SimironMoisture
Seal the slab before it pushes back.
Barns, ag shops and older outbuildings around Ripon often went down with nothing between the concrete and the ground. Test the slab, call us with the number, and we will send the barrier that keeps a new floor from lifting off it.
Plenty of farm slabs around Ripon went down with no vapor retarder.
Drive out past the orchards and you know the buildings we mean: equipment barns, ag shops, a pump house, an old outbuilding somebody now wants to turn into a garage or a home gym. Slabs like that were poured for tractors and storage, with no thought of a coating ever going on them, and they often went down without a vapor retarder underneath. Nobody cared at the time, because bare concrete breathes and nobody notices the moisture moving through it.
Put a resinous floor on top and the picture changes. The coating seals the surface, the moisture coming up out of the ground has nowhere to go, and vapor pressure builds under the film. The slab can feel dry to your hand on the morning you pour. It can look perfect for weeks. Then the floor starts to bubble.
That is why we ask about the building before we ask about the color. An old shop slab is not automatically wet, and plenty of them coat up without trouble. You just will not know which kind you have until you test it.
Dry to the touch tells you nothing about what is coming up from underneath.
From the catalog
On the shelf for this job
Shelf
The barrier lines we keep on the shelf in Tracy.
We stock more than one moisture barrier because spec sheets and habits differ, and the owner would rather sell you the one your system calls for than argue you into a house brand. Each of these earned its place by holding back moisture on slabs that would otherwise have lifted a finish.
The Resin Lab MVB Primer
our house primer, a 2 gallon Part A and Part B kit that primes roughly 200 to 300 sq ft depending on how thirsty the slab is
Simiron MVB
base plus activator in two gallon kits, for jobs built around the Simiron system
JP Resin MVB Flow
a 100% solids two-part epoxy primer in three gallon kits, where JP starts its own stack
Product detail lives on the MVB primer page, with the full Simiron line and JP Resin line on their own pages. Whichever one you pick, data sheets and SDS come on request.
“Test first, barrier second, build third.”
How a wet slab gives itself away after the crew leaves.
The callback almost never comes on day one. It comes after the crew is gone and the customer has moved the truck and the toolboxes back in. Small blisters show up first, often along a wall or in a low corner. Some of them pop and leave a little crater. Then the edges start to peel, the coating lets go in sheets, and on some floors the finish goes cloudy and white where the vapor is pushing hardest.
By then a barrier cannot help. A moisture vapor barrier is preventive: it goes down before the system, and it will not rescue a floor that is already failing. A floor in that state needs diagnosis and most likely removal back to sound concrete, then a test, then a barrier, then the system again. Call us before you start tearing it out and we will talk through what you are looking at.
Measured against that day, an afternoon of testing and a coat of primer is the easy part of the job.
The barrier goes down before the floor fails, never after.
The order of operations on a slab you are not sure about.
Most of the failed floors we hear about on old shop slabs could have been saved by this sequence. None of it is complicated, and the owner runs it on his own jobs before anything goes down.
Test before anyone picks a color
Run a moisture test on the exact slab you are coating, in the spots that worry you most. A calcium chloride test or an RH reading both tell you what the concrete is pushing. We stock test kits, so nobody on the job has to guess.
Call the bench with the number
Read us the result, the age of the slab, and what the building was used for. That is enough for us to tell you whether it needs a barrier and which one fits the system going on top.
Prime the prepped slab
The barrier goes on clean, profiled concrete as the first coat. On a fresh pour, a high-tolerance barrier is often how crews coat early instead of waiting out the traditional cure. Give us the pour date and we will confirm the timing.
Build inside the recoat window
Every barrier lists its recoat window on the data sheet. Coat inside it and the next layer bonds chemically to the primer. Miss it and you are back to prep. We will help you plan the day around that window.
Then put down the floor you wanted
Once the primer is down, the system you planned goes over it like it would over any sound, dry concrete. A chip floor in a converted barn starts with the Ripon flake blend page, and a hosed equipment room usually ends up on the quartz broadcast page for Ripon.
Ripon jobs, a Tracy shelf, one person on the phone.
Our bench is about eighteen road miles from Ripon, the Highway 99 town where the Stanislaus River marks the line between San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. That is close enough for a crew to grab test kits on one run and come back for the barrier and the rest of the system once the numbers are in.
Every barrier we carry sits together on the site-wide moisture vapor barrier page, and the rest of what we supply in town starts on the Ripon supply page. Prepping the slab before you prime it? The Ripon diamond segments page covers tooling. A lot of these floors finish under a clear coat, and the UV-stable polyaspartic topcoat page covers that end of the stack. Questions about pickup go through the contact page, and finished floors are in the catalog.
Slab moisture questions from Ripon installers.
How do I know if my Ripon slab needs a barrier?
Test it. New concrete, slabs with no vapor retarder underneath, and older farm buildings poured straight onto the ground are the usual suspects, but only a test tells you. Run a calcium chloride test or an RH reading and call the bench with the number.
Does a moisture barrier go under every kind of floor?
It goes under any system we sell when the slab calls for it. Flake, metallic and quartz floors all build on top of the barrier the same way they would on a dry slab. The barrier is the insurance layer, and the floor you chose still goes over it.
Can I coat a brand new slab without waiting?
Fresh concrete holds a lot of moisture, which is why the traditional answer is to wait. A high-tolerance barrier is often how crews coat early instead. Tell us the pour date and your test numbers and we will confirm whether the timing works for that slab.
Which barrier should I buy?
Whichever one fits the system and the spec sheet you are working from. We carry The Resin Lab MVB Primer, Simiron MVB and JP Resin MVB Flow side by side, and we will not push one over another when your job is written around a specific line.
Will a barrier fix a floor that is already bubbling?
No. It is preventive, and it goes down before the system. A floor that is already blistering or peeling needs diagnosis and most likely removal first. Call before you start tearing it out and we will talk through what you are seeing and what comes next.
Can I pick up test kits and primer in Tracy?
Yes. Call ahead and we will stage the kits and the barrier at the bench, along with the rest of the system if you are ready for it. Plenty of crews grab test kits on one trip and come back for the full order once they have a reading.
A valley supply house answering valley phones.
The bench is in Tracy, and the ties around it are local: a seat in the Lathrop Chamber of Commerce, and sponsorships for Lathrop Little League and the Junior Spartans. Orders ship across the country now, and the person reading your moisture number on the phone still works in the same valley as your job.
Ask the person who tests his own slabs.
Get in touch
Tell us what you're pouring.
Anything from one bucket to a standing wholesale account, pickup or freight, or a seat in training. A person who has poured this material reads every message.
- (209) 208-4656
- chris@exclusiveresinsupply.com
- 392 W Larch Rd, Suite 11, Tracy, CA 95304
Not sure what your Ripon slab is doing?
Test it, then bring the reading to the owner. He will match the barrier to the floor you are putting down.
Need it installed?
Our sister company, Exclusive Resins, installs epoxy, flake and metallic floors across the Central Valley, out of the same Tracy building.