Services · Coating systems
Three coating systems. One right answer.
Epoxy, pebbletone and rubber all go over concrete and behave nothing alike. What each does well, where it fails, and how we put it down.
How to choose
Start with the room,
not the finish.
Most people arrive with a photograph. We'd rather start with three questions: is the surface inside or outside, does it get wet, and what moves across it? Answer those and two of the three systems usually rule themselves out before anyone opens a colour deck.
Epoxy is a hard, dense interior floor that takes vehicle weight, dropped tools and cleaning chemicals. Pebbletone is an exterior surface where exposed aggregate gives grip on a wet slab. Rubber is soft, quiet and still grippy under bare feet, which is why it belongs around water instead of under a car.
One thing is true of all three: a coating follows the slab underneath it. None of them bridges concrete that is still moving, and none of them adds strength. So if the surface is heaving or split along a crack that keeps opening, the honest answer is repair first. That's a flat work conversation, and we work that side of the trade too.
Choosing a system from a photograph. Gloss, chip size and aggregate colour all read differently on a phone screen than across forty feet of floor in daylight. Ask to see a physical sample before you sign anything, from us or from anyone else.
The three systems
System 01
Epoxy: a dense, hard floor
for the inside of a building.
Our epoxy work uses Rock-Tred Polymer Coating Solutions, an industrial-strength polymer flooring product created in 1939, on commercial and residential jobs alike. We stand behind the product and our trained installation team. The work carries a warranty. warranty terms
Epoxy is a two-part thermoset. Resin and hardener cure by chemical reaction, not by drying out, so the film ends up dense and chemical resistant instead of soft. Once it keys into a mechanically opened slab, it stops behaving like paint and starts behaving like the top layer of the floor.
Where epoxy earns its place
- Residential garages, workshops and basement floors
- Gym, studio and sports facility floors
- Warehouse, production and back of house areas
- Showrooms, dealerships and retail sales floors
Where we'd talk you out of it
Unshaded exterior concrete. Epoxy ambers and chalks under sustained ultraviolet light, and at Colorado altitude that happens faster than it does at sea level, so a surface in full sun needs a UV-stable topcoat facing the weather or a different system altogether. We also stop short of a slab with moisture driving up through it. Vapour moving out of concrete lifts a sealed film away in sheets.
How the floor goes down
Profile the concrete
We grind or shot blast to open the surface, because resin needs a mechanical key and a smooth trowelled finish gives it nothing to hold. Skipping this is the most common reason coatings peel.
Repair what the grinder finds
We rout out static cracks and fill them, rebuild spalled edges, and treat the joints so they don't print through the finished surface.
Base coat
We lay pigmented resin and back-roll it while it's still wet, so film thickness stays even instead of pooling in the low spots.
Broadcast the flake
We throw chip into the wet base until the surface refuses more. Once it cures we scrape and vacuum the loose flake back, and that's what makes the finished floor read flat instead of gritty.
Clear build coats
Clear resin buries the chip, sets the sheen and takes the wear. This is the coat you renew years from now, not the whole floor.
How it wears, and what you do about it
A high-build epoxy floor absorbs what thin roll-on kits can't: hot tyre contact, jack stands, dropped weights, spilled oil. It wears from the top down, so the clear coat goes before the bond does. That's the failure you want. When the sheen flattens in the traffic lanes we scuff the floor and lay a fresh clear coat over it, and nobody strips the whole floor back to bare concrete to get there. Day to day it asks for a dust mop and a neutral cleaner, because grit is what scratches gloss. And rinse the salt off in winter.
System 02
Pebbletone: stone texture,
built for outside.
Pebbletone is a decorative aggregate coating system. It combines a protective surface with the natural, textured look of stone, and it goes over the concrete you already have. The finish is slip resistant and weather resistant, which is why it belongs on pool decks, patios, driveways and walkways instead of a rolled sealer that turns slick the moment it gets wet.
It comes in a wide range of colours and aggregate blends, and it's fully customisable, so we can match the surface to stonework already on the house. It bonds straight to your existing concrete and stands up to heavy foot traffic, UV exposure and extreme temperature swings.
- Pool decks and spa surrounds
- Patios and outdoor living areas
- Driveways and parking aprons
- Walkways, paths and entries
Where we'd talk you out of it
- Interior floors that get mopped: texture holds what a mop is trying to lift
- Garages where jacks, stands and dollies drag across the surface
- Slabs that are still moving, because the coating follows the crack
- Surfaces that meet a metal snow shovel or plough blade every winter
How it goes down
Clean and open the slab
Old sealer, oil staining and loose material come off first, because the system bonds to concrete and not to whatever is sitting on top of it.
