Getting ready
What do I have to do before the crew arrives?
Empty the room down to bare concrete, take anything mounted low off the walls, and have somewhere else for the vehicles to sit.
The short version
- The room comes out empty, including the shelving and anything screwed to the wall down low.
- The vehicles need somewhere else to sit until you get the floor back.
- Grinding needs working outlets, and the job usually needs water.
- Kids and pets stay out of the room and away from the doorway.
- Tell anybody who might open the door or leave a package that the floor is being worked on.
Getting the room empty
The room comes out down to bare concrete. Cars, tools, the deep freeze, the storage totes, the bikes hanging off the ceiling if they hang low enough to be in the way. Anything left in the room has to be moved twice anyway, so it is easier if it is out before the grinding starts.
That takes in what is fastened to the walls down low. Baseboard trim, a bottom row of cabinets, a bench sitting on its own legs, an old kennel, a shelf standard that runs to the slab. The coating goes up to the wall, so anything standing on the concrete has to come off it first.
If something cannot be moved, say so early. A water heater on a stand, a furnace, a set of stairs coming down into the room: all of those are workable, but whoever is quoting the floor has to know they are there, because the coating either stops at them or goes around them.
Power, water and the doors
Grinding runs on power and it makes dust, so the equipment needs outlets that work and a clear way in and out of the room. If the garage circuit is dead, or the outside spigot is shut off for the winter, that is worth saying when the work gets set up.
The doors matter too. The overhead door and the door into the house both get used, and both need to be clear on the inside and the outside. If there is a keypad or a lock somebody has to get past, sort that out beforehand, and move the trash cans out of the way.
People, pets and deliveries
Kids and pets stay out of the room and away from the doorway while the work is going on. There is equipment moving, there are cords across the floor, and later there is a wet coating that nobody wants a paw print in. A dog with the run of the yard is worth putting inside.
Then tell anybody who might open that door. The neighbor with a key, the kid coming home, the driver who leaves boxes inside the garage, the lawn crew, whoever plows. A note on the service door saves a footprint in a floor that cannot be walked on yet.