SouthWest Transit Receives Resilient Renovation

SouthWest Transit has been transporting thousands of Minneapolis-area citizens around the city’s suburbs for over 30 years. With an entire fleet of buses in its employ, the transportation company requires a functional garage that can withstand the wear and tear of various vehicles.

SouthWest Transit was in desperate need for a new flooring system. After using Sherwin- Williams paint to cover and patch the existing bare concrete floor, the transit agency decided to invest in a long-term solution. Sherwin-Williams was tasked with delivering.

SouthWest Transit Flooring Solution

The staff of SouthWest Transit knew a year in advance that they had room in their budget for a partial floor replacement and asked the Sherwin-Williams High Performance Flooring team to provide recommendations on the best solution. The concrete substrate needed significant repairs, as it had not been fully replaced since the company’s inception in 1986. After the substrate was repaired, the applicator, Advantage Coating, got to work on applying coatings.

Surface preparation of the substrate included mechanically profiling the floor to remove all surface contaminants and laitance, achieving a concrete surface profile (CSP) of 4-6, which indicates a heavy to medium blast. After the floor was inspected for other imperfections, the primer was applied and cured for one hour to the appropriate tackiness.

The mortar blend was mixed and immediately applied to the substrate using skilled power troweling – a method unique to this type of epoxy mortar – followed by a Sherwin-Williams 3746 grout. Because of the conditions that the substrate would endure, a Sherwin-Williams 4638 polyurethane enamel was applied as a topcoat. Its properties make it resistant to a wide range of chemical, weather and mechanical conditions.

The staff of SouthWest Transit was so pleased with the look of the select area of flooring that they asked Sherwin-Williams to bid on two subsequent projects – one at 30,000 square feet - and one at 50,000 square feet, to complete the entirety of the facility’s floor in the following three years. In total, Sherwin-Williams supplied approximately 97,000 square feet of the TPM #115 Troweled Mortar System for SouthWest Transit.

Today, the facility continues to withstand the constant bus traffic, chemicals associated with heavy automobile maintenance, and the harsh elements of a Minnesota climate without worrying about floor damage.