Surface preparation

Black Bear Coatings & Concrete understands that proper floor restoration means more than just superficially correcting a few blemishes or covering up structural issues. The first stage of any restoration project is preparing the surface. Creating the proper surface for adhesion ensures that chemical and mechanical bonds are strong.

Proper concrete surface preparation is the most important phase in any project. Black Bear Coatings & Concrete performs all its own preparation for projects in-house. Our team is so skilled at this work that many times, we are called in to help others!

Shot Blasting

Shot blasting strips a thin layer of concrete to reveal a mechanical profile that will improve bonding for new floor surfaces. This technique blasts the concrete surface with steel shot (i.e., small steel balls) at a high velocity. Shot blasting removes contamination, as well as laitance (soft concrete), which could prevent coatings or other new surfaces from adhering properly.

Scarifying

Scarifying machines have metal or carbide disks that rotate at high speeds. They are highly effective at leveling uneven floors and smoothing the edges of concrete. Despite the aggressive abrasion associated with scarification, dust levels are minimized because machines are connected to vacuums.

Water Blasting

Sometimes shot blasting, dustless grinding, and scarifying simply aren’t viable solutions for concrete surface preparation. In these cases, water blasting can be a good alternative. With this technique, high velocity water jets blast unwanted coatings, adhesives, paint, or soft concrete from the concrete floor’s substrate. This approach results in an excellent profile to which new floor coatings can adhere. It is environmentally friendly, since no dust is generated. Water blasting machines may be used in conjunction with filtered vacuum recirculation to capture all debris.

Dustless Grinding

With dustless grinding, large planetary machines outfitted with diamond bits are used to grind the surface of the concrete floor. All machines are connected to HEPA filtered vacuums to minimize the amount of dust that is generated. Dustless grinding is often a good solution for facilities that have epoxy or urethane based coatings on their floors. This technique is effective at removing those coatings from concrete. The resulting varied profile is ideal for all types of flooring applications.

Vapor Mitigation & Underlayments

Concrete is naturally porous. Both new and old concrete can have elevated relative humidity (RH) within the slab. This moisture travels through concrete floors to the surface, resulting in bubbling, blistering, and delamination of floor coatings and floor coverings alike. Black Bear Coatings & Concrete has extensive experience with vapor mitigation techniques that can prevent this from happening. We understand how to apply chemical underlayments that prevent water vapor from passing through concrete slabs.

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