves a rust ring, and the rust sits in the top of the concrete, not on it. Grease from a grill soaks in the way oil does on a garage floor. A patio may also carry an old sealer or a coat of concrete paint from a previous owner. A coating laid over grease, paint or sealer grips that film instead of the concrete, and when the film lets go, the coating goes with it.

That is why every patio starts with the diamond grinder, the same as a garage floor. The grind takes the slab down to open concrete so the base coat keys into it. Patios also get wet, so we ask at the quote how much grip you want in the top coat. It is your call, made standing on the slab, and the answer goes on the quote.

How we coat a patio

• We blow the patio off, grind the whole slab with a diamond grinder and vacuum it, so the base coat lands on open concrete and not on grease, rust or an old sealer.
• We fill cracks before anything goes down, so a crack does not collect dirt and water under the coating. Crack filling is an add-on priced on your quote.
• We lay the epoxy base coat and broadcast the flake into it while it is wet. Epoxy is what bonds to the concrete, and the flake locks into it and gives the surface texture underfoot.
• We leave the patio to hold for 24 hours, so the base coat sets up hard before anything goes over it.
• We come back, scrape off the loose flake and roll on the polyaspartic clear coat, which seals the flake in and takes the sun.

The 24 hour hold between the two coats is why a patio is a two day install, outdoors the same as in a garage.

What it costs and what to expect

We price by the square foot, always. A bigger patio costs more, and so do crack filling or an old coating that has to come off first. Jayson comes out, measures the patio and gives you the price in person, and you pick your blend and book the install date at the same visit. If you would rather spread the cost, financing is available through Affirm. If the concrete runs on from the patio, a driveway or the walkways and sidewalks around the house go on the same quote, each priced by its own footage, like everything else we do.

Jayson is on every job, and the installers who start your floor are the ones who finish it. For those two days the patio is out of use, and the door onto it is one to keep shut while the coats cure, since both of them smell. Kids and pets stay off the patio until it takes feet, 24 hours after we finish. We install through the Arizona summer and do not shut down for the heat, and a monsoon day is a call we make job by job. We coat patios in Peoria, Glendale, Sun City, Youngtown, El Mirage, Sun City West, Surprise, Litchfield Park and Phoenix, and the service areas page shows how far each one is from the office.