Metallic Epoxy Floors in Vancouver, WA

A metallic floor is the one coating where the concrete underneath has to be honest with you. Flake hides a wavy slab. Metallic does the opposite: the pigment pools in every low spot and thins over every high one, so a dip you never noticed becomes a dark lake in the pattern. That is why the first thing we do on a Vancouver estimate is put a straightedge on the floor, not a color chart.

Vancouver has more slab variety than any town we serve. The 1940s garages west of I-5 are thin and rarely flat. The 1990s slabs out in Cascade Park and Fisher's Landing are usually level enough to go straight to grinding. The fresh concrete at the Waterfront and in Felida is flat and smooth, but it is also young, and young concrete holds water that will cloud a metallic from below.

Where Metallic Makes Sense in Vancouver and Where It Does Not

Most of the metallic work around here goes into a space somebody wants to show off: a detached studio in Uptown Village, a home bar in Riverview, a three-car garage in Ellsworth that doubles as a car collection. The floor is a clear 100% solids epoxy loaded with metallic pigment, moved around by hand with rollers, brushes, and sometimes a leaf blower, then locked under a polyaspartic topcoat at 40 to 60 mils. No two come out alike because nobody can repeat a pour.

Our winters are wet from November into May and the freeze is mild, so the risk to a Vancouver floor is vapor pushing up through the slab, not frost heaving it. Vapor under a flake floor is bad. Vapor under a clear metallic is worse, because you can see the haze it leaves. Every slab in town gets a moisture test before we commit, and the old barrier-free slabs near Fruit Valley and Vancouver Lake almost always get a mitigating primer.

Our Metallic Epoxy Floors System

Materials: Metallic pigment, 100% solids clear epoxy, polyaspartic topcoat
Thickness: 40-60 mils
Install time: 2-3 days
Walk on it: 1-2 days after
Park on it: about a week after
Warranty: 15 years

Glass-smooth finish. High-gloss topcoat. High-traffic rated.

Reading the Slab: West Side, East Side, and the New Stuff

West of the freeway around Hough and Bagley Downs, the garage floors were poured before vapor barriers were standard and they have settled unevenly over seventy years. For a metallic finish we grind, fill, and often skim the low spots with a self-leveling patch so the pigment lays out the way we plan it. East-side slabs from the 90s in Fisher's Landing are the easiest metallic candidates in the city: flat, sound, and only in need of a deep grind to pull out 25 years of oil. New slabs near Esther Short Park and the Waterfront are flat but usually under two years old, so we meter them and sometimes tell an owner to wait a season. Being 10 to 20 minutes away, that is easy to reschedule.

Vancouver Neighborhoods We Cover

Hough, Uptown Village, Fisher's Landing, Cascade Park, Felida, Riverview

What a Metallic Floor Costs in a Vancouver Garage

Metallic runs $9 to $16 per square foot, roughly double a flake floor, because there are more coats, more hours of hand work, and a longer cure. A typical Vancouver two-car garage at 400 to 500 square feet lands between $3,600 and $8,000. A 700-square-foot three-car in Cascade Park is more like $6,300 to $11,200. Uneven west-side slabs that need leveling sit at the top of that band.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is a metallic floor so much more than the flake quote I got?

Three reasons. It is a clear system, so the slab has to be ground and patched to a higher standard because everything shows. It takes two to three days on site instead of one or two, and most of that is skilled hand work moving pigment. And it needs about a week of cure before a car or heavy shelving goes on it. You are paying for time and a finish nothing else looks like.

My 1950s garage in Hough is not level. Can it still take a metallic?

Usually, with extra prep. We grind it, fill cracks, and skim the low areas so the pigment does not puddle into dark spots. If the slab is broken into pieces that move, we would steer you toward flake or a fresh pour instead. We will tell you which at the estimate.

Will the metallic look different in my Cascade Park garage than in the sample?

Yes, some. The pattern is hand-made on your slab and never matches a sample board exactly. Lighting changes it too. A garage with a west-facing door and afternoon sun shows more depth than one lit by a single bulb. We bring boards to your space so you see the pigment under your own light.

The Waterfront townhome was finished last year. Is the slab dry enough?

Maybe not yet. Concrete under two years old often reads high on a moisture probe, and trapped vapor will haze a clear metallic from underneath. We test it. If the number is over the limit, we either put down a mitigating primer or ask you to wait until late summer.

How long before I can park on it?

Socks and shoes are fine on it within one to two days of our last coat, and parking waits about a week for the full cure. That is longer than flake, and we do not shorten it. Being home base, we can swing by during the cure if you have a question about anything you see on the floor.

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