What Your Customers Need to Know About Winter's Effect on Garage Floors

2019-02-20

Winter is upon us, with a vengeance. In our Midwestern region of the US, temperatures are plunging well below zero and “Stay warm!” has replaced “Goodbye” as a standard greeting.

To meet the snowy and icy conditions, roads are covered in salt and de-icers. These chemicals help make it safer to drive, but they - along with snow and ice - attach to the undercarriage of our cars, only to be deposited on garage floors at work and home.

Your clients, whether residential and commercial, deal with the same scenario. Are their garage floors protected?

You can wait with your customers until spring, when winter's harsh effects on concrete patios, driveways and garage floors will become abundantly clear... Or, you can reach out to them now about cleaning, preparing and coating their concrete floors to prevent further damage.

Key to approaching clients about winterizing their garage floors lies in educating them about winter's effects. In cold weather climates, the water, salt, and snow cars drag in promote deterioration and cracking.

Water, in the form of ice and snow, is dropped by vehicles onto the garage floor. As temperatures rise and fall over the course of the season (or day!), water from melting snow and ice seeps into (unsealed) naturally porous cement. Deicers, similarly, create a liquid solution that seeps into bare concrete.

Once this brine is diluted by enough melting snow and ice, or when temperatures drop extremely low, the water or chemical mix refreezes inside concrete pores, expanding and slowly breaking it apart. This cycle can happen repeatedly over a single season, resulting in broken concrete known as spalling, where the concrete's surface flakes, peels or pops out.

Another side effect of winter's road salt is sub-florescence, the recrystallization of salt in concrete's pores left when the moisture in your garage floor finally evaporates. This causes spalling as well, and leaves behind those familiar (and hard-to-remove) white stains. (In next week's article, we'll discuss how to remove those stains.)

Don't let cold weather slow down your business. Why let your customers wait for springtime to reveal damage caused by winter? You can help protect their floors – and we can help you do it. Click here to schedule a chat with one of our flooring experts, to learn more about long-lasting, salt-resistant concrete coating solutions.