Prime
A bond coat goes over the prepared surface so the aggregate layer keys into the slab instead of resting on it.
Trowel the blend
We mix the stone and binder on site, then spread the blend by hand to an even depth, because hand work is what lets the surface follow a pool radius or a step nosing cleanly. No machine does that.
Seal
Clear coats lock the stone in place and set how deep the colour reads. This is also the layer we renew later, which keeps maintenance off the aggregate itself.
Front Range slabs run through freeze-thaw cycling all winter, then hard ultraviolet exposure all summer, and both of those work on the sealer long before they ever touch the aggregate. So plan on periodic resealing as part of owning the surface. resealing interval
How it wears
The stone doesn't fade the way a pigmented film does, because the colour is the aggregate itself and not a coat sitting over it. What ages is the sealer above. And the fix is another sealer coat, not a new surface. A hose and a stiff brush handle the rest. You pick colour and blend from physical samples, so start with the colour selection page.
System 03
Rubber: soft, non-slip,
made for wet surfaces.
Rubber floor coatings combine a high-tech polymer resin with rubber. The mix goes over nearly any solid interior or exterior surface, commercial or residential, and cures to a non-slip, soft surface. For a wet deck, nothing else we install comes close.
Give underfoot is the whole idea. A resin floor is hard by design, while a rubber surface absorbs impact, deadens noise and stays comfortable in full sun. We can also build it to a profile that moves water off instead of letting it stand.
- Pool surrounds, spa decks and wet deck areas
- Splash pads and water play surfaces
- Interior areas where noise and comfort underfoot matter
- Steps, ramps and transitions where grip matters most
Where rubber doesn't belong
Under tyres. Turning wheels and point loads tear at a soft surface, so garages, loading areas and anywhere a forklift runs are epoxy territory. It's also the wrong call in a kitchen or a lab, where the floor has to be hard, sealed and scrubbed on a schedule.
How it goes down, and how it lives
- We clean the existing surface, check it for soundness and prime it
- We mix rubber and resin on site and place it at a set depth
- We trowel the surface out, then let it cure before any traffic
- We recoat worn areas in place instead of pulling the whole surface
Rubber wears differently from resin. Instead of losing gloss it gives up a little surface material along the paths people actually walk, and ultraviolet exposure stiffens what's left. But we can fix both while the surface still holds, which is the argument for looking at it early.
Side by side
The three systems,
on the criteria that decide it.
Texture, grip and location settle most of these conversations. Everything below is a property of the material itself.
| Criterion | Epoxy | Pebbletone | Rubber |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surface texture | Smooth and hard unless grip additive is specified | Exposed aggregate, coarse and open | Soft and slightly yielding underfoot |
| Slip resistance | Depends on the topcoat chosen | Slip resistant by design | Non-slip, including when wet |
| Typical location | Garages, gyms, warehouses, showrooms | Pool decks, patios, driveways, walkways | Wet decks, splash pads, pool surrounds |
| Interior or exterior | Interior; exterior needs a UV-stable topcoat | Exterior | Either, interior or exterior |
| Look | Flake or solid colour under clear gloss | Natural stone; colour from the aggregate | Matte, uniform, colour through the rubber |
Questions we get first
Four answers before you call.
Sometimes. We can rout out a static crack, fill it and coat over the repair, and it stays invisible. But a crack that's still moving prints back through any coating on the market, usually within a season. We look at the slab before quoting, and if the answer is replacement we say so and talk about flat work instead.
We can apply our epoxy products in temperatures down to zero degrees, which is why garage work doesn't stop for the winter. Slab temperature and moisture matter as much as the air, so we check both on the day. Limits for the pebbletone and rubber systems are narrower. cold-weather limits for pebbletone and rubber
We complete a residential garage floor start to finish in a single day, with a 24-hour stay-off period after that. Commercial products cure fast as well, and return to service is 24 hours. We confirm when vehicles can come back on before we leave the site. vehicle traffic timing
Yes. We stand behind the Rock-Tred product and the team that installs it, and the work is warranted. Written terms, coverage and length come with your quote. warranty terms
Next step
Describe the space. We'll name the system.
Square footage, what happens in the room, and whether it gets wet. That's usually enough for us to tell you which of the three belongs.