Hastings, FL, in St. Johns County
Hastings Slabs That Carry Tractors and Muddy Boots
Out in potato country a floor gets judged on whether it sweeps out and holds up. Matt matches the system to the work each building does.
A farm town in western St. Johns County
Concrete in Hastings is poured to do a job. The town sits out in the western end of St. Johns County and has been farming country for a long time, best known for potatoes. Head in from the coast and the subdivisions give way to fields, rural homes, barns, workshops and equipment sheds. A shine nobody asked for is wasted on an equipment shed.
That changes the questions people ask. Here they want to know what a floor will take: a tractor parked on it all season, fuel and fertilizer spills, dirt dragged in off the field on boots and tires, and a pressure washer every so often. Some barn slabs were poured long ago, never sealed, and have been soaking up all of that ever since. Looks still matter, just further down the list.
The ground under them is the same sandy, damp ground found across the county, and an older barn or shed slab may have been poured with nothing under it to stop vapor. So the moisture test matters out here as much as anywhere. A sealer or coating that traps moisture will cloud, blister or let go, and nobody wants to redo a floor they have to empty a whole building to work on.
Working buildings first, the farmhouse garage after
Most of what people around Hastings ask about is a working building: an equipment shed that needs to hose out, a workshop where a dropped bolt should be easy to find, a barn floor that throws dust every time the doors open. Those floors call for something tough and plain, finished so it does not get slick when it is wet. Color is an afterthought on most of them, and that is fine with us.
The house is usually a rural home with a garage or carport slab and a porch out front. Those get the same care we would give a garage anywhere in the county, a flake or solid color system over a ground slab, and they are often what people add once the shed is done and they see how it holds up.
The house is usually a rural home with a garage or carport slab and a porch out front.
Systems that earn their keep on a farm
What Matt reaches for most on Hastings slabs, and why. See all of Matt’s floors.
For a barn or shed where you want concrete to look like concrete, grinding exposes a clean, hard surface and a sealer keeps dust down and stains out. It is the plainest working floor we put down.
Where equipment parks and fluids drip, a thicker industrial build stands up to weight, scraping and chemicals that would chew through a thin coat. It takes longer to install than a garage floor.
A workshop where trucks and mowers get worked on does well with a solid color floor. Dropped parts stand out, and oil wipes up before it soaks in.
The farmhouse garage gets a flake broadcast like any other, because it hides field dirt between sweeps and stands up to a hot truck tire.
A front porch on a farmhouse takes full sun and boot traffic. A textured coating under a UV-stable topcoat keeps it from chalking and gives wet boots some grip.
Matt walks the barns before he picks anything
The farm side of the county is close to home too. Matt will want to walk every building with you, including the ones you had not planned on doing yet, and he will ask what parks where, what gets spilled and how you clean. He tests for moisture, looks at cracks, settled sections and old paint, and checks whether a door threshold or a floor drain changes the plan.
Expect a plain answer about which system fits each building and how long each one takes. A shed you can empty for a day is easy. A barn you use every morning needs planning, and we will work around your schedule as best we can. Porch work also waits on dry weather. To have Matt look at your slab, call Matt at (904) 671-3930.
Or email spartancoatingsfl@gmail.com with the town and a photo of the floor.
Matt answers this phone himself
Based in St. Augustine, FL, working in Hastings.
Finished floors first? See all of Matt’s floors.
Other St. Johns County towns on our route
Over the Vilano bridge on A1A, houses sit on a thin strip between the Tolomato River and the Atlantic, and sand works its way into every garage.
Built along the Matanzas from the 1970s on and home to many retirees, the Shores is full of garage floors that should clean with a hose and patios that should not get slick.
Down toward Matanzas Inlet the beach houses are quiet, but any outdoor coating still spends its life in full sun and salt air.
Around TPC Sawgrass, home of The Players Championship, gated golf neighborhoods tend to want a garage finished to the same standard as the house.
Coquina walls and old masonry downtown give way to mid-century block ranches and newer subdivisions off SR-16 and US-1, so one city holds slabs of every age.
With raised houses, pools and outdoor showers near the pier, the slabs that matter most here are the ones that are wet half the time.
Everything in the county: St. Johns County.
Questions from Hastings
Can you coat a barn floor that has never been sealed?
Usually. An unsealed barn slab has typically taken in dirt, fertilizer and fluids for years, so we grind the surface to open it back up and see what we are dealing with. Heavy contamination sometimes needs treating before a coating will bond. If a sealer makes more sense than a full coating, Matt will tell you.
Will a coated shed floor be slippery when I hose it out?
A smooth, glossy floor can be. For wash-down floors we build texture into the topcoat or broadcast grit into it, so boots grip when it is wet. A grind and seal finish can get the same treatment. Tell Matt how you clean the building, and he will set the texture to match.
What holds up best under a tractor that parks on the floor?
A thicker system bonded to a well-ground slab. Turning tires, dropped implements and fluids left sitting do more damage than the parked weight, and an industrial build handles all of that better than a garage-weight coating. Cracked or sunken sections get repaired first, because any coating follows the concrete underneath it.
Can you do the workshop and the house garage on the same trip?
Usually, and it saves time to plan them together. They may get different systems: a solid color or industrial build in the shop, flake in the garage. Matt lays out what goes where, which building gets done first and how long you will be without each one, all before anything is scheduled.
Fuel and fertilizer get spilled in our shed. What handles that?
That comes down to the system. Bare concrete and light sealers let spills soak in. A 100% solids epoxy build with a tough topcoat holds them on the surface long enough to clean up. Wipe spills up promptly anyway, because anything left sitting long enough can mark even a good floor.