Epoxy Floors in the Richmond District, San Francisco

The Richmond District was laid out decades before it filled in. SF Planning's Richmond District Strategy says it was named "for its resemblance to the sand dunes of Richmond, Australia," and SF Planning's residence parks context statement (October 2016) records that "the Richmond District was platted by 1870" but that "significant improvements and settlement wouldn't arrive for decades." Dairy farmhouses came first, and one pattern that followed was "single-family or two-flat residences built on an individual basis." Transit set the pace: by 1890 cable car tracks ran out Clay, California and Geary Streets "as far west as Presidio Avenue," and "In 1912, the city inaugurated the first San Francisco Municipal Railway line on Geary Street." The residence parks there date from 1906 to 1913, Jordan Park first and Sea Cliff and Lincoln Manor last, and after the 1906 earthquake, emergency housing "brought new residents."

Today units in two-to-four-unit buildings outnumber single-family houses in both halves of the district, going by Table 28 of SF Planning's 2025 Housing Inventory (April 2026): it counts 19,411 units in the Outer Richmond, 8,516 of them in buildings of two to four units against 5,129 single-family, and 10,028 in the Inner Richmond, where 4,822 sit in two-to-four-unit buildings and 1,350 are single-family. SF Planning's 2012-2016 profile of the Inner Richmond puts its median year built at 1959. The Richmond District Strategy says almost all parcels allow four-story buildings, "yet nearly 90 percent are only two stories or less," and a Strategy board says "54% of residential units in the Richmond are rent controlled." The Strategy's "Overview of the Neighborhood" outreach board reads "66% Renters" and "71% in Inner Richmond vs. 59% in Outer Richmond," figures that differ from the 68% renter-occupied in the 2012-2016 Inner Richmond profile.

The Richmond began on the same ground as the Sunset: SF Planning's residence parks context statement calls both districts former "vast foggy sand dunes," and the Richmond District Strategy says "Golden Gate Park, Lands End, Lincoln Park, and Ocean Beach surround District 1 on three sides." On summer mornings, the National Weather Service's 1995 climate memorandum finds "only partial clearing" on the ocean side. Stonhard, a resin floor maker, writes that even where the water table is not high, the ground under a slab is almost without exception "damp with a relative humidity of 100%." The California Geological Survey draws liquefaction zones, for ground where "loose, water-saturated sediments lose strength and fail during strong ground shaking," around "shallow historic groundwater (< 40 feet depth)" in uncompacted sands and silts laid down in the last 15,000 years; its EQ Zapp tool tells an owner whether an address lies inside one. The Sunset District page covers the dunes south of the park.

Zoning is the rule SF Planning's Richmond documents dwell on. The Richmond District Strategy says "The largest potential for new housing units exists in the RH-2 zoning district," which "allows two units, but on the majority of the parcels, only single-family homes have been built." The Family Zoning Plan, signed on December 12, 2025 and effective January 12, 2026, focuses on "the western and northern parts of San Francisco," and SF Planning's answer to owners is that "changes to existing buildings or demolition of existing buildings are not required when the zoning is updated." Adding a garage is its own review: SF Planning's "Guidelines for Adding Garages and Curb Cuts" (V. 09/01/2025) say a curb cut "should not exceed" the Public Works maximum of 10 feet, want a garage door "no larger than necessary," and state that "The addition of a new garage requires a new street tree."

The district's commerce runs along a few streets: SF Planning finds "Pockets of commercial and retail activity" along Geary Boulevard and on "the neighborhood commercial streets of Clement and Balboa Streets." Growth has been slow, "12% Growth Rate Since 1980 vs. 18% Citywide" by the Strategy's outreach board, and "Since 1990, the City has added over 44,000 units; only 1 percent of these were located in District 1." With so little new building, a Richmond floor job usually means an existing slab, and its age is the first thing to ask about.

See Richmond District, San Francisco on Google Maps — requests from San Francisco reach independent installers who hold a California contractor license.

The Richmond's commercial floors sit in its retail pockets, which SF Planning's Richmond District Strategy places along Geary Boulevard and on Clement and Balboa Streets. They are storefronts, stockrooms and, for food businesses, kitchens in older buildings, so the four services below start from what an old slab can take: shop coatings under OSHA's walking-surface rules, kitchens under the City's health guide, polish on a slab hard enough to cut, and resurfacing where the top has worn through.

