New Westminster · Since 2001
Epoxy and industrial floor coatings in New Westminster.
Older building stock on the Fraser, where heritage-era concrete and mid-century parkades both need a different approach from new construction.
New Westminster
Older concrete needs assessment before specification
New Westminster has some of the oldest building stock in the region, and older concrete behaves differently. Mixes were less consistent, cover over reinforcing steel is often thinner than current practice, and decades of carbonation may already have reduced the concrete's ability to protect the steel.
Thin cover matters practically: it means corrosion reaches a point where it cracks the surface much sooner, and it means aggressive preparation has to be controlled so we are not grinding away what little protection the bar has. We assess cover before deciding on a preparation method.
Proximity to the Fraser also raises groundwater in parts of the city, so slabs on grade here get the same moisture testing we would apply in Richmond rather than being assumed dry.
- Building stock
- Heritage and mid-century
- Watch for
- Thin cover over rebar
- Testing
- Cover survey and moisture
Services
What we install in New Westminster
Parkade waterproofing
Traffic-bearing membranes for New Westminster parkades, ramps and roof decks.
Learn more →Industrial floor coatings
Epoxy and urethane systems for New Westminster warehouses and plants.
Learn more →Ground conditions
One city, two entirely different substrates
New Westminster is really two coating markets that happen to share a council. The old city runs down a steep slope from Uptown to the Quay on firm ground, while Queensborough sits across the arm on Lulu Island — flat, low-lying alluvial soil with a water table close to the surface. A specification that works in one is often wrong in the other.
On Queensborough the constraint is the same one that governs Richmond and Ladner: moisture moving up through the slab. A floor there gets an in-situ relative humidity test before anything is specified, because a slab over a high water table can feel bone dry and still carry enough vapour drive to break the bond of a coating laid over it.
On the hillside the ground is not the problem — the gradient is. Which brings up the detail that decides most parkade jobs in this city.
Where the wear actually happens
Steep ramps take the punishment
Because the old city is built on a slope, its parkade ramps are steeper than the regional average, and a ramp is the hardest-working surface in any structure. Vehicles turn, brake and accelerate on it, so the coating takes shear rather than simple compression. Water runs down it and concentrates at the bottom, carrying whatever the tyres brought in. Road salt collects in exactly the place the coating is already working hardest.
That is why a competent parkade specification does not treat a ramp as field area at the same build-up as a flat bay. Ramps and turn lanes get additional aggregate-loaded wear coats, and the detailing at the transition — where the ramp meets the flat, where the drain sits at the bottom — is done by hand before the field coats go down. A ramp coated at flat-deck thickness will be the first thing to fail, usually within a couple of winters.
The rest of the picture here is density. The corridor around the SkyTrain stations filled in with concrete towers through the 1990s and 2000s, which means a large cohort of strata parkades reaching their first or second membrane cycle at roughly the same time. Where those decks are suspended over occupied space, the system has to move with them — the reasoning is set out in traffic membrane versus epoxy on a suspended slab.
Questions
What New Westminster clients ask us.
New West has a lot of older buildings. Is that a problem?
It is a reason to investigate before quoting, not a problem in itself. New Westminster has some of the oldest multi-family stock in the region, and older suspended slabs with decades of chloride exposure commonly have delamination that only shows up once the old system comes off. We sound the slab and take cores first so the repair quantity is an informed number rather than a hopeful one.
Our parkade is small and tight with low clearance. Can you still work in it?
Yes, and it is common in New West. Low headroom limits which equipment fits, so we use smaller grinders and shot blasters and plan more phases with less area each. It is slower than an open deck, and it is entirely workable. What we will flag is if clearance is too low for the removal method a system genuinely needs, because working around that constraint quietly is how bad floors happen.
Can you coordinate with a heritage-designated building's requirements?
We can work within them. Parkade and floor work rarely touches designated heritage fabric directly, but access routes, noise limits and hours often carry conditions. Tell us at the enquiry stage if the property carries a heritage designation so the schedule reflects it rather than colliding with it.
How does proximity to the river affect the work?
Mostly through humidity and, on riverside sites, moisture in slabs-on-grade. High ambient humidity narrows the windows in which some systems can be installed, and moisture in the slab has to be tested rather than assumed. Both are manageable — they just have to be planned for rather than discovered.
Site assessments
Have a slab in New Westminster you're worried about?
Photographs and a rough area are enough to start. We'll come out, test moisture, and scope it properly.
Main (236) 873-2580 · Second (604) 230-0256 · estimating@westpacificcoatings.com