Patios & Porches in St. Paul, Minnesota.

St. Paul is older than every suburb around it, and it is the one place where the detached alley garage is the normal case rather than the exception. Across Macalester-Groveland, Merriam Park, Summit Hill, Hamline-Midway and Dayton's Bluff, the garage sits at the back of the lot off the alley, holds one or two cars, has no heat, and stands on a slab that is either original to a 1910s or 1920s house or was replaced at some point nobody remembers. Those two facts change the job. An unheated slab has to be coated inside a temperature window, and an old slab has to be read before it is quoted: 1920s concrete is often thin, sometimes has no vapor barrier under it, and can carry a century of oil. Highland Park, Como and Battle Creek are the post-war half of the city, mostly 1940s to 1960s, with attached and tuck-under garages on slabs that grind predictably. Highland Bridge is the newest concrete in St. Paul, poured from 2019 on, and it behaves like any other new build. We diamond grind to bare concrete on all of them and moisture test before quoting any lower-level or tuck-under floor.

Patios & Porches specifically in St. Paul

St. Paul patios and porch slabs run older than the suburban average, and many sit against a house whose foundation has settled, so the slab has both a slope and a crack that need addressing before a coating goes on. Polyurea with a UV-stable polyaspartic topcoat handles the freeze-thaw and holds color in full sun. Anti-slip aggregate is standard on any porch step or shaded slab. The front porch slab on the 1900s-1920s stock is frequently the most visible concrete on the house.

Neighborhoods we work in

• Highland Park
• Macalester-Groveland
• Merriam Park
• Summit Hill / Cathedral Hill
• Como Park
• St. Anthony Park
• Battle Creek / Highwood Hills
• Dayton's Bluff
• West Seventh / Fort Road
• Hamline-Midway
• Payne-Phalen
• Highland Bridge