Etobicoke · Toronto & GTA
Waterproofing & Concrete Repair in Etobicoke
Etobicoke is our home municipality. Our shop is at 10 Plastics Ave, in the industrial belt off the Queensway, and most of the balcony, garage and plant floor work we do here is a short drive from it. Three separate building stocks sit inside one municipality, and each of them fails differently.
- Balcony Restoration
- Garage Ramps
- Plant Floors
- Trench Drain Repair
- Elevator Pits
- Utility Room Coatings
Balcony Repair: Two Very Different Populations
Etobicoke has two balcony problems, not one. The older walk-up and mid-rise rental stock around Kipling and Islington has slabs poured in the 1950s and 1960s, where the edge is spalling, the ceiling is delaminating over the reinforcing steel, and the slope has gone flat or inverted so water runs back toward the door. The newer glass towers along Lake Shore Boulevard and through Humber Bay Shores fail somewhere else entirely: at the cold joint where the slab meets the wall, and at the slab edge under extensive balcony glazing, where a large deck sheds a lot of water onto a small detail.
The older stock is where the volume of restoration work sits. At two five-storey rental apartment buildings on Crown Hill Place we restored all 28 balcony slabs, floors, ceilings and edges together, with extensive crack repair and patching, then parged both surfaces and finished them in a UV-resistant non-slip paint. The owner had been told the balconies would have to be recast or the building emptied. Neither happened, and tenants stayed in occupancy throughout.
Garage Ramps, Decks and the Water Cars Bring In
A ramp is the hardest-working surface in any Etobicoke condo garage. It takes every vehicle in the building twice a day, it takes the road salt those vehicles carry, and it is the one part of the structure exposed to full sun and rain. When the membrane goes, the substrate underneath is usually already cracked and pitted, so a recoat that skips substrate repair fails inside a season.
At a mid-rise condo on Esther Lorrie Drive the garage ramp surface had degraded under continuous traffic and weather. We stripped the old membrane, repaired the substrate back to a smooth crack-free surface, primed it as a bonding agent, installed the base membrane layer with a sand broadcast, removed the unabsorbed sand, then applied the second layer of the traffic deck coating system. Both sides of the ramp were recoated, and the work was split into two parts so the garage never lost vehicle access. We were back at the same building the following year for the utility room floors.
The Queensway Industrial Belt
Industrial floors are a core service for us, and they are the main reason our Etobicoke work looks different from our work anywhere else in the GTA. The belt running through the Queensway, Plastics Ave and North Queen is full of plants, warehouses and food-processing facilities, and the concrete in them is attacked in ways a condo garage never is: acidic wash water, hot water washdowns, harsh cleaning chemicals, forklift impact and thermal shock.
We have been working inside one south Etobicoke food-processing plant since November 2020, in phases: over 350 linear feet of cold joint repair and over 800 square feet of concrete patches in the early stages, a 4,400 SQF new production room slab shotblasted, crack-filled and finished with a single troweled layer of polyurethane concrete screed, and localised repairs across delaminated floor areas throughout the premises. The batching room floor was done over Christmas because that was the only window when production could stop.
Our Repair Methods
How the Work Gets Done in Etobicoke
Occupied rental buildings, condo garages that cannot close and plants that cannot stop production all push in the same direction: thin repairs, fast cures and short work windows.
Balcony Slabs Restored Without Recasting
Conventional patch concrete has no strength below about two inches, which is why a slab with 5 mm of damage gets chipped to two inches and formed. An industrial-strength adhesive with polymer cement bonds chemically instead, so the repair depth matches the damage and patches as thin as 5 mm hold on floors, edges and ceilings alike.
That is what makes a full-building balcony programme possible with tenants in place. Slope is corrected in the same pass, the ceiling and edge are patched overhead without forming, and the finish goes on last: parging for an even surface, then a UV-resistant non-slip coating on the walking surface.
Ramps and Traffic Surfaces
Ramp recoating runs as five steps, in order: remove the failed membrane, repair the substrate, prime, install the base layer with a sand broadcast for traction, then seal with the second layer of the traffic deck system. Skipping the substrate stage is the single most common reason a recoat does not last.
