Coating systems
Four manufacturers, one honest comparison.
Tremco, Sika, MAPEI and BASF all make good systems. They do not make the same system. This is what actually separates them, and how we choose.
Why this page exists
Most coating failures are specification failures.
The floor that delaminated after eighteen months usually did not fail because the crew was careless. It failed because a rigid coating went onto a slab that moves, or a system with no moisture tolerance went onto a slab-on-grade with no vapour barrier, or a product rated for foot traffic went under forklift wheels. The installation was fine. The choice was wrong.
So this page is the comparison nobody in this market publishes: what each family of system is genuinely for, where each one stops working, and what it costs you in downtime. We install all four manufacturers below. We have no incentive to talk you into the wrong one.
01 — Traffic-bearing membranes
For anything a car drives on that has occupied space beneath it.
A suspended parkade slab deflects every time a vehicle crosses it, and it cracks. A traffic membrane is elastomeric so it stretches over those cracks instead of splitting along them. That single property — crack-bridging under movement — is the whole reason this category exists, and it is why a hard-wearing epoxy is the wrong answer on a parkade no matter how tough it is.
Systems in this family are built in layers: a primer keyed to the substrate, a flexible base coat that does the waterproofing, an intermediate coat on ramps and turning areas where the shear load is highest, and a wear coat broadcast with aggregate for traction. Where they differ is cure chemistry, and cure chemistry is what decides how long your parkade is out of service.
| Family | Typical use | Cure & return to service | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urethane, moisture-cure (Tremco Vulkem) | Standard suspended parkade decks, roof decks, ramps | Cures with ambient humidity; multi-day build with recoat windows between layers | The workhorse. Excellent crack-bridging and a long field record in this climate. Slower to build than a spray system, and cure rate moves with weather |
| Polyurethane hybrid (Sika traffic systems) | Decks needing chemical or UV resistance; exposed top levels | Comparable multi-coat build; some lines offer accelerated wear coats | Strong UV-stable top coats hold colour on exposed levels where standard urethanes chalk. Generally a higher material cost |
| Polyurea / PUMA (fast-set systems) | Work with severe closure constraints — hospital, hotel, transit ramps | Sets in minutes; often same-day return to traffic | The reason to use it is downtime, not performance. Unforgiving of substrate error, needs specialist plant and crews, costs more per square foot |
| Cementitious & hybrid deck systems (BASF MasterSeal Traffic) | Decks needing added wear body or slope correction | Multi-coat, conventional schedule | Adds thickness and durability where a thin film would wear through; heavier build and more weight on the structure |
Return-to-service figures assume a prepared, dry substrate and typical Lower Mainland conditions. Cold or wet weather extends every one of them.
The question we get asked most is which is best. The honest answer is that the fast-set systems are not better — they are faster. On a residential parkade where you can phase by quarter-level, a conventional urethane gives you the same membrane for less money. On a hotel ramp that cannot close for a day, the fast-set system is worth every extra dollar because the alternative is lost revenue. The system follows the constraint.
We install Tremco Vulkem build-ups across the standard range, including the Vulkem EWS wear system, Sika traffic systems, and BASF MasterSeal Traffic deck systems. Which specific configuration goes on your deck depends on the core samples, not on the brochure.
02 — Epoxy systems
Hard, chemical-resistant, and completely wrong on a deck that moves.
Epoxy is a rigid thermoset. It bonds hard to sound concrete, resists most industrial chemicals, and takes abuse from wheels and impact better than almost anything at its price. On a slab-on-grade warehouse, plant floor or shop, it is usually the correct answer. On a suspended slab with live-load deflection, it is the wrong one — it has no meaningful crack-bridging, so it telegraphs every crack in the slab beneath it.
| Build-up | Thickness | Suits | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roller-applied coating | 10–20 mil | Light industrial, storage, back-of-house, mechanical rooms | Thin film — will not fill or level a poor slab, and wears through under heavy wheel traffic |
| Self-levelling | 40–125 mil | Manufacturing and warehouse floors needing a flat, seamless, cleanable surface | Needs a sound, level substrate. Rigid — cracks in the slab must be treated first, not covered |
| Broadcast quartz or flake | 60–250 mil | Wet-process areas, food and beverage, anywhere slip resistance matters | Textured surface is harder to clean than a smooth one — that is the deliberate trade for traction |
| Mortar-filled epoxy | 1/8–1/4 in | Heavy impact and point loads, loading docks, tool and die | Cost and build time; still rigid, so thermal shock remains a limit |
| Moisture-mitigating primer | Varies | Slabs failing an RH test, older slabs with no vapour barrier | An added layer and added cost — but skipping it on a wet slab is how coatings blister |
We install Sikafloor and Sikagard epoxy systems, MAPEI epoxy build-ups, and the ResinTech systems we have run for years on Lower Mainland industrial work — including the CEB and HPP lines and the EWS (Extreme Wear System) flake build-up. On a documented 50,000 ft² slab-on-grade we placed 30,000 ft² in a single day, which is a function of crew size and product working time as much as of the product itself.
