Miami’s Boat Repair Shop Epoxy Flooring
Fuel under the bench, solvent at the parts washer, bottom paint dust in the air and salt water on every hull that rolls in. 343 Epoxy coats marine shop floors across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and the Keys with systems picked for that mix.
Four Things That Wreck a Marine Shop Floor
Fuel and Solvents
Diesel, gas, hydraulic fluid and parts-washer solvent soften light floor paint. The coating gets picked for the harshest of them.
Bottom Paint Dust
Sanding gelcoat and stripping bottom paint throws abrasive grit across the slab, and every boot dragged through it scratches a soft finish.
Resin Drips
Fiberglass resin lands, cures and grabs. A hard, chemical-resistant topcoat lets a cured drip pop off under a scraper.
Salt Washdown
Chlorides ride in on hulls and trailers, then the hose pushes them into any chipped edge or crack it finds.
How a Working Yard Gets Coated
Walk the Yard
We look at where boats sit, where the hose runs, where stands get parked and where water pools before anything gets specified.
Test and Grind
The slab gets a moisture test first. Then we diamond grind it open so the system bonds into clean concrete.
Bay by Bay
Trailers and stands move off one section at a time while the rest of the shop keeps a route open.
Cure, Then Load
Foot traffic comes back first. Stands and trailers wait until the coating can carry point loads, and the written schedule says when.
Fuel, Solvent, Dust and Resin
We spec a marine floor off the nastiest thing that hits it, so the walk starts with a list. Fuel and hydraulic fluid drip under every engine that comes out of a hull. Parts-washer solvent splashes and sits in drip pans nobody empties on time. Bottom paint and gelcoat dust drifts off the sanding stations and settles as gritty film, and fiberglass resin falls off brushes and rollers during layup and repairs.
Bare concrete soaks all of that up and stains for good. Light floor paint lifts the first time it sits in a solvent puddle. A marine shop needs a heavy-build system with a chemical-resistant topcoat, ground into the slab, or the floor starts failing at the bench and spreads from there.
What a Jack Stand Does to a Thin Coating
A person spreads weight across a shoe. A jack stand puts the weight of a hull onto a small steel foot, and a loaded trailer puts it on a few tires that get turned in place. Hoists and dollies add shear every time they pivot. That kind of load dents thin coatings, and once the film cracks, washdown water and fluids get underneath it.
Thickness and bond carry those loads. We grind the slab open, fill cracks, and build the system up where stands and trailers live. If your crew parks stands in the same spots every week, show us during the walk. Those spots get extra build, and we look for stones trapped under stand pads, which do more damage than the load itself.
Which System Goes Where the Hose Runs
Two systems cover most boat shops. Urethane cement handles constant water, hot rinse water and heavy chemical exposure, and it puts up with a damp slab better than most resin floors, so it usually goes down in the wash area. Heavy-build industrial epoxy with aggregate fits the dry bays, the parts room and the engine bench, and a lighter color there helps the crew find a dropped washer.
A lot of yards split the floor between the two right where the hoses stop reaching. We work with ChemTek, Smith’s Paints and Floor Guard products and match the material to the exposure in each zone.
The Most Dangerous Patch of Floor
It is the wash area. It stays wet for hours, it collects soap, oil and resin runoff, and whoever stands on it is looking up at a hull. Put a slick gloss coat there and somebody goes down.
We broadcast quartz or aggregate into the system and lock it under the topcoat, so the grip survives boots and hoses for the life of the floor. The texture runs coarse where hulls get washed and finer in the dry bays, which still need to squeegee clean. Ask your guys where they have slipped before we come out. That is where the coarse texture starts.
Salt Air, Open Doors and Damp Concrete
Shops near the water work with the bay doors open, so salt air settles on the floor and afternoon sun reaches the first stretch of slab. Standard aromatic epoxy yellows in that light. Wherever daylight lands, we finish with a UV-stable aliphatic topcoat, and the stretch just inside the door keeps its color.
Slabs close to the water also tend to carry moisture vapor up from below. A coating sealed over a wet slab can blister and let go. We test the slab before every job, and when the numbers come back high we put a moisture-mitigating primer down first. Washdown that sneaks under a lifted edge carries salt with it, which is how a small chip becomes a peeling sheet. We wrote more on that, including how drains and coved wall bases get detailed, in our piece on what salt rinse water does to a Stock Island shop floor.
Scheduling Around Haul-Outs
Most yards cannot clear the whole building, and they should not have to. We split the floor into sections around the boats you have on stands and the ones due out. One section gets cleared, ground, coated and cured while the rest of the shop keeps working, and a route stays open for trailers and the hoist.
The sequence is on paper before we show up. It lists when each section takes foot traffic again and when it can take stands and trailers, because those two dates are never the same day. If a haul-out moves, call us and we shift the next section around it. Shops in the Keys can see how we handle that on our Key West boat shop floors page.
The Rinse That Saves the Floor
The best habit in a marine shop costs nothing: rinse the salt off at the end of the day a boat comes out, while it is still wet. Dried salt works into any pinhole in the topcoat and attacks from below, and it piles up right where hulls sit. A neutral cleaner and a squeegee handle the rest. Catch resin drips while they are still soft. Cured resin comes up with a plastic scraper and patience, so keep the razor blades in the toolbox.
Every floor we install carries our 5-year warranty on materials and installation. If something lifts, call Zach and we come look at it.
Questions From Yard and Shop Owners
What marine shop owners ask before they let us near the floor.
Will fuel or parts-washer solvent soften the coating?
How do we get cured fiberglass resin off the floor?
Can you coat the shop with boats still on stands?
What keeps the rinse area from getting slick?
Will sun through the bay doors yellow the floor?
What does the warranty cover?
Word From People Who Hired Us
“Best Epoxy Guy in the business. Transformed my commercial property. Definitely recommend him look no where else.”
“343 is by far one of the best in the business. Knowledgeable, pristine and flawless work. Professional, punctual, and the results back what they promote.”
Let Us Walk Your Yard
Send a photo of the worst stain in the shop and the bay sizes. Zach walks the floor with you, and the price comes back in writing. English and Español.