Berwyn Epoxy Flooring installs epoxy flooring in Hinsdale with more than 20 years in the trade behind every slab we prepare, and we start each job by finding out what the concrete has already been through. A garage slab, a basement floor and a shared parking deck can all hold a coating for years, but only when the surface has been opened, tested and repaired to suit the system going onto it.
That means a diamond grinder or shot blaster on every floor, never an acid etch, and a moisture reading written into the scope as its own line. It also means a proposal that names the product, the system build and the finished thickness, so an owner or a board can hold the finished floor up against the paper. Where a slab has cracks, a failing old coating or damage that a coating would only hide, we say so before anyone signs.
In this village that work runs from single-family garages to the shared floors of townhome and condominium communities, where the decision belongs to a board rather than one household. Both get the same preparation, and the paperwork changes to match who is paying.
April 2013: When a Hinsdale Parking Garage Went Under Water
Hinsdale is a village in DuPage County with a small portion in Cook County, and its largest block of condominiums and townhomes is Graue Mill, a gated community beside Salt Creek in the York Township part of the village. The Graue Mill subdivision holds more than 340 residences, and in April 2013 an entire underground parking structure there went under water with the residents’ cars inside it. First responders evacuated residents with boats and large dump trucks.
That was one of three significant floods there in five years, and it was the one that prompted a response. For a flooring contractor it is also the most important fact about that parking floor: the slab has already spent time submerged, and nobody should quote a coating for it as though it had not.
Floodgates, Floodwalls and Four Pump Stations
The DuPage County Stormwater Management Department, the Village of Hinsdale and the Graue Mill Homeowners Association then shared the local cost of a flood protection project: four pump stations, 13 floodgates, more than 2,500 feet of storm sewer and more than 3,100 linear feet of concrete floodwalls and earthen berms. Construction began in November 2015 and was finished in 2018, with federal and state money alongside the local share. The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County provided land for compensatory storage.
A coating plays no part in that protection, and we never present one as if it did. The floodgates and pumps exist to hold floodwater back from the homes; an epoxy system exists to stand up to tires, drips and cleaning once the floor is dry. The public record does not say the parking structure has gone under since 2018, and we do not imply otherwise.
What That History Means for a Quote
A slab that has been submerged once is not automatically a bad candidate for epoxy, and it is not automatically a good one. The answer is in the concrete as it stands now, and testing is the only way to find it. We do that on site before a number is written down.
Looking for epoxy-flooring closer to Northlake? See Northlake Epoxy-Flooring.
A Shared Garage Floor Is the Association’s Decision
Hinsdale’s multi-unit housing is concentrated rather than scattered. Census estimates put 399 units in buildings of 20 or more, in a village where most homes are detached houses. In communities like that, a parking deck or a common garage floor is usually an association’s to maintain, and the people who park on it are not the ones who sign the contract.
Who Approves the Work
On an association floor we expect to deal with a board or a property manager, and we write the proposal so it survives being passed around a meeting. Every coat is listed by product and build, so the board can compare bids line by line, and the moisture testing is priced as its own item rather than added later. Warranty exclusions are read out before anything is approved, and moisture comes first on that list, which matters more than usual on a slab with a flood in its history.
Planning an Association Budget
An association budget is usually set well ahead of the work, so we give a board numbers it can plan around rather than surprises. That means separating the cost of repair, moisture mitigation and the coating itself, so a board can see which part is the flood’s legacy and which part is the floor it actually wants. If the honest answer is that a section of slab needs replacing first, that goes in the same document.
Contractor Rules and Paperwork
Illinois issues no state license for flooring or coatings work, so before a Hinsdale job is scheduled we confirm what the Village of Hinsdale requires of contractors, along with bond and insurance. Village of Hinsdale Community Development handles permits, and most residential and commercial projects there take a combination permit; we check whether a given floor job needs one rather than assuming. For an owner’s own garage or basement, the Illinois Home Repair and Remodeling Act means a written contract and the state’s consumer-rights pamphlet before we start.