Before any epoxy goes down we test the slab for moisture. A relative-humidity probe in the slab, per ASTM F2170, is the only reliable way to know whether the concrete will drive vapour into the back of your new floor and lift it off. It is a small cost at the start of a project and it is the single most common reason we tell a client the scope is larger than they hoped.
03 — Urethane mortar and PUC
The floor that survives being steam-cleaned.
Polyurethane-cement — urethane mortar, PUC, urethane concrete, depending on whose literature you are reading — exists for one reason: thermal shock. Pour boiling liquid on an epoxy floor, or steam-clean it nightly, and the coating expands at a different rate than the slab beneath it and eventually lets go. Urethane mortar has a coefficient of thermal expansion close to concrete's, so it moves with the slab instead of fighting it.
It is placed at 1/4 inch rather than a few mils, it tolerates damp substrates far better than epoxy, and it can usually be installed on a slab that is younger than an epoxy would accept. It also costs more, has a shorter working time, and produces a surface texture that is deliberately not glossy.
| Variant type | Placed at | Built for |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy duty (HD) | 1/4 in and up | The most severe thermal and mechanical service — cook lines, retort areas, brewery floors with regular hot wash-down |
| Medium / multi-purpose (MF) | 3/16–1/4 in | General food and beverage production where wash-down is routine but not extreme |
| Self-levelling / smooth (SB, TC) | Thinner build | Areas wanting a smoother, more cleanable finish with most of the thermal tolerance retained |
| Rapid-turnaround (RT) | Varies | Plants that cannot give up a production line for a normal cure schedule |
| Integral cove | Formed at wall junction | Coving the floor up the wall so there is no seam for bacteria to sit in — usually mandatory for food safety audits |
Variant naming follows the manufacturer's system families; exact placement thickness is set by the specification and the service condition.
If your facility gets inspected by CFIA or a third-party food safety auditor, the coving detail and the drainage falls usually matter more to the outcome than the coating chemistry. We build both as part of the scope rather than as an extra.
04 — Polished and densified concrete
Not a coating at all — the slab itself, made harder.
Polishing is a mechanical process, not an applied product. Diamond tooling progressively refines the surface while a lithium or sodium silicate densifier reacts with free lime in the concrete to harden the top few millimetres. There is nothing on top of the floor to delaminate, which is why a polished floor cannot fail the way a coating can — its failure mode is gradual dulling, not sudden debonding.
| Finish | Grit sequence ends around | Reads as | Typical setting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ground / matte | 100–200 | Flat, no reflection | Warehouse, back-of-house, industrial |
| Honed | 400–800 | Low sheen, soft light return | Retail, showroom, schools |
| Semi-polished | 800–1500 | Clear reflection without mirror glare | Offices, lobbies, hospitality |
| Highly polished | 1500–3000 | Mirror finish | Feature areas, high-end retail |
Aggregate exposure is the other half of the decision and it is set by how aggressively the first cut goes: cream finish leaves the surface paste, salt-and-pepper exposes fine aggregate, and a full exposure brings up the stone. That choice is irreversible once the first pass is made, so we agree it on a mock-up panel on site rather than from a photograph.
We polish to 1500 grit as a standard commercial finish and use MAPEI densifiers and protective treatments including Mapecrete Hard LI. On floors that will see staining we finish with a penetrating guard rather than a film-forming sealer — a film on a polished floor defeats the point of polishing it.
05 — Joints, repair mortars and the things that decide whether any of it lasts
The coating gets the credit. The substrate work decides the outcome.
