Marrero at a glance

An unincorporated West Bank community in Jefferson Parish. Barataria Boulevard is a main north–south road. The Barataria Preserve of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park lies to the south.

Many homes here are slab-on-grade single-family houses, and many have a carport or a single-car garage.

Coating a carport

A carport is a garage floor that lives outdoors. Sun reaches it in the afternoon, rain blows across it sideways, and leaves and pollen sit on it. Three things change because of that:

The topcoat has to be UV-stable. Standard epoxy yellows in sunlight. A polyaspartic or aliphatic urethane topcoat keeps the color.
It needs grip. A wet, glossy floor is slick. Fine aggregate in the topcoat, or a full flake broadcast, gives shoes something to hold.
Water has to leave. If the carport slab holds a puddle after rain, that spot will stay wet under any coating. Low spots are better corrected during prep.

Polyaspartic systems run about $7 to $12 per square foot, and a carport for one car is usually in the single-car range of $2,000 to $3,600.

The single-car garage

A closed single-car garage is the easier case: no sun, no rain, and a flake epoxy system at about $1,500 to $3,000. The small floor still gets the full process — moisture reading, diamond grind, crack repair, base, flake, topcoat. On a small slab, a missed step shows up just as fast as on a big one.

Driveways and walkways

South Louisiana has a hot, humid climate, and humidity can matter twice for a coating: moisture in the slab, and condensation on a cool slab during application. On shaded concrete that means mildew and algae, the dark staining that comes back every spring. A garage coating system is the wrong product for a driveway; the right one is cleaning plus a sealer, about $2 to $4 per square foot for a penetrating sealer that leaves the surface looking natural. A decorative sealer that darkens and adds sheen runs about $3 to $6.

If the driveway surface is flaking or the aggregate is showing, a sealer will not save it — that is a resurfacing job, about $4 to $9 per square foot. The sealing and resurfacing page covers how to tell.

Questions to ask before you sign

For a carport: which topcoat, and is it UV-stable?
What grip is built into the finish?
What did the moisture reading show?
For a sealer: which type, and when does the maker say to recoat?
For a carport that floods in heavy rain: how is the edge finished where water runs off?

Keeping a carport floor looking new

An open-air coated floor needs a little more care than a closed garage. Rinse off pollen and leaves before they stain, use a pH-neutral cleaner rather than harsh degreasers, and wipe up fuel or brake fluid while it is fresh. Grit is the slow enemy of any topcoat; a quick sweep once a week does more than a deep clean once a year. When the topcoat eventually dulls, it can usually be lightly sanded and recoated without redoing the floor underneath — ask the installer what that service would include and when the product maker suggests it.

Permits. Marrero is in Jefferson Parish. Whether a floor coating job needs a permit is a question for your city or parish permit office — for the parish, the Jefferson Parish permit office — and for the installer, who should know before quoting.

Nearby: Harvey and Gretna. Every area by parish is on the service areas page.