A New Era for Epoxies
The durable coatings are now decorative as well
by John Strieder
gets tired of coaxing the same boring colors out of concrete, the decorative concrete contractor turns to tinted epoxy to jazz up his work. “I’ve opened up the book to anything now,” he says. “The sky’s the limit.”
To put the finishing touch on a concrete portrait of a hummingbird, he spread glittered epoxy on the stone bird’s belly, giving it a shiny, natural look.
This is a new twist for a coating that is rarely celebrated for its artistic qualities. Epoxies have been used for years on concrete floors in factories, hotel lobbies and other commercial settings because of their adhesion, hardness and resistance.
 But innovations that improve epoxies’ performance have combined with a growing interest in their decorative capabilities to create a kind of renaissance for this industrial stalwart.
Tubbs is using it a lot these days in his less arty jobs as well. He’s laid down epoxy at the Irvine Spectrum shopping center, on floors at a Fatburger restaurant and a Trader Joe’s specialty grocery store, and to seal stamped stone on the shower walls of a house.
“It’s such a strong cover,” he says. “It gives so much shine.”
Epoxies are two-component systems — they cure as the result of a reaction between two substances after they are mixed. There are “single-component epoxies” on the market, but as Darryl Manuel, president of Vexcon Chemicals Inc., says, they aren’t really epoxies. “They’re alkyd paints,” he declares. “They don’t have the resistance of epoxies.”
Epoxies stand up well when compared to their competitors in the concrete covering field. They have several times the wear resistance of standard acrylics. They are more resistant to oil, gasoline and other abrasive spills than garage-floor paint. And they adhere to concrete better than urethanes.
Recent innovations have introduced epoxies with faster cure times, more light stability and more flexibility, says Jim Essig, western technical director for Crossfield Products Corp. “Epoxies are getting much more technically advanced to meet requirements from the marketplace.”
 The past five years have also witnessed a shift in home and garage decor from the monolithic gray concrete floor to decorative epoxy, he says. “Everybody is more interested in aesthetics now than they used to be.”
The residential market is showing fast growth, agrees Manuel of Vexcon, which introduced its PowerCoat Epoxy System in 1995. But the commercial side still has room to grow, he says, noting that epoxies cost three or four times as much per square foot as acrylics. “The market has been commercial because that’s where the value of the epoxy is versus other types of things,” he says. “The commercial people are going to pay for it. They don’t want to be shutting down the store to fix their floors.”
Mike Duarte, technical director for Versatile Building Products Inc., says the growing demand for epoxies in homes has been driven by contractors and clients, not manufacturers trying to expand their markets.
Using an expensive industrial-strength coating on a garage floor is often overkill, he acknowledges. But because labor and travel time account for so much of the bill on a job, buying a better sealer doesn’t raise the price much. And it can save the contractor (and the homeowner) a second trip. “You don’t want to be out resealing somebody’s house in two years,” he says. “You don’t want a callback either. You don’t want the sealer wearing off within the warranty.”
Besides, Duarte says, customers in the residential market want glossy surfaces — and, in his opinion, nothing delivers better than epoxies. A contractor can simply flood the floor, he says, and get a full film build, high sheen and a level surface in one coat. “You can’t really hide pockmarks with acrylics or urethane,” he says. |