Every membrane and every floor on this page sits on concrete that has to be sound first. Delaminated concrete gets removed to solid material, corroded rebar gets cleaned and treated, and the void gets filled with a repair mortar chosen to be compatible with the surrounding concrete — not simply the strongest one available, because a repair much stiffer than its host concrete concentrates stress at the bond line and pops out.
| Condition | What it is | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Spalling / delamination | Rebar corrosion expanding and forcing the cover concrete off | Sound the slab, remove to solid concrete, treat the steel, place a compatible repair mortar |
| Moving structural joints | Expansion joints that must accommodate real building movement | An engineered joint system — including compression seal systems of the BASF Jeene type — not a bead of caulk |
| Saw-cut control joints | Slab-on-grade joints that need load transfer, not flexibility | Semi-rigid filler that supports wheel edges instead of letting them chip out |
| Cracks | Static hairlines versus cracks that are still moving | Static cracks get routed and filled; moving cracks get detailed with reinforcing fabric under the membrane so it can flex without splitting |
| Failed drainage | Water ponding on a deck with no fall to a drain | Slope correction before the membrane, or the membrane sits under standing water for its whole life |
We use MAPEI repair products including Quick Patch for fast-turnaround patching, and engineered joint systems where movement is real. On a parkade the joints and the drains are where the leaks almost always start, which is why we survey them before quoting membrane area.
06 — How we choose
Six questions, in this order.
- Does the slab move?
Suspended slab with live-load deflection means an elastomeric membrane, full stop. Slab-on-grade opens up the rigid systems. This one question eliminates more wrong answers than the other five combined.
- What is the slab's moisture doing?
An in-situ relative humidity test per ASTM F2170. A slab driving vapour needs a mitigating primer or a moisture-tolerant system, or the new floor lifts off in its first year.
- What hits the floor?
Forklift wheels, dropped steel, hot wash-down, solvents, road salt in winter. Thermal shock points to urethane mortar; chemical attack and impact point to a heavier epoxy build; road salt and freeze-thaw change the membrane detailing.
- How much downtime can the building actually absorb?
This sets cure chemistry and phasing, and it is the constraint clients underestimate most. A parkade that can lose a quarter-level at a time is a different project from one that cannot close a single ramp.
- What is already down there?
Core samples and adhesion checks. Whether you overlay or remove is answered by what the existing system is doing, not by what it is. We would rather find out with a core than with a failure.
- What does the building have to live with afterwards?
Maintenance regime, cleaning chemicals, expected service life, and whether anyone will realistically refresh a wear coat at year eight. A system that assumes maintenance nobody will perform is a system that will disappoint.
Questions
Specification questions we get asked.
Do you only install one manufacturer's systems?
No. We install Tremco, Sika, MAPEI and BASF systems, and specify from whichever line fits the deck condition, the exposure and the budget. A contractor tied to a single manufacturer has to make every problem look like the one product they carry. The trade-off is that we have to know four product lines properly rather than one, which is why this page exists.
What is the difference between a traffic membrane and an epoxy floor?
A traffic membrane is elastomeric — it stays flexible and bridges cracks that move, which is why it belongs on a suspended parkade slab that deflects under load. An epoxy is rigid and hard, which is why it belongs on a slab-on-grade warehouse floor that has to survive forklift wheels and dropped tools. Putting an epoxy on a suspended deck is one of the most common and most expensive specification errors we get called in to fix.
Why does urethane mortar cost more than epoxy?
Material cost is higher and it is placed at 1/4 inch rather than a few mils, so you are buying several times the volume. What you get for it is thermal shock tolerance — a urethane mortar floor survives steam cleaning and boiling spills that would debond an epoxy. In a food plant or a commercial kitchen that difference decides whether the floor lasts a decade or fails in a season.
How do I know which system my building already has?
Core samples and a look at the original construction documents. On a parkade we take small cores at representative locations, measure the existing build-up, and check adhesion — because the honest answer to whether you can overlay or must remove depends on what the existing membrane is doing, not on what it is. If the depreciation report names a system, that is a starting point, not a conclusion.
Can you match a system an engineer has already specified?
Yes, and on strata and institutional work that is the normal case. If the consultant has specified a particular build-up we install exactly that. Where we will say something is when a specified system looks wrong for the deck we are standing on — we would rather raise it before the work starts than deliver a floor we expect to fail.
Where these go
The services these systems belong to.
Parkade waterproofing
Traffic-bearing membranes for suspended slabs, ramps and roof decks, phased so your parkade stays in use.
Learn more →Industrial floor coatings
Epoxy, urethane mortar and broadcast systems for plants, warehouses and shops.
Learn more →Concrete repair
Spall and delamination repair, rebar treatment and compatible repair mortars.
Learn more →Next step
Tell us the deck, not the product.
Describe the building and what goes wrong on the floor. We will tell you which system family fits and, just as usefully, which ones do not.