Old coating peeling or a dusty, weak top layer on your slab? We grind it down to sound, clean concrete your new coating can grip.
Concrete grinding and surface preparation in Castro Valley takes the weak top layer, old thin coatings and grime off your slab and leaves the texture your new coating needs to bond, so it's usually the first step before any epoxy, sealer or overlay goes down.
Most people call us when an old coating is peeling, the floor feels chalky or dusty, or they're planning epoxy and have read that prep matters. They've read right. The top skin of most slabs is a weak, powdery layer contractors call laitance, and a coating stuck to it comes up with it. Grinding takes that skin off, along with oil, old film and weak concrete, down to sound material.
The price moves with your square footage, with how much has to come off, since old epoxy, paint or glue takes longer than a bare slab, and with how coarse the coating on top needs the surface. Cracks and patching add to it. The schedule turns on the slab's age, what the moisture looks like and when the coating can follow. I'll look at your floor in person and put the price and the prep in writing.
Grinding is only half the job. These are the checks that decide whether the surface you end up with will hold a coating, and they're worth asking any crew about.
A slab ground to the right texture can still let a coating fail if dust or oil is left on it. Texture and cleanliness are two separate checks, and extra roughness doesn't make up for any of the dirt, so a floor has to pass both before primer goes down.
If your floor carries an old paint or thin epoxy film, diamond grinding can usually take it off along with the weak top layer. It's also used to smooth a floor after a coarser method has opened it up, so one slab sometimes gets more than one kind of pass.
Run too fine, a diamond grinder starts to polish the slab and close the surface, which is the opposite of what a coating needs. That's why it's a fair question for any crew whether they check how well the slab absorbs before they put the primer down.
From the first call to the final walk-through, here's how a grinding and prep job runs with us, and what you'll have in hand before any work starts.
Call (510) 931-7868 or send the form with a few words about your floor and the coating you have in mind. We'll get back to you to set up a time for me to come out.
I'll look the slab over for cracks, moisture and old coatings and ask how you'll use the space. You get a written estimate with the price and the prep spelled out.
Once you're ready, our crew grinds the floor to the texture your coating needs, cleans it and puts down the system we agreed on. Please keep the space clear while we work.
Before we leave, I'll walk the finished floor with you and go over how to look after it while it cures. We clean up after ourselves and leave the space tidy.
Prep has to match the coating going on top, so before we decide how far to grind, I'll ask what you're planning. A thin sealer, like the ones in our concrete sealing work, wants a smoother surface than a thick epoxy or urethane coat, which needs a coarser texture to hold onto. Pick the coating first, and the prep follows from it.
The same thinking applies to concrete resurfacing and overlays, where the new layer needs a sound, open surface underneath. Once the grinding is done, we leave the slab clean before anything goes on it, because, as I said above, a well-ground slab with dust left on it fails just the same.
I'd rather tell you your slab needs more work than coat it and hope for the best. Some of what a floor needs only shows once the grinder has opened the surface, such as soft spots or more old coating than we expected, and when that happens, I'll tell you plainly what I see before we go further.
We grind, clean and coat without the slab sitting open in between, so fresh dust and oil have less chance to settle back on it. This is what I recommend for most garages and basements.
If you or another installer will put the coating down, tell us the product, and we'll grind to the texture its data sheet calls for. Plan to coat soon after, while the slab is still clean.
We reply to every call and form within one business day to set up a visit. The estimate is free, on site and with no obligation, and I'll look your slab over in person before putting the price and the prep in writing.
(510) 931-7868In Castro Valley, building permits come from Alameda County, and work on a County sidewalk needs an encroachment permit. That permit's list names driveway construction and doesn't mention grinding, so whether your grinding job needs a permit isn't settled, and the County is the place to ask. If it does, I'll say so at the estimate and file it with the County for you, or walk you through filing it yourself.
Grinding concrete makes fine dust, and California's workplace safety rules require a dust reduction system whenever powered tools grind concrete, so we plan dust control into the job from the start. Construction projects here are also required to use stormwater best practices, the site steps that keep sediment and other pollutants out of storm drains, so we keep slurry and grinding dust from washing down your driveway.
We're based in Castro Valley and also work in Hayward, San Leandro, Oakland, Dublin, Pleasanton and many other cities around it. Most of the slabs we grind around here are garage and basement floors, often with an old paint or coating that has started to lift, along with shop floors for business owners who need them to work hard.
I got into this trade by grinding and coating my own garage floor and reading every product sheet I could get my hands on, then learned the rest on real floors, one slab at a time. We've been in business since 2017, and careful prep under epoxy and polyaspartic coatings is what we're best known for. I do the estimates myself and stay on the job with our crew from the first pass of prep to the final walk-through.
We're licensed and insured. Our promise is simple. Satisfaction guaranteed on every job. I'll treat your home or business as someone else's property, because it is. If you'd like to talk about your slab, please call (510) 931-7868 or send us the form, and thank you for considering us.
If you'd like bare concrete that holds up to stains and dusting without a thick coating, a sealer over a lightly ground slab is often the simpler finish.
When the slab is pitted, flaking or worn past what grinding alone can fix, an overlay gives you a new wearing surface on top of the old concrete.
We're based in Castro Valley and grind and prep slabs in the cities around it as well. If yours isn't listed below, please call and ask, since these aren't the only places we work.
Medium-grind concrete grinding in California usually costs about $3.50 to $4.50 per square foot. That's the going rate for grinding a slab to a medium texture, not our price, and a floor carrying old epoxy, needing crack repair or calling for a coarser finish can run differently. Your own figure comes in the written estimate after I've seen the slab.
Usually not. The prevailing view among flooring professionals is that acid etching doesn't reliably lift the weak top layer of a slab, so it falls short as prep for epoxy and other resin floors. If you're planning a resin floor, plan on mechanical prep such as grinding instead, which is the work this page covers.
Because a slab can feel bone dry to the touch and still hold enough moisture inside to lift a coating within months. The coating maker's data sheet or the project specification sets the acceptable limit, so ask which limit applies before coating starts. I look the slab over for moisture at the estimate.
One coating maker's guide says new concrete must be at least 28 days old before its coatings go on. If your slab was poured recently, plan the prep and coating for after that point, and please tell us the pour date when you call so we can schedule around it.
Yes, if you're eligible. The County's sidewalk repair program reimburses eligible owners part of the cost, up to $750, to correct a tripping hazard by removing and replacing the concrete or by slicing it. The program decides who qualifies, so check with it about your sidewalk first.
Please clear the floor completely, including shelves, stored boxes and anything sitting against the walls, so the grinder can reach every edge. Move the cars out, and let us know about any floor drains or low outlets. I'll go over anything specific to your slab at the estimate.
Please have your square footage, the coating you're planning and the slab's age handy when you call (510) 931-7868 or use our form, so we can plan the visit around your floor.