Commercial epoxy flooring for Geary and Clement storefronts

Commercial epoxy flooring in a Richmond storefront answers to federal OSHA's walking-surface rules as much as to the slab. 29 CFR 1910.22(a)(1) requires "All places of employment, passageways, storerooms, service rooms, and walking-working surfaces" to be kept clean, orderly and sanitary; 1910.176(a) says "Permanent aisles and passageways shall be appropriately marked"; and 1910.144 makes yellow "the basic color for designating caution." Thickness follows the job, in mils, thousandths of an inch: Wolverine Coatings matches "10 - 40 mils" of coating to a CSP 3 to 5 profile, CSP being the concrete surface profile, the roughness ground into a slab before coating. The Air District's 250-gram industrial maintenance limit is for coatings formulated and labeled for extreme conditions such as immersion, corrosive agents or heavy abrasion; an ordinary Clement Street shop floor coating is held to 100.

Restaurant kitchen floors along Clement Street and Geary

Commercial kitchen flooring in a Richmond restaurant is reviewed against the San Francisco Department of Public Health's "Construction Guideline for Retail Food Facilities," which applies the State's Retail Food Code locally and says "Submit physical finish samples for review and approval." The guide requires "A positive slope of 1:50" where floors have drains, measured "from wall to wall within the food preparation or utensil wash area," and rejects a dish around the drain, "a three to four diameter depression," as "not acceptable." Equipment empties "through an air gap into an open floor sink," and "Topset rubber base is not approved except in customer areas."

Urethane cement, a cement-filled polyurethane laid as a thick slurry, is what its makers sell for hot washdowns and thermal shock. In the 2.14.2018 edition of Sika's data sheet, Sikafloor 22NA PurCem typically builds a layer between 3/16 and 1/4 inch and serves from 212 degrees F down to -40 degrees F. Air humidity has to stay inside 30% to 85% through application and cure, and the slab may read anything under 100% relative humidity on the ASTM F2170 probe test described above.

Polished concrete in older Richmond storefronts

Polished concrete, a slab ground and honed until the concrete itself carries the shine, needs a surface hard enough to take the cut, so an older Richmond slab's hardness is the first question. The ASCC Concrete Polishing Council's Position Statement #7 (08/2023) quotes ACI 310.1-20 Section 3.1.4.1, "Mohs Hardness measured on slab surface is greater than 4," and names "Application of a densifier to increase the hardness of a concrete surface" as one remedy for a soft top.

The owner then picks two things: gloss, from Level 1 "Exposed/Flat (Ground)" to Level 4 "Highly Polished" on the Council's appearance chart, and stone exposure, from Class A cream to Class C full aggregate. On slip, measured as the dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) a wet floor gives, the Council's Position Statement #2 reports results that "significantly exceeded the required DCOF of 0.42, even at very high gloss levels." In HomeGuide's February 2026 national figures, the cream look runs $3 to $8 a square foot, the salt and pepper look $4 to $10.

Concrete resurfacing for worn Richmond District slabs

Concrete resurfacing on a Richmond floor means a new cement wearing course over a worn slab, and the first step is naming the wear. NRMCA's CIP 1 calls loose powder on hardened concrete "dusting or chalking," lists "Insufficient curing" among its causes, and starts the repair by removing "the weak surface layer." Scaling, in NRMCA's CIP 2, comes from "cycles of freezing and thawing," yet NOAA's 1991-2020 normals give the San Francisco Downtown station 0.0 days a year at the 32 degrees F threshold for the daily low (downtown air, not a Richmond reading), so a scaled-looking Richmond floor calls for a second look at its cause. Wolverine Coatings adds that "Surface deterioration is not necessarily an indicator of structurally unsound concrete."

Euclid's Euco Re-Cover lists "Garage floors" among its primary uses, goes from a featheredge, a thin tapered edge, to 3/8 inch, and takes rubber tires in 12 hours at 75 degrees F. HomeGuide's February 2026 survey gives resurfacing an average range of $300 to $700 per 100 square feet, national. Ask which product and thickness the quote names, since a home improvement contract has to describe the significant materials.