How To Tell a Quality Epoxy Floor Finish from a Terrible Epoxy Floor Finish
Not all epoxy floor resurfacing jobs are alike. Just like with any type of installation, you can land yourself a crap contractor if you don’t do your due diligence and check up on any references. With some jobs costing into the 10s of thousands of dollars, you need to make sure that you have the right team completing your project. How can you tell a shyte job from a high-quality job? We’re going to get into that in this article. Read on and save your peace of mind and your hard cash on your next concrete floor resurfacing job.
Top Things to Look For in an Epoxy Floor Resurfacing Job
Concrete Surface Preparation
Surface preparation is insanely important. It’s the most important part of the job. If the surface isn’t prepped correctly, the layers of epoxy won’t adhere to the surface, moisture can wick through, and it won’t be long before parts of the floor start flaking off or start creating voids under the finish. It will be a very expensive disaster. When you’re researching your concrete floor resurfacing company, make sure to ask them exactly how they prepare the surface of the floor and especially if you have any particular issues with your floor, like crumbling concrete, cracks, expansion joints, or a slope issue. Look for these things in particular when checking on any references.
Moisture testing. Did they run any moisture or vapour testing before the resurfacing process? Concrete is highly porous and can move dampness through it with ease. If so, did they report it or use a moisture barrier primer after the mechanical surface prep?
Low-quality surface prep wouldn’t have included any moisture testing or used any moisture-specific epoxy primer. Trapped moisture can push through curing epoxy as pinholes or bubbles. You won’t be able to ignore it.
Shot blasting and grinding. Mechanical resurfacing is the only real way to get a high-quality surface prep. Shot blasting or concrete grinding will pull up any loose or flaking concrete, as well as providing a rough surface which is ideal for adhesion for the initial layers of primer and epoxy. It also breaks apart any caked-on dirt, paint, or old sealants and adhesives, which are another barrier to adhesion. This is known as creating a surface profile.
A low-quality surface profile will have been prepped using an acid etching method. This method is cheaper and is inferior in so many ways! First off, the amount of water it takes to rinse off the ‘acid slurry’ is extreme and often considered wasteful. It’s also insanely toxic! The acid used is usually muriatic acid or phosphoric acid. It also creates an inconsistent ‘surface profile,’ which is a complete deal-breaker, as these inconsistencies can lead to poor adhesion and various impurities left on the surface of the floor. Grinding and blasting are completely dry processes that only require a good-quality respirator and a shop vac.
Always ask what their surface prep procedure is.
The Final Surface Finish, Durability, and Visual Consistency
Obviously, you want a finished product that is exceptional and professional-looking with a consistent texture, look, and sheen across the entire surface.
A high-quality finish will be completely uniform across the whole of the job with no deviation, no matter if it’s a matte, satin, or high-gloss finish. Larger jobs will also be mixed in batches, so a professional installer will be able to create identical finishes between batches. This uniform finish will also be reliant on a consistent surface prep. The flake distribution will be even and consistent whether it’s flake or quartz, and the surface will be uniform from wall to wall with no roller lines or visual separation between batch pours.
Low-quality finishes are easy to spot. They are inconsistent, showing variations in the surface finishes. The thickness and layering can be visible on the surface where one batch was left to dry too long before applying the next batch. This shows up as lap lines through the surface. You may also see waves in the surface caused by rushed rolling and application. You may find soft or sticky sections where the concrete wasn’t dried properly, where an incorrect surface prep primer was used or applied too thin, or even improper mixing ratios of the epoxy and hardener. Finally, the castings of flake or quartz can be uneven, with bare sections or areas of high density, which gives an unprofessional appearance to the surface finish.
Also check for hollow sounds when tapping the floor with a mallet. It will go from a sharp thud to a hollow echo, similar to how you would check floor tiles.
Wall Transitions, Edging, and Terminations
This is easy to see! You want your edges and walls to have a sharp, professional finish; with most jobs, ‘rolling’ up the wall creates a perfect, liquid-resistant edge and a high-quality finish, just like you would use in your home with baseboards and trim.
A high-quality edge finish will have clean, sharp lines where the epoxy meets terminations like floor drains, walls, and door thresholds. If you’ve chosen a ‘cove base’ wall finish, these transitions up the wall are uniform and seamless along the entire length of the floor-to-wall transition. The wall coping will be a consistent height, which will be very easy to notice if it’s uneven and would drive anyone insane from the visual inconsistency. Everything will just be uniform and ‘tight’.
Low-quality wall finish and transitions will be quite obvious. You’ll see inconsistent height in the wall coping, and for butted finishes, you might see wall splatter from rushed or sloppy application and overspray if using sprayers. Another important item that can be missed is the expansion joints in concrete floors, which allow for slight shifts in the floor from earth movement or expansion/contraction from temperatures. Low-quality finishes will pour right over these, which will be obvious in a few months when cracks start to appear in these areas. You’ll also notice thicker pooling and finish at wall edges and door frames where inconsistent tool use has pooled too much material at the edge terminations. This should have been spread out more evenly or removed from the floor.
Wall and edge transitions are incredibly important to the aesthetic of the epoxy floor finish, as these are the fine details that can make or break a concrete floor resurfacing project.
It’s All in the Details
Those are just a few of the main areas to look out for when checking references for your epoxy floor resurfacing company. Those few areas should be relatively easy to examine and can save you thousands of dollars when you end up regrinding down a terrible epoxy floor installation. Don’t make that mistake and call South Island Surfaces for your large-scale concrete floor resurfacing projects! Call today.
