Platinum Applicator Spotlight - Surfacex
Surfacex Concrete Floor Coating Company: consistently creating long-lasting floors while reliably meeting customers’ schedules, using Ucrete® and other performance flooring products from Master Builders Solutions
Surfacex Concrete Floor Coating Company of Montréal, Canada can trace its beginnings back to a summer painting enterprise started by company President François-Xavier La Rue while still in college. After graduation, he was able to turn the company into a full-time professional painting business. But, he says, he didn’t really find his true calling until a customer asked if he and his team also did floor coatings.
“Painting has been done for hundreds of years and there are so many people doing it that it’s hard to really stand out and make a difference with a clearly superior job,” La Rue explained. “Floor coatings were new and challenging and not a lot of people were doing higher end projects really well. We found that through hiring very talented and meticulous people, training them well, investing in the best equipment and using a clearly superior product, we could build a reputation for truly excellent floor coating work that really stands out from the pack.”According to La Rue, backing his people’s high-quality work with flexibility—"working evenings, weekends, whatever it takes,” as well as a commitment to 100% reliability—“if we promise it will be done Monday, it will be done Monday,” has enabled his company to grow exponentially. Indeed, his 12-person crew has completed thousands of floor coating jobs over the years, with a particular specialty in the food and beverage industry, as well as industrial and commercial organizations of all kinds.Over the past few years, he notes, the vast majority of those projects were completed using products from Master Builders Solutions, most often Ucrete® Cementitious Urethane Flooring, as well as sister performance flooring products MasterTop® SRS Methyl-Methacrylate (MMA) Flooring and the MasterTop® Epoxy Flooring line, the latter especially for Surfacex’ hospital and warehouse jobs. Surfacex also has an outstanding reputation for applying deck coatings on even the biggest garages and similar projects, using a slate of products from another division of Master Builders Solutions.
"Master Builders Solutions are our go-to for any kind of industrial and commercial work," said LaRue. "If an architect specifies something else, we'll try to convince them to try Master Builders Solutions. They'll usually listen - at least we always hope so. Master Builders Solutions' products are easier to use and deliver much better results. And they are even a better price a lot of the time!"
OUTSTANDING PRODUCTS, OUTSTANDING SERVICE
What does Surfacex like about Master Builders Solutions’ performance flooring products? According to La Rue, it starts with the packaging. “Unlike most any other brand, Ucrete comes in plastic jugs instead of bags, so that suggests higher quality right away,” he said. “The Ucrete packaging is easy to open, easy to move, it doesn’t leak, it’s easy to work with and mix, all of which my employees really like. Other manufacturers give you the product in bags that are always breaking and leaking so you waste a lot of product and have to keep sweeping stuff up all the time.”
Once underway, La Rue also finds that having Master Builders Solutions technical expertise at his disposal is immensely valuable. “Aspects of flooring such as what it will come into contact with and relative levels of moisture and humidity can change the equation, so there are a lot of options for different product combinations to use to get the optimum results. The chemistries really can be kind of sophisticated and applicators can benefit from laboratory expertise. Master Builders Solutions gives us access to that,” he said. “For example, we were doing a floor at a fertilizer plant that would come into contact with some very unusual, damaging materials.
We asked our Master Builders Solutions rep for some advice and they got back to us with the answers the same day!” La Rue also reports being very pleased with the training provided to him by Master Builders Solutions personnel. “They have shown my people some very valuable tricks and techniques. My employees get to be even more effective, and it costs me little or nothing. I don’t know of any other flooring manufacturer who does that,” he said. “They have really gone the extra mile to help us be more profitable.” Of course, at the end of the day, it’s the quality of the products that are paramount to him, his team and his customers. And here too, he says, Master Builders Solutions Performance Flooring products shine. “The drying time of Master Builders Solutions’ flooring products is very consistent and very predictable, so you can plan the exact amount of time to spread it and work it best,” he said. “With other products the drying time varies so you have to work a lot harder to avoid lumps, roller marks, uneven heights and so on. But with Master Builders Solutions flooring, once you mix it and it's ready to go, the drying time is always the same. So we can ensure the results are smooth, even, consistently perfect every time.
Even better, Master Builders Solutions floors don't peel off or crack, they stay 'forever'. "We never get called back on jobs," LaRue continued. "Recently I saw a brewery floor we did in Ucrete six years ago. They constantly heat wash the floor so it's really punishing. But the floor was still smooth. No peeling. No creacks. They love it!"
“Master Builders Solutions floors don’t peel off or crack, they stay ‘forever.’ We never get called back on jobs.”
MORE CUSTOMER SUCCESS
A recent project exemplifying what La Rue and Surfacex bring to the table can be found in the early 2023 reflooring of a Montreal bakery Boulangerie l’épicurien. According to La Rue, the owners had been burned with a very low cost, low quality epoxy floor and after less than two years, it was peeling and cracking very badly. He went and looked at it and told them they needed Master Builders Solutions Ucrete product for its high impact resistance, high wear resistance and high chemical resistance—as well as approval for use as flooring for HACCP accredited facilities. “A bakery floor needs to be easy to clean, resist high temperatures, stand up to a lot of traffic, and, hopefully last for 10-15 years or more,” he said. “That’s Ucrete.”
They agreed, but complicating the matter, they wanted the intricate project to be done quickly, mostly over a long weekend to minimize expensive downtime. La Rue guaranteed them that his team would be finished and out by Monday night.
Needing to remove and repair the old floor and prepare it for the new floor took special expertise and equipment, but La Rue knew his people were up to the challenge. Relying upon the easy to use Ucrete system—and fast, on-time, reliable delivery direct from Master Builders Solutions—they completed the project and were out of there by Monday night as promised, leaving a “perfect” new floor in their wake. “The owner loved it; it was smooth and clean and the color was exactly like the sample I showed him. With Ucrete it was easy to get the exact ¼ inch thickness throughout, and the finish was smooth—no bubbles, no roller marks. He said he wished he had done that right the first time! And, he was delighted that we were true to our word and schedule,” said La Rue. “Tuesday morning they were open for business.”
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“With Master Builders flooring, once you mix it and it’s ready to go, the drying time is always the same. So we can ensure the results are smooth, even, consistently perfect every time.”
–François-Xavier La Rue,
President, Surfacex Concrete Floor Coating Company
Surfacex is recognized as the top 5% most experienced, most effective installers of Master Builders Solutions Performance Flooring products.