Preparing a Once-Flooded Parking Slab
Floodwater leaves things behind that a dry slab never collects. Silt in joints, staining, efflorescence and contamination can soak into the surface, and an earlier coating that went through a flood may have lost its grip in patches. We look at all of it, and if the concrete needs repair before any system can go down, the board hears that first.
Moisture Testing Comes First
An underground deck sits below grade, so we treat moisture as the first unknown rather than the last. We start with an ASTM D4263 plastic sheet test as a quick screen, then run ASTM F1869 calcium chloride tests for moisture vapor emission rate and ASTM F2170 in-situ relative humidity probes where the reading will drive the system choice. Those numbers decide whether a standard primer will do or whether the floor needs a moisture-mitigation primer underneath everything else.
Hydrostatic pressure under a below-grade slab is a different problem from a damp surface, and no coating should be asked to hold back water pushing up from the soil. When the readings point that way, we say so plainly and stop short of selling a system that would blister.
Opening the Surface
Once the slab is judged sound, we open it mechanically with diamond grinding or shot blasting to the surface profile the system calls for on the ICRI CSP scale. Acid etching is off the table, partly because it does not reliably reach a consistent profile and partly because rinse water from a parking deck has to go somewhere. Grinding dust is collected on site with vacuum extraction rather than washed toward a drain.
Products for an Enclosed Deck
An underground structure is an enclosed space, and what goes on the floor has to suit the air residents will walk through the next morning. We choose products within the Illinois limits on VOC content for architectural coatings, a rule that binds the installer as well as the manufacturer. For the base coat on a slab like this, a 100% solids epoxy keeps solvent out of the space, and the topcoat choice follows from the traffic and the cure window the board can allow.
Drains, Joints, Ramps and Other Multi-Unit Floors
A parking structure is a set of details as much as a floor. Trench and floor drains, sump pits, control joints, expansion joints, ramps and drive aisles each need their own treatment, and a coating that fails in a garage often starts at one of them rather than in the middle of a stall.
Drains and Sump Pits
We detail the coating into floor drains and around sump pits so the edge is sealed down instead of left as a lip that water can get under. The drain itself is not ours to redesign, and a floor coating does nothing to stop water backing up through it; the pumps, floodgates and the plumbing are where that question belongs. What we can do is make sure the coating leaves every drain open and the floor pitched toward it as it was.
Joints and Ramps
Control joints are cleaned out and filled with a semi-rigid filler, while moving expansion joints are honored with a flexible sealant rather than bridged with rigid epoxy that will crack along the line. Ramps get a heavier quartz aggregate broadcast for traction where tires turn and brake, and stalls usually take a vinyl flake broadcast under a clear topcoat. For the topcoat itself, a polyaspartic or polyurea finish resists hot tire pickup and abrasion better than many standard epoxy topcoats, and we name which one in the proposal.
Scheduling Around Residents
Residents still need their cars while a shared garage is being coated, so we plan the work in sections with the board or manager, closing one bay or row of stalls at a time and reopening it once the coating has cured enough to drive on. Cure is scheduled against slab temperature and the dew point spread at the slab surface, not a calendar date, because a below-grade deck can hold cool, damp air long after the weather outside has turned. Where moisture condensing on the floor would cause amine blush in an epoxy coat, we wait.
Beyond Graue Mill
Graue Mill is the largest concentration, but it is not the only place in Hinsdale where a floor belongs to more than one owner. Census estimates show 505 single-family attached homes, and wherever a garage, storage room or parking area is held in common, the same approach applies: the board hears the moisture readings, sees the crack and coating survey, and approves a named system before any grinding starts.
A unit owner coating a private garage within an association still needs the board’s rules checked before we schedule, since common walls, shared drives and exterior access can all be governed by the declaration. We would rather wait a week for that answer than have to stop a job halfway through.
- 20+ Years Coating Floors
- Moisture Tested Before Quoting
- Free Written Estimates
