Mandurah is the southern edge of where we work, and it's the most varied. Canal-estate slabs, 1970s and 80s holiday-house stock and brand-new estates out toward Lakelands — three different jobs, and the moisture test is what tells them apart.
Floor shown is a visualisation — stock reference photography, not a completed Ironstone Floors job.
Mandurah is coastal Peel country: sand, estuary and a water table that sits closer to the surface than most of Perth. That last point is the one that matters. Structurally, sand founding is forgiving and Mandurah slabs generally don't suffer the seasonal movement you get on reactive clay. But a low-lying slab near the estuary or in a canal estate is a different moisture proposition to one up on the dunes, and it is not something you can read off a map — you read it off a meter.
So Mandurah is the suburb where the moisture test does the most work. Where an under-slab vapour barrier is intact and the slab is dry, the job runs like any other. Where moisture is moving up through the slab, sealing it in means hydrostatic pressure pushes the coating back off, usually within a year. We test before a drop goes down, we tell you the reading, and if the floor isn't a candidate we say so. We'd rather lose the job than guarantee a slab we know is pushing.
Age is the second variable. Mandurah has a real stock of 1970s and 80s housing from its holiday-town era, which predates the 1996 Building Code that made an under-slab vapour barrier a prescriptive national requirement. Alongside it there's twenty years of new estate out toward Lakelands and Meadow Springs where the slabs are young and the barrier is standard. Same suburb, opposite ends of the risk.
The coastal air is worth a mention too. Salt-laden air off the ocean and the estuary is harder on everything, and a garage that gets left open to it collects a fine salt film on the slab. It's removed as part of preparation rather than coated over — salt on the surface is contamination like any other, and it will undermine a bond if it's left there.
1970s–80s holiday-era stock through to brand-new estate out toward Lakelands and Meadow Springs.
Anything from an older single around 18–20 m² to a modern 36 m² double, plus canal-estate garages with a boat in them.
A moisture reading that genuinely decides the job, salt-film contamination on open garages, and older pre-Code pours near the water.
Same four stages on every job in Mandurah, residential or commercial. No shortcuts, because we're the ones carrying the guarantee.
Diamond-ground back to bare, open concrete. Not acid-etched, not rolled over. Dust-extracted, so the garage stays clean.
Moisture tested before a drop goes down. Cracks and joints are cut out and filled so they don't telegraph through the finish.
Pigmented base coat, then decorative flake broadcast to refusal for full coverage, grip and depth. Your colour, chosen before we arrive.
Clear coat over the top, edges cut in sharp, site cleaned. You get the guarantee in writing before we leave.
One day on site. Car back on it the next morning. Gear moved and put back — you don't lift a thing. Written guarantee against lifting, and it transfers if you sell.
Mandurah is the furthest south we go, and we book it as a full day rather than fitting it around a metro job. That's better for the floor — nobody's watching the clock during the grind.
Canal-estate access can be tight: narrow frontages, shared driveways and not much verge. A photo of the approach along with the garage photo tells us whether the truck parks on the street or on your driveway, and that's worth knowing before the morning.
Power is the usual check, and more so on the older stock — some 1970s Mandurah garages have one very old outlet or none at all. Assume we may need our own supply and tell us if there's any doubt.
It can be, and it's the reason we won't quote a Mandurah floor firm without a moisture test. A slab with moisture coming up through it will push a coating straight back off — that's hydrostatic pressure, and no amount of surface prep beats it. The test takes minutes, it happens before you commit, and the reading decides what we do. If the answer is that your slab isn't a candidate, you'll hear that too.
Yes — Mandurah and the Peel region are the southern edge of our patch, and we book them as full days. We don't go beyond that. We'd rather tell you we don't cover somewhere than take the job and do it in a hurry to get home.
Usually yes, once it's properly prepared. Salt film on the surface is contamination and it comes off in preparation rather than getting sealed under the coating. The real question on a slab that age isn't the salt — it's whether there's an intact vapour barrier under it, because a pre-1996 pour may not have one. That's what the moisture test answers.
More general questions are answered on the main FAQ.
One photo and rough dimensions is all we need to give you a real number — no site visit required. Quotes weekdays 7am–7pm.
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