Hammond Epoxy Flooring has spent more than 20 years on epoxy-flooring in Midlothian and the rest of the south suburbs, and the job we are asked about most here is a room that has to do two things. It hosts games one night and a dinner or fundraiser the next, and the floor has to survive being cleaned after both.
That is a question about cleaning method as much as about coating chemistry. Some floors are built to stay dry and be dust-mopped. Others are built to be flooded with a cleaning solution, scrubbed by machine and vacuumed back up. Knowing which kind a room needs settles most of what follows, from the primer to the topcoat.
Our approach does not change with the size of the room. We open the concrete mechanically, test it for moisture before the price is final, and write the product line, coat count and finished thickness into the proposal so the floor you receive can be measured against what you bought.
A Parish Gym That Doubles as Midlothian’s Bingo Hall
On 147th Street, St. Augustine Parish shows the problem plainly. The parish was created on July 1, 2022, formed by the members of St. Christopher Parish and St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Parish in Posen, and it gathers at 4130 147th St. inside the village.
Games by day, bingo on Mondays
In a January 2025 letter, Fr. Robinson wrote that the school gymnasium has been used for combined activities such as sports training and bingo. The parish’s own bingo page describes it as a fundraiser, with doors opening on Mondays at 5:30 pm and the first game called around 6:30 pm.
That is one room carrying two very different loads in the same week. Practice and games want a court surface kept clean and dry. A bingo night brings rows of seated players, coffee, snacks and the drips that come with them, all landing on the same boards the next practice will run across.
What the maple trade association says
The Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association, based in Gurnee, Illinois, published a position statement on power scrubbers in 2022. It states plainly that the association does not recommend the use of automated power scrubbing equipment for your maple floor, and it notes that such use may void warranties.
The effects it lists include gapping between boards from excessive expansion followed by shrinkage, splintering and shaling of boards due to repeated wetting, cupping or crowning, discoloration, and chipping and peeling of paint and finish. It also warns that inadequate water extraction heightens the potential for floor damage, and that a significant number of floor issues its staff find during inspections trace directly to power scrubbers.
Why that is not a knock on maple
None of this says maple is a poor floor. It says maple is a game floor, and it should be cared for the way a game floor is meant to be cared for. The trouble starts only when the same room is also expected to behave like a banquet hall that gets hosed down at the end of the night.
Looking for epoxy-flooring closer to Country Club Hills? See Country Club Hills Epoxy-Flooring.
Bingo Nights, Dinners and the Floor That Gets Scrubbed Wet
An event room collects a different kind of dirt than a court does. Spilled coffee, soda and sauce dry into sticky patches. Dropped food gets tracked between tables. A dust mop moves the dry grit and leaves the rest behind, and a damp mop spreads the sugar into a film.
What a wet scrub actually needs from a floor
An auto-scrubber lays down cleaning solution, works it with brushes or pads, and pulls the dirty water back up with a squeegee and vacuum. The floor under it has to tolerate standing water for a few minutes, repeated chemical contact, and brush pressure, week after week. That is a reasonable description of a sealed resin floor on concrete and an unreasonable one for wood.
A 100% solids epoxy base coat bonded to a ground slab, finished with a polyaspartic or polyurethane topcoat, gives the machine a continuous surface with no seams for water to find. Spills sit on top rather than soaking in, and the scrubber can do its job without anyone worrying about what the water is doing to the material underneath.
Texture is specified, not promised
The MFMA statement also flags slip and fall safety because scrubbing changes the coefficient of friction on maple. On a resin floor the texture is a design choice. We specify slip resistance by the broadcast media and the topcoat we use, such as a quartz aggregate broadcast locked under the final coat, rather than by a slogan.
The tradeoff is real and we say so. More texture holds a bit more dirt and asks more of the scrubber’s brushes. We set the profile to match how the room is cleaned and write that choice into the proposal, so the cleaning crew and the floor are planned together.
