San Francisco Flake Epoxy Systems
Chip broadcast floors for the rooms San Francisco actually uses hard: the under-house garage, the utility basement, the back room of the shop. We grind, we moisture test, we broadcast flake into wet epoxy, and we seal it. The result takes grit and salt air without showing every scuff.
A flake floor is three things stacked: a bonded base coat, a layer of vinyl chips thrown into it while it is still wet, and a clear topcoat that locks the whole thing down. Nothing exotic. What makes one last twenty years and another peel in two is the concrete underneath and how honestly it was handled before the first bucket opened.
San Francisco slabs give us plenty to handle. Most of the garages we coat sit under the house, poured decades ago, sometimes with no vapour barrier at all. Add salt-fog air off the water and sand riding in on tires and shoes, and bare concrete starts dusting and staining within a few winters. Flake answers that room because texture and pattern absorb wear instead of advertising it.
We work the way a floor crew should work in this city: small footprint, dust collected at the grinder, material carried in when there is nowhere to park. We would rather tell you a slab needs another day of prep than hand you a floor that lifts at the threshold next spring.
Full Coverage or Partial Scatter
The biggest choice on a flake floor is how much chip goes down. Full broadcast means we keep throwing until the base coat will not accept another chip, then scrape back the loose material the next day. You end up with a surface that is essentially all flake, heavy texture, and almost total concealment of whatever the old slab looked like. That is what we put in most under-house garages here, because those slabs have history and their owners would rather not look at it.
Partial broadcast is the lighter hand. We scatter chip at a controlled density and let the base colour read through the gaps. It suits a laundry room off the kitchen or a studio floor where the room is already tidy and the concrete underneath is sound, and it stays a little smoother underfoot.
Neither is the upgrade version of the other. Send photos of the room and tell us how it gets used, and we will say which way we would go, including when the answer is the cheaper one.
The Order of Operations
Walk the Room and Test the Slab
We look at the whole floor, not just the good half. Moisture readings, a check for old sealer, and a look at the threshold and any drain. On an under-house garage we also check where water comes in from the street.
Grind, Fill, Flatten
Diamond grinding opens the concrete so the base coat can bite. Cracks and spalls get filled and cut flat. Old paint, mastic, and tire-melted sealer come off entirely. This is the day that decides how long the floor lives.
Base Coat and Broadcast
The base goes down and the chips go into it wet, thrown by hand so the scatter reads random instead of striped. We work in sections and keep a wet edge so there is no seam down the middle of the garage.
Scrape, Seal, Hand It Back
Next day we scrape the loose chip and vacuum, then roll the clear topcoat. We walk the floor with you, point out where we filled, and tell you when the car can come back in.
Where Flake Earns Its Keep
Under-house garages in the Sunset and the Richmond are the room we get called about most. Those floors take sand off the beach blocks, salt air that never really dries out, and a car that comes home wet nine months of the year. Bare concrete there dusts, stains dark under the engine, and turns the space into somewhere you avoid. A full broadcast floor with a proper topcoat sweeps clean and keeps looking the same for years.
Second is the utility basement in a flat: laundry, water heater, storage shelves, maybe a workbench. Those need a floor that shrugs off detergent and lint and does not get slick when someone overfills the machine. Third is light-commercial back-of-house, the prep corner of a café or the back room of a studio, where the floor has to be washable, quick to dry, and quiet enough that it disappears behind the work.
What these rooms share is age: older slabs, tight access, and a real chance of moisture from below. We would rather spend an extra half day testing and grinding than gamble on an assumption. If you want a heavier decorative look, our metallic epoxy floors in San Francisco take a different approach, and larger back-of-house jobs usually route through commercial epoxy work in San Francisco.
Texture, Grip, and the Topcoat Question
Grip comes from the chips themselves. Their edges stand slightly proud, and the clear coat follows that profile instead of filling it, so you get real tooth rather than a polished sheet. In a city where the fog puts a film of damp on everything, that texture is the practical reason to choose flake over a smooth coating. Where a room sees standing water, we broadcast a fine aggregate into the clear coat for extra bite.
On topcoats, the honest version. Polyaspartic cures fast, holds colour under daylight, and gets you back into the room sooner, which is why we reach for it on most garages. A quality urethane clear is slower but forgiving and easy to recoat later. Both do the job.
Sheen matters too. High gloss looks sharp in photos and shows every footprint and every bit of tracked-in sand. Satin reads warmer and hides dust between cleanings, which is what most people here pick once they have seen both. We bring samples so you choose from something real rather than a screen.
Living With the Floor Afterward
A flake floor is low maintenance, not no maintenance, and we would rather say so up front. Sweep or vacuum the grit, because sand is abrasive and grinding it underfoot is what dulls a clear coat. Damp mop with a neutral cleaner. Skip strong degreasers as a routine, they are fine for a spill and hard on the finish weekly.
Years on, the topcoat is the layer that shows wear, usually along the tire path and just inside the door. That is a good thing. The clear can be scuffed and recoated in a day without disturbing the flake, so the floor renews for a fraction of what it cost to build.
Want to see the finishes before you decide? Our project gallery has close-up shots of full and partial broadcast in daylight. When you are ready, send us the room details or call and we will talk through it. You can also see the rest of what we do across the city on our San Francisco service page.
Straight Answers. No Runaround.
Working Across the City
We install flake floors from the avenues out west through the Mission, Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, and the neighbourhoods north of the park. Hills, one-car garages, and streets you cannot block for a day are normal for us. Tell us the address and we will say honestly how we would stage it.
A Floor That Takes the Grit and the Fog.
Send photos of the slab and the access, and we will tell you what it needs before we price it.