River Falls, WI · East Twin Cities Metro Mon–Fri 8a–5p · Sat by appt Owner-operated · Veteran-friendly (715) 307-8302

Commercial Concrete Sealing · Twin Cities Metro · Est. 2003

Seal polished concrete without grinding it again.

Polished concrete in a store, a school corridor or an office loses its finish in the traffic lanes first, and the answers a facility manager gets quoted are usually another pass of diamond polishing or a burnishing program that never ends. Neither one is the only option. One coat of EPIC water-based urethane bonds to the concrete you already have, no grinding and no slurry, and is rated for 3 to 5 years with nothing done to it in between.

Text Dave · (715) 307-8302 What We Do
1 Coat Bonded to the concrete you have
3-5YR Between coats Manufacturer rating in normal traffic
4-5HRS To foot traffic Cut overnight, open in the morning
8LBS Moisture limit ASTM F1869, per 1,000 sq ft in 24 hours

What we install

Three scopes, depending on what is on the slab.

Concrete is the one floor on this list where the substrate has to be tested rather than looked at. What is on top of it we can see; what is coming up through it we cannot, and that is the thing that decides whether a coating holds.

Smallest scope

Spot Repair

A traffic lane, an entry, or the run in front of a register.

Concrete wears where the building funnels people, and on a sealed floor that shows up as dulling long before anything reaches the concrete itself. We mask the area, sand the existing finish to dull it, clean it and recoat that section. The rest of the floor is not touched.
  • Sanded, cleaned and recoated in place
  • Masked to the edge of the worn area
  • Usually a single visit
  • No grinding and no dust

Most common

Clean & Seal

Test the slab, take off whatever is on it, and seal the floor.

The main job. The slab gets moisture tested before anything is agreed, then whatever is on the concrete comes off, the floor is neutralized and pH tested, and one coat goes down. Gloss reads bright in retail and lobbies; matte suits a floor where a shine would look wrong or where scuffing shows. Traction additive goes in wherever the floor takes water.
  • Calcium chloride moisture test before we commit
  • Existing sealer or guard removed and extracted
  • Neutralized and pH tested before coating
  • Gloss or matte, traction additive available

Scheduled Recoat

The 3 to 5 year reapplication.

When the finish is ready, the floor is sanded and one coat goes back on. Nothing is stripped, because there is no wax or guard on it to remove, and the slab has already been tested once. That makes the recoat a considerably smaller job than the first one, and it can be scheduled around a break rather than a shutdown.
  • Sand and one coat, no stripping
  • Slab already tested from the first visit
  • Traffic lanes can be done on their own
  • Much smaller than the first job

Why we seal instead of re-polishing

What sealing does on a concrete floor.

Interior concrete is finished one of a few ways: burnished and left bare, densified and guarded, mechanically polished, or coated. All of them wear in the same places and all of them get quoted the same way when they do, which is more of what was done the first time. A urethane finish is a different approach. It goes on top, it takes the wear instead of the concrete, and when it is worn it is sanded and recoated rather than removed.

Polished concrete and the re-polish cycle

Mechanically polished concrete is refined by taking material off with progressively finer diamonds, then held with a densifier and a guard that is burnished back periodically. It looks excellent and it is a real floor system. What it is not is maintenance-free: the guard wears in the lanes, the burnishing gets scheduled, and eventually somebody quotes a re-polish, which means diamonds, slurry and containment in a building that is trying to stay open. Sealing over the polish takes nothing off the slab and ends the burnishing.

Where the forklifts are

This finish is rated for foot traffic. The manufacturer does not rate it for wheeled traffic, and we do not put it on a floor that takes pallet jacks, forklifts, scissor lifts or vehicles. That is a different product and a different price, and it is the polyurea system on our commercial floor coatings page. Plenty of buildings need both: sealed concrete through the retail floor, offices and corridors, and polyurea in the warehouse and the loading area.

Moisture is what decides it

Every film that fails on concrete fails for the same reason, which is water coming up through the slab and pushing it off. Before we coat a slab on grade we run a calcium chloride test to ASTM F1869 and want it under 8 pounds per 1,000 square feet in 24 hours. It takes 72 hours to run, it is done before anyone commits to anything, and a slab that reads over the limit is a slab we will tell you not to coat. Cementitious overlays and toppings are their own case: they have to be ground and primed first, and that is a scope conversation before it is a price.

The 6-step job

What the work looks like, step by step.

The same sequence whether it is a retail sales floor, a school corridor or an office.

  1. Look at the slab

    What the floor is: burnished bare concrete, densified and guarded, mechanically polished, or a cementitious overlay. Then what is on it, how the joints and any patches have held, and where the traffic actually runs. Overlays and toppings change the scope, so we establish that first.