Topcoat wear and recoat timing
Event floors wear in traffic lanes first, at doorways and along serving lines. A topcoat can be scuffed and recoated over a sound base without grinding the whole floor again. We note in writing when a recoat is likely to be due, so a hall is not surprised by a dull lane two years in.
Building a Hall for Events: Resin for Gatherings, Maple for the Court
The parish’s Work in Progress Update for 2025 says its Generation to Generation campaign was launched with a goal set on the building of a new parish hall, and it lists renovations of the gymnasium’s restrooms. The design, schedule and floors of any new hall were not something we read, and we have no role in that project.
Why a split makes sense for a multi-use hall
What the campaign illustrates is a common pattern for a parish or community hall. When a single gym carries both sports and events, one of the two is always being compromised. Giving events their own room with a hard, sealed floor on concrete lets that space be wet-scrubbed after every dinner, while the maple court stays dry and cared for as its manufacturers intend.
A resin floor is not a sports floor. We make no claim about shock absorption or athletic performance, and we would not suggest replacing a gym floor with one. The point is narrower: put each floor where its cleaning method fits.
What we put in writing before a hall floor is priced
For any hall or large room, we map cracks, spalls, old paint and patched areas before pricing, and a slab that should be repaired or replaced is named first. Moisture testing is written into the scope, using ASTM F1869 calcium chloride testing or ASTM F2170 in-situ relative humidity probes, and the proposal names the test and the reading the slab must meet.
Warranty exclusions are read out before anything is signed, starting with moisture, which most coating warranties leave out. Products are chosen inside Illinois VOC limits under 35 Ill. Adm. Code Part 223, which bind the applicator as well as the manufacturer.
Village permits and inspections
The Village of Midlothian Building Department at 14801 S. Pulaski Road works under the 2018 IBC. Every contractor working in the village carries an annual village license, a $10,000 bond and a $1 million liability certificate naming the village, and all licenses expire December 31. Inspections need one business day’s notice and run Monday through Friday only, so we schedule around that.
Midlothian Basements and Garages That Are Both a Gym and a Party Room
The same split shows up at home on a smaller scale. A basement with a weight bench and a TV becomes the place for a birthday party or a game-day crowd. A garage with a rack and mats in one corner hosts a graduation open house when the cars move out.
Sealed resin under the whole room, mats where the weights go
For a dual-use home room, we usually coat the full slab with a sealed resin system that can be mopped or scrubbed after a party, and leave the lifting area to removable rubber mats. Spills from a party land on the coating, and the mats come up when the floor needs a thorough wash.
A vinyl flake broadcast hides scuffs and gives a bit of texture underfoot, and a polyaspartic topcoat resists hot tire pickup in a garage that still parks a car. We open the slab by diamond grinding or shot blasting to a measured ICRI concrete surface profile, never by acid etching, and the dust is vacuumed at the machine rather than washed toward a floor drain.
Older slabs and the water question
The Census estimates show most Midlothian housing was built before 1980 and none since 2010, so a basement or garage floor here is usually an older slab, often one that has seen water before. The village’s 2016 RainReady plan names three separate routes for water: creek overbank flooding, sewer backup, and groundwater seepage.
They leave a floor in different states, and a coating is a sensible last step after only some of them. Seepage in particular is a moisture-vapor and hydrostatic pressure condition that a surface coating does not fix, so we test the slab before quoting. We never sell a floor coating as waterproofing or flood protection.
Lead line replacement comes first
Midlothian is replacing lead water service lines at no cost to homeowners, with the new copper line running to the first valve inside the house. If your basement is where the service enters, let that work finish first. We coat after the new line, valve and any floor or wall penetration are done, and keep the area at the meter clear.
Cure timing follows slab temperature and dew point rather than the calendar. A cold, unheated garage in midwinter is told to wait, because a coating laid on a slab near the dew point can blush and lose adhesion, and a party room that peels by spring helps no one.
- 20+ Years on Concrete
- Moisture Test in Every Scope
- Free Written Estimates
