FAQ

Epoxy floors, otherwise known as polymer flooring systems, are created by the combination of two or more chemical ingredients applied to a concrete surface that harden or “cure”. The result is a flooring system that is durable, chemically resistant, easy to clean, anti-slip and anti-dusting. We use the industrial/professional grade floor coatings.

This is NOT a DIY system. The systems sold at the Depot stores consist of mostly paint, not epoxy, and only provide a thin coat which leads to a high risk of peeling within 1 to 2 years.

This is a 2 to 3 day project.

Day 1:

1. The entire floor is degreased to remove any oily spots that are present and perimeter is taped off.
2. The floor is etched with a special bonding degreaser formula and scrubbed.
3. The floor is then neutralized and flushed. (Grinding or Shot Blasting may be required see FAQ below)
4. The floor is now ready for surface repairs (if needed). No charge = hairline cracks, chips, etc.
5. A concrete primer coat is added for further bonding adhesion in preparation for the epoxy.
6. The floor is ready for the epoxy.
7. The entire floor is blown out to get rid of any dust and inspected.
8. The Epoxy with decorative chips are applied with anti-slip aggregate as needed.
9. The floor area is taped off and left to dry to a beautiful semi-glossy finish.

Day 2:

1. The entire floor is blown out to get rid of any dust and inspected.
2. The final coat of Polyurea / Polyaspartic (#1 topcoat in the market) is applied to add a beautiful high-gloss longer lasting finish.

Day 3:

1. The floor might need an additional day after Day 2 due to weather/dampness – only during winter; also if Moisture Vapor Barrier is used in Day 1 – it’s a 3-day project.

It is important to allow sufficient drying time for your floor to ensure lasting results. In 48 hours, the floor will be dry enough to place items back into the garage. It will take 72 hours before it is safe to park a car on the floor.

The garage must be empty upon arrival – due to insurance reasons we can’t move items.
The only exception is if you have a fridge or washer dryer that needs to be dolly’d out – we can help with that – however they need to be disconnected – my crew can’t disconnect appliances – example Gas dryer – due to liability concerns – also please make sure the fridge is empty or has no glass items in it. Make sure to have an extension cord. We will not move these items through a door way – only outside the garage door.
Please let us know prior to start so we can bring a dolly!
Water softeners – we work around them – we do not disconnect them – if you want it removed DIY or contact the water softener company to handle.
We do not come back to put the items back.
Items off the ground –  on shelves, overhead racks – not a problem

Typically, custom homes are built with larger than standard sized garages. Our pricing is based on standard size garages – track homes. It’s simple, +/- 50 sq ft – 2-car is around 400 sq ft, 3-car is around 600 sq ft and 4-car is around 800 sq ft. Take a measurement and give us a call for an estimate if the floor is over 850 sq ft.

This is now a non-issue as we use a 100% UV Polyurea – you can have the section that is exposed to the expansion joint with no problem or if you don’t want to see that section from the outside than we can cut it off where the garage door comes down, although we highly recommend going out to the main expansion joint that separates the garage floor to the driveway. In some best case scenarios, some garages have a lip where the door comes down; in that case we go to the end of the lip.

Concrete preparation is the key to a successful installation. Current concrete conditions must be inspected by a professional to determine the best preparation method. Existing coatings or curing agents may need to be completely removed. Meanwhile, imperfections in the substrate will be mimicked or magnified by sealing over them. Proper leveling, crack and joint repair and patching with only compatible materials is necessary to reduce or eliminate the appearance of substrate imperfections.

Polymer coatings require special handling and safety equipment. A professional installer has a working knowledge of the products they recommend. Knowledge of the reactive properties, mixing ratio tolerances, temperature and humidity ranges and compatibility with other chemicals present is of the utmost importance.

OK – watch out! There are some NEW products that recently hit the market and you’re the guinea pig! These products are designed to dry quicker than normal 100% solid Epoxy – which has been around and used for over 30 years. This is basically designed to cut down on the labor involved and cutting corners. Don’t be fooled – if the person is speaking in technical product terms and sounds like a rocket scientist – hang up!

These 1-day products are cheaper than what we use – but these contractors charge more money – beware.

These companies have only been around a couple years – they tout 30 years in business – look up their license info to see really how long in business!

Diamond grinding is considered the “old school” way of preparing concrete not to mention (for residential) it’s a great way for the competition to charge A LOT more money. Now, are there times a floor needs to be grinded down? Absolutely! First, we use a shot blaster by Blastrac or a diamond grinder to prepare surfaces for the following situations:

1. If the residential floor has existing epoxy with a topcoat and is peeling.
2. If the residential floor has glue residue from pre-existing carpet, rubber or tile.
3. If the home is really old and full of oil stains, etc… – we would have to come check it out.
4. All Commercial jobs where the weight of machinery is >15,000 lbs.
5. Customer demands the floor is shot blasted.

We do charge extra for shot blasting or diamond grinding when needed, however the bulk of our business in residential is typically a 2-4 car garage, <10 years old, concrete is in excellent to fair condition and the heaviest item ever to go in the garage is your automobile!  We’ve NEVER had a floor peel up + we cover you with our warranty.  Diamond grinders create swirls in the concrete, especially if (1) non-experienced person (2) new concrete.

Not recommended! There are some Companies that won’t do it period and others that actually will try to “up sell” someone to do it and make extra money. Here’s the deal – expansion joints are there for a couple reasons (1) they are designed to absorb cracks (2) designed to drain water to the driveway & collect dirt/dust. IF someone fills them in, chances are they will crack over time – especially if there is an earth quake, if you look closely at most expansion joints, they actually have cracks in them, I don’t care what you fill them with, they might crack down the road.