  2. Test the moisture

    Calcium chloride test to ASTM F1869 on any slab on grade, run over 72 hours, looking for under 8 pounds per 1,000 square feet in 24 hours. This happens before a price is agreed, not after. A slab that reads high is one we will tell you not to coat, and it is better to know that from a test than from a floor letting go in year two.

  3. Strip and clean

    Whatever is on the concrete comes off: guard, old sealer, acrylic, or the residue of a burnishing program. Stripper dwells, the floor is machine scrubbed in two directions, and edges, joints and the perimeter get worked by hand. Concrete holds product in its pores, so this step gets checked rather than assumed.

  4. Extract and neutralize

    The slurry comes up with a wet vacuum, then a citric acid scrub brings the surface back to neutral and we pH test to confirm it. Concrete is alkaline to begin with, so this reading matters more here than on any other floor we work on.

  5. Check the conditions

    Air temperature, humidity, floor temperature and dew point are read and recorded before mixing, and the floor has to sit at least 5 degrees above the dew point. A slab is the coldest surface in the building, so it is the one most likely to fail that check, which is another reason this work suits the heating season.

  6. Seal it and hand it back

    Two technicians, one spreading and one back-rolling immediately behind, with traction additive mixed in where the floor takes water. The area stays closed until it is dry with the ready time posted on the door, and foot traffic goes back on in 4 to 5 hours on the fast formula. Then we go over cleaning, which is a dust mop, water, and no burnisher.

Common Questions

Common questions about commercial concrete sealing.

What does it cost compared to re-polishing the floor?
Sealing is the less expensive of the two in nearly every case, because the labor is cleaning rather than several passes of diamond tooling with slurry extraction and dust containment behind them. What moves our number is how much has to come off the slab first. We walk the floor, run the moisture test, and give you a fixed written price before any work starts.
Can forklifts or pallet jacks run on it?
No. The manufacturer does not rate this finish for wheeled traffic and we will not put it where that traffic runs. A warehouse aisle, a loading area or a shop floor wants the polyurea system on our commercial floor coatings page, which is built for forklifts and hot tires. If your building has both kinds of floor, we will quote both and tell you which line goes where.
Will it go over polished concrete?
Yes, and that is a common reason people call. The polish stays where it is, the guard and any burnishing residue come off, and one coat goes over the top. The floor keeps the look the polishing gave it and stops needing the burnisher to hold it. What it will not do is restore a polished floor that has been physically worn through, which needs material removed before anything goes on.
What is the moisture test and why does it happen first?
It is a calcium chloride test run to ASTM F1869. A measured dish of salt sits under a sealed dome on the bare slab for 72 hours and is weighed to find how much water vapor the concrete is giving off. Anything under 8 pounds per 1,000 square feet in 24 hours is fine to coat. Over that, moisture will push the film off the slab eventually no matter how well it goes down, and the right answer is to say so before you have paid for a floor finish.
Does it change how the concrete looks?
It wets the surface, so the color deepens and whatever character the slab has comes up rather than going flat. Gloss reads bright and reflective, which suits retail and lobbies. Matte keeps the concrete looking like concrete and hides scuffing better. They cannot be mixed to make a satin; that is done by adding aggregate to either one.
What about a cementitious overlay or topping?
Those can be coated, but not the same way. An overlay has to be ground and primed before the finish goes on, which is more prep, more time and a different price than sealing a slab. It is worth telling us on the phone if you know the floor is a topping rather than the original slab, because it changes the scope of the walk.
How long is the area out of service?
Foot traffic returns 4 to 5 hours after the coat goes down on the fast formula, 8 hours on the slower one, so an area cut in the evening is open the next morning. Large floors get split into sections so no part of the building closes for a full day. The finish is low odor and low VOC, 46 g/L in gloss and 25 in matte, which is what makes overnight work in an occupied building possible.
How is it cleaned afterward?
Dust mop, then damp mop with water or a neutral cleaner, and an auto-scrubber with a microfiber pad on the open runs. No burnisher, no guard, and nothing that adds a layer on top. For a building coming off a densify-and-guard program, that is usually the biggest change to the routine.

Where we install

Commercial Concrete Sealing across the Twin Cities metro and western Wisconsin.

We seal commercial concrete across the Twin Cities metro and western Wisconsin, in retail, schools, offices, clinics and light industrial. Most of this work runs after hours or over a scheduled break.

→ Get a quote for commercial concrete sealing in your city

Get a quote

Find out what the slab is giving off.

Tell us the building, the floor and roughly the square footage. We will walk it, run the moisture test on the slab, and put a fixed written price in front of you. If the slab reads too high to coat, or the floor takes traffic this finish is not rated for, you will hear that first.

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