Ramps are staged in halves wherever a building has only one entrance, so vehicles keep moving. The finished surface holds traction in wet conditions and stands up to UV, salt, water and vehicle fluids.
Plant Floors, Trench Drains and Acid
Acidic water discharged across a plant floor breaks up the surface and then gets under the slab before it reaches the trench drain, eroding it from below. Around stainless trench drains we demolish only 5 mm, set a patch level with the floor so draining continues, bond it to both the old concrete and the metal drain edge, and finish with a cold-applied polyurea membrane.
For delaminated areas we sawcut at 90 degrees to a depth of half an inch at the edges, keep the chase between three quarters of an inch and an inch and a half, grind and scarify down to non-carbonated concrete, then trowel in cementitious urethane at a consistent quarter-inch thickness and back-roll it inside a 15-minute pot life. Where hygiene matters the coating goes down as an antibacterial cementitious urethane in two layers with non-slip aggregate broadcast between them. Adhesion tests at 1.85 MPa.
Elevator Pits, Utility Rooms and Piston Housings
At a medical facility on Lake Shore Boulevard West water had collected in the elevator pit and around the piston housing. We chipped and cleaned the cold joints, ran a continuous patch along the whole joint at a 45-degree angle with a fibreglass upturn around the pit perimeter, and applied a polyaspartic membrane over the pit floor and part of the walls. The housing was pumped out, injected with a polyurea-based foam, primed, filled, then capped with a two-inch concrete layer over an industrial-strength adhesive.
Utility room floors are a build-up rather than a coat of paint. In the F.A. unit, chiller and boiler rooms and the penthouse pool mechanical room of the Esther Lorrie Drive condo, each floor was graded for drainage first, then primed, base-coated, given a sand-filled top coat and a second top coat, with the cold joint in the F.A. unit room repaired as part of the same visit.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Do you actually work in Etobicoke, or just travel here?
Our shop is at 10 Plastics Ave in Etobicoke, so this is our home municipality rather than an outlying service area. Recent Etobicoke work includes 28 balcony slabs at two five-storey rental buildings on Crown Hill Place, a garage ramp recoat and utility room floors at a mid-rise condo on Esther Lorrie Drive, an elevator pit and piston housing at a medical facility on Lake Shore Boulevard West, and ongoing floor phases at a south Etobicoke food-processing plant.
Can a plant floor be repaired without shutting production down?
Usually, by sizing the crew to the window rather than the window to the crew. At one south Etobicoke plant we repaired the air compressor room ramp inside a single day because forklifts had to be loading again the next morning, and we did the main batching room floor over Christmas because that was the only full shutdown available. Thin patches and short pot lives are what make those windows workable.
Why does one contractor want to chip two inches and another only 5 mm?
The difference is the bonding system, not the severity of the damage. Conventional patch concrete has no strength below about two inches, so a contractor using it must chip to two inches regardless of how deep the spall actually is. A contractor using an adhesive and polymer cement can match the repair depth to the damage.
Can balcony slabs be restored while tenants are still in the units?
Yes, and that is how nearly all of this work is done. At two five-storey rental buildings on Crown Hill Place all 28 balcony slabs were restored with tenants in occupancy, floors, ceilings and edges, with no recasting and no building shutdown. Balconies come back into use as the finish cures, one stack at a time rather than all at once.
Does the elevator piston housing itself leak?
The piston housing does not leak. It is a fully sealed steel cylinder holding the piston and its oil, and it does not degrade or fail in the way people assume. The water problem is around it, not through it — the void in the ground surrounding the housing fills with groundwater, and that water then rises into the elevator pit.
Can a garage ramp be recoated without closing the garage?
Yes. A ramp is normally recoated in two parts, one side at a time, so vehicles keep using the other half. On the Esther Lorrie Drive condo garage both sides of the ramp were stripped, repaired, primed and recoated with a two-layer traffic deck system this way, and the garage stayed accessible throughout.
Need a contractor already working in Etobicoke this week?
We are based at 10 Plastics Ave and work across Etobicoke condos, rental buildings and plants. Assessments and quotes are free.