Epoxy Flooring in Reading, PA

Epoxy flooring in Reading usually starts on concrete that has been around for a long time. Census figures for 2019 to 2023, summarized by Point2Homes, put the median year built for the city's housing at 1938, and 56.9% of units went up in 1939 or earlier. More than half of Reading's homes (52.2%) are single-family attached houses: the brick rowhouses and twins that line the streets between the Schuylkill River and Mount Penn. Many of them sit over a basement slab that has seen decades of use, and behind many of them is a small garage off the alley. Those are the floors we coat most often.

What older Reading slabs tend to show

A rowhouse basement poured before the Second World War rarely looks like a new slab. We find paint layers, old tile adhesive, patched trenches where pipes were replaced, cracks that follow the walls, and spots where water has stood. Garage floors off the alleys are often thin, sloped and pitted near the door. None of that rules out a coating. It does mean the work starts with grinding off what is loose, testing what is left, and filling cracks and low spots so the finished floor is continuous and bonded.

Water from below and from the river

The Schuylkill has flooded Reading's lower precincts before, including during Hurricane Agnes in 1972 and again in June 2006, according to the city's Wikipedia entry. Basements near the river and along the creeks can carry moisture long after the water is gone. Moisture rising through a slab is the most common reason a basement coating blisters or lets go. We check every basement before we quote it. Where the slab is damp we use a moisture-tolerant primer, and where water is actively coming in we tell you the leak has to be fixed first.

Hot, humid summers and cold winters

Reading sits on the southern edge of the humid continental climate zone. At Reading Regional Airport, July highs average 86.5°F and the city sees about 27 days a year above 90°F. January highs average 38.6°F, lows average 23°F, and the 1991 to 2020 normals list about 28.5 inches of snow a season. Both ends matter for a floor. Summer humidity makes a cool basement slab sweat and can slow or cloud an epoxy cure. Winter brings road salt into the garage on every car. We plan the products and the schedule around the season, and we use fast-curing polyaspartic topcoats when temperatures are tight.

Limestone ground and radon

Parts of Berks County sit on limestone. Wikipedia describes Sinking Spring as having many underground streams that carve the limestone and form sinkholes, and the Kutztown area lies in the East Penn Valley, a broad limestone valley. Settling over that kind of ground can crack slabs. We repair stable cracks before coating and point out any that are still moving. The Pennsylvania DEP also estimates that about 40% of homes tested in the state are above the EPA radon action level of 4 pCi/L. A floor coating seals the surface of the concrete, but it is not a radon mitigation system, so we suggest testing before you finish a basement.

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The systems we install

• Garage floor coatings: a ground and repaired slab, a bonded base coat, a color or flake layer and a clear topcoat that sheds salt brine.
• Basement floor epoxy: a sealed, washable floor for finished rooms, laundry areas and storage, planned around moisture.
• Epoxy flake floors: vinyl chips broadcast into the base coat for texture and a finish that hides dust and scuffs.
• Metallic epoxy floors: a poured, hand-worked finish for basements, bars and rooms where the floor is the feature.
• Commercial and industrial floors: thicker systems for shops, warehouses and production space.
• Crack and floor repair: filling, patching and leveling worn concrete before it is coated.

What a typical job includes

• A site visit to measure the floor, test for moisture and look at its condition
• A written quote with the system, the prep, the repairs and each coat
• Diamond grinding with dust collection, edges and corners included
• Crack, spall and joint repair
• Base coat, color or flake, and topcoat
• Written guidance on cure times and how to care for the floor

Reading is the center of our service area, and we coat floors across Berks County: Wyomissing, West Reading, Shillington, Kenhorst, Mohnton, Mount Penn, Laureldale, Sinking Spring, Wernersville, Robesonia, Birdsboro, Fleetwood, Kutztown, Hamburg, Leesport, Boyertown, and the Spring, Exeter, Muhlenberg, Cumru, Bern, Amity and Maidencreek townships. Floors change a lot over that ground. The city and the small boroughs around it are full of pre-war rowhouses and twins with old basement slabs. Wyomissing and the townships have more postwar and newer detached homes with attached two-car garages. Places like Robesonia, Birdsboro and the Muhlenberg retail corridor have shop and warehouse floors. Each town page covers what we know about homes and floors there.