Epoxy Flooring in Missoula, MT

Epoxy flooring in Missoula has to put up with a real Montana winter. Missoula averages about 43 inches of snow a year, and Wikipedia's climate figures show snow on the ground about 120 days a year, with roughly 45 days when the temperature never climbs above freezing. Through all of that, cars roll into the garage carrying slush, grit and road treatment. A floor coating here has to hold its bond through those months and still clean up easily in spring.

What comes into a Missoula garage on the tires

Local road crews use more than one material, and each one ends up on your floor. NBC Montana reported that City of Missoula crews spread sand when temperatures drop below about 18 degrees and spray liquid deicer in warmer snow events. Missoula County says it mixes salt into sand at about a 1 to 15 ratio and also uses a magnesium chloride brine of about 32 percent. Sand is abrasive. Under a tire it acts like sandpaper on a soft floor finish. Magnesium chloride is harder on concrete itself. A 2008 study by Sutter and colleagues for the South Dakota Department of Transportation found that concentrated magnesium and calcium chloride solutions react with hardened cement paste and can cause cracking, higher permeability and lost strength. A sealed, hard topcoat keeps both on the surface where a broom and squeegee can deal with them.

A wide mix of houses and slabs

Missoula's homes span more than a century. American Community Survey figures for 2019 to 2023, summarized by Point2Homes, put the city's median year built at 1981. About 13 percent of homes date to 1939 or earlier, and roughly 31 percent were built from 2000 to 2019. That spread shows up on the floor. A detached garage behind an older house near downtown may have a thin, patched slab with old paint. A garage in a newer subdivision is usually flatter and in better shape, though it may still carry a curing compound or sealer from the builder that has to come off. We look at every slab before we quote, because two garages of the same size can need very different prep.

Moisture and the lower level

Basement and lower-level slabs sit against the ground, and moisture moving up through concrete is the most common reason those coatings bubble or peel. We check for damp spots, white mineral deposits and old coatings lifting at the edges, and we test the slab before choosing a primer. Radon is also worth knowing about here. Montana's DEQ told KMPT in 2014 that about 53 percent of tests in Missoula County came back above the EPA action level of 4 pCi/L. A floor coating does not mitigate radon, so if you are finishing a basement, test first and fix any problem before the floor goes down.

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Systems we install

• Flake broadcast floors: colored chips scattered into an epoxy base until it is fully covered, then sealed. Good at hiding sand and dried brine.
• Polyaspartic coatings: fast-curing and UV-stable, so you get the garage back sooner and sunlight through an open door will not yellow it.
• Solid color epoxy: a clean, bright finish for basements, laundry rooms and workshops, with grit added where the floor gets wet.
• Heavy-duty shop systems: thicker coats for equipment, rolling loads and spilled fluids in shops, pole barns and commercial spaces.
• Crack and surface repair: filling cracks, pits and broken joints, and rebuilding flaked areas before anything goes on top.

What a typical garage job involves

• Agreeing on what gets moved out and where it goes
• A moisture check and a close look at cracks, flaking and old finishes
• Diamond grinding the full floor and edges, with dust collected by vacuum
• Filling cracks and pits, and leveling the worst spots by the door
• Base coat, flake or color layer, and a clear protective topcoat
• Written notes on cure times and on keeping the floor clean through winter

Protecting the valley's water

Missoula Public Health describes the Missoula Valley aquifer as an EPA-designated sole-source aquifer and the primary drinking water source for the city. That matters on a floor job. We collect grinding dust with a vacuum, bag it, and keep degreaser rinse and coating waste out of yard drains and the gravel beside the driveway.

Our work is centered on Missoula. We also coat floors in Orchard Homes, Wye, East Missoula, Bonner-West Riverside, Piltzville and Turah close to town; Lolo, Carlton, Florence, Stevensville and Victor up the Bitterroot; Frenchtown, Huson and Alberton down the Clark Fork to the west; Clinton to the east; and Evaro and Arlee to the north on US 93. Conditions change across that area. Older neighborhoods in town have more detached garages and older basement slabs. Subdivisions on the valley floor tend to have attached garages with newer concrete. Out on acreage in the Bitterroot and along I-90, a lot of the floors we see are in shops and outbuildings, and some sit on gravel roads that are never treated with deicer. Each town page covers what we know about the homes and floors there.