There are several reasons:

1. A non-professional company or a do it yourself home depot kit is used to do the floor, these home depot / Lowes kits are actually garage paint with about 5% epoxy. It only contains 1 thin coat of paint, this is why it begins to peel up after 1-2 years or hot tire marks. We use 100% solid epoxy not to mention primer and top coat – plus we know how to properly install.
2. Does epoxy fade – turn yellow over time? If the contractor uses a Poly that isn’t 100% UV protectant than it will fade over time with direct exposure to the sun light. This is a non-issue for contractors like us that use Polyurea or CRU products – these never fade – we switched to these products in 2009.

Spartaflex is a one-day system and a cheaper product than the polymer and polyurea systems we install. Spartaflex has not been around long enough to ensure longevity. Some contractors actually charge more for this cheaper product and less labor.

All concrete slabs have some moisture in them, the epoxy products we use will withstand moisture, in fact out of 1,000 garage floors, we’ve only seen a couple of moisture issues resulting in lifting the epoxy floor. The first sign of a moisture problem is the white powder (the white powder is efflorescence) that comes up through the slab after it rains or when you wash out the garage – typically this is isolated to a small area where the moisture gathers under the slab. It can be caused from a number of issues, most commonly is poor drainage flow, poor drainage from the other side of the stem wall – planter area’s with no drains. The other rare issue is perhaps a broken pipe under the slab, again both of these are very rare. Another sure sign of moisture issues is anywhere the concrete is corroding away – typcially most common area’s are where the driveway meets the garage floor or your stemwalls.

We can resolve isolated area’s by applying a moisture barrier product, this works, however if the moisture issue seems to cover most of the garage than Epoxy flooring is not the solution, we would recommend concrete polishing with added color dye instead.

Lately, in speaking to customers, some competitors are pushing the moisture barrier as a must have resulting in the customer spending hundreds extra and adding to their bottom line. Again, this is a rare issue and we’ll spot it prior to beginning the floor – We only charge for the material!

We do NOT recommend a solid color epoxy floor for garages – only exception to the rule is Brand New Build with prestine concrete slab.

The reason is with solid color epoxy – all imperfections will be on full display – dips, divets, spider cracks, etc… ALSO solid color epoxy flooring is very slippery even with a medium grit added. The flake system – not only do the flakes act as a slip resister but they hide all the imperfections of the concrete floor.

We will not do a solid color on older garage floors that are riddled with cracks and issues – it won’t look good – been down this path many times.

If you have a new construction home <3 years old – and you have a lot of tiny little spider cracks in the concrete – if still under warranty from the builder, they should either refloat your concrete or pay for an epoxy garage floor coating. Note – we do not refloat concrete floors, if we epoxy the floor, we do the best we can in terms of filling in the cracks, however if the cracks are so small you can’t see with the naked eye until the epoxy is already applied – this is not an issue with the epoxy coating – you may still see a few of the tiny cracks but really hard to see. We mention this in the FAQ section as we’ve had some customers literally on hands and knees finding tiny spider cracks. Best left a lone as trying to patch these may result in a different color as epoxy isn’t like paint – each batch of epoxy is a slightly different color.
Hairline cracks or larger cracks – different than tiny barely noticeable spider cracks – just FYI.

We don’t take a dime until the job is completed for standard garage floors, however we do create a payment plan and 10% deposit for all commercial jobs >2,000 sq ft.

We will coordinate payment on the final day, we now accept the following payment methods:
– Check
– Zelle – under our cell number = 951-551-1063 – Michael Roth
– Venmo – under Michael-Roth-141 – also locate via our cell # 951-551-1063
– Cash
– CC – Via PayPal – add 3% fee from PayPal – need your PayPal e-mail address to send request for payment

Here’s examples of what’s not covered under our warranty:

• Self induced issue – examples being work out weights, spilling something that’s corrosive that’s left for a period of time, scraping the floor with sharp metal objects – steel cabinets, gun safes, etc.
• Battery acid from Golf Carts – make sure to service the golf carts outside of the garage
• Moisture issues – even if we use a moisture vapor barrier it doesn’t mean if you have a serious issue we cover it – example make sure to resolve root cause of any moisture issues – put proper drainage in flower beds – remove leaky water fountains from side of house – leaking pipes under concrete, etc.. these are not covered under our warranty – if we come out to patch an issue and we scrape up the epoxy and there’s water underneath or heavy calcium build up – efflorescence – we will need to charge for the patch – you will need to resolve the root cause.
• Customer decides to remove cabinets, safe or water softener – we will charge to come back out to epoxy area’s that were not epoxied up front.
• Note – when it comes to small patches that aren’t covered under warranty – typically around $100 – $150 for small patch work – help with gas, time and little labor.
• Cracks that happen after the epoxy flooring – the epoxy doesn’t crack concrete – the earth movement cracks concrete – so if there’s an earth quake – you notice cracking – please don’t think we’re coming out to resolve your cracks – it’s like hiring a painter – you have a leak in a pipe in the drywall – would you call your painter to come back and fix your leak? Extremely rare – but need to mention as it’s happened a couple times since in business…
• Do Not use plastic tarps, carpet or rubber mats on top of the epoxy for longer than 30 days or more – they create condensation underneath – this will create a white discoloration over time. We will need to charge to come out and sand down / redo the area’s.
• Epoxy isn’t like paint – when doing patch work – please know the patches will not be a perfect match as epoxy is manufactured in batches, each batch is slightly different coupled with temp & humidity also play a role in color when drying.