Customers ask me all the time: what product do you use? It's a fair question. The coating system is literally the thing you're paying for, and not all products are the same. Some contractors buy the cheapest buckets they can find. Franchise operations use proprietary blends you can't verify. I use Valence Protective Coatings — and I'm going to tell you exactly why.
Who Is Valence Protective Coatings?
Valence is a woman-owned coatings manufacturer based in Mendota Heights, Minnesota — about 45 minutes from my shop in River Falls. They're not a billion-dollar chemical company. They're a focused team of coatings professionals who manufacture, distribute, and train installers on polyurea, polyaspartic, and urethane floor systems. Their founder, Malisa Weber, has over 20 years in industrial manufacturing and supply chain management.
What drew me to Valence is that they're not just selling buckets of product. They manufacture their own formulations, they run a National Training Center right here in Eagan, MN, and every product they sell has been tested and used by working installers nationwide. That's not a marketing claim — their trainers have 17-26 years in decorative concrete.
What Is the Covalent Flake System?
The Covalent Flake System is Valence's signature 5-step installation process. It's what I use on every garage floor, basement, and commercial floor we coat:
- Step 1 — Diamond Grinding: A 600-pound floor grinder removes the weak surface layer and opens the concrete pores. This creates a CSP 2-3 profile for maximum adhesion.
- Step 2 — Crack and Spall Repair: TerraMend, a 100% solids polyurea repair material, fills cracks and damaged areas. It cures from -20°F to 130°F and is ready to grind in 30 minutes.
- Step 3 — Polyurea Basecoat: A 100% solids polyurea basecoat goes down. This is the backbone of the system — 674 PSI bond strength (the concrete fractures before the coating lets go), 311% elongation to flex with freeze-thaw cycles, and near-zero VOC.
- Step 4 — Decorative Flake Broadcast: Your choice of 15 stock flake color blends, fully broadcast into the wet basecoat for a seamless, textured finish.
- Step 5 — Polyaspartic Topcoat: An 85% solids polyaspartic sealer locks in the flake, provides UV stability, chemical resistance, and abrasion resistance. This topcoat is what makes the floor non-yellowing, easy to clean, and resistant to hot tire pickup.
Why Not Just Use Whatever's Cheapest?
I've seen what happens with cheap product. Contractors who buy the lowest-cost coatings are the same ones doing callbacks 6 months later. The basecoat delaminates because it wasn't 100% solids. The topcoat yellows because it was aromatic, not aliphatic. The crack filler crumbles because it was generic, not engineered polyurea.
Valence's products are formulated specifically for the conditions I work in. They make Summer, Winter, and Tropical speed formulations so I can coat year-round in Wisconsin — not just during a narrow summer window. The cold climate performance matters when you're working in a state with 100+ freeze-thaw cycles per year.
Why Does Training Matter?
Here's something most homeowners don't think about: where did your installer learn to coat floors? YouTube? A weekend watching another guy? I trained at Valence's National Training Center in Eagan, MN — a 3-day immersive program covering polyurea, polyaspartic, and urethane systems from instructors with decades of hands-on experience.
Training matters because application technique is half the equation. The best product in the world fails if it's mixed wrong, applied at the wrong temperature, or put down on a poorly prepped surface. Valence doesn't just sell product — they make sure installers know how to use it correctly.
What About the Warranty?
Valence backs their residential systems with a 15-year warranty and commercial systems with a 5-year warranty. That warranty transfers through to you as the homeowner. Combined with our own workmanship commitment, your floor is covered against chipping, cracking, and peeling for 15 years — plus a lifetime warranty against UV fading.
Compare that to a DIY epoxy kit with no warranty and a franchise that buries exclusions in fine print. When I use Valence, I know exactly what's in the bucket, how it performs, and that the manufacturer stands behind it.
The Bottom Line
I chose Valence because they're local (Minnesota-based), their products are installer-grade (not diluted for retail), their training is real (not a sales pitch), and their warranty is straightforward. When you hire All American Concrete Coating, you're getting the same products and techniques used by the best floor coating professionals nationwide — installed by the owner, on your floor, backed by a real warranty.
Want to see what Valence products look like on a real floor? Check out our project gallery or get a free quote. Call or text Dave at (715) 307-8302.