Comparing quotes
What should I ask a floor coating contractor?
Ask how the concrete gets opened up, what happens if the slab reads wet, and what the quote says about the cracks.
The short version
- Ask how the surface is prepared, and get the answer in the quote rather than in conversation.
- Ask whether the slab gets checked for moisture, and what changes if it reads high.
- Ask what happens to the cracks, the joints and any spalled edge.
- Ask what the finished system is: how many coats, and what the top one is.
- Ask for the warranty document before the work starts.
The three questions that separate two quotes
How does the concrete get opened up. The answer that holds up is a mechanical one: the surface gets ground so there is a profile for the coating to key into, and the dust gets pulled off the floor while that happens. A quote that is quiet about prep is quiet about the part that decides the outcome.
What happens if the slab reads wet. Concrete on grade carries water up through itself, and a floor that reads high needs handling before a coating goes on it. The useful answer names what gets done about it and what it changes about the price, rather than treating it as something that does not come up.
What happens to the cracks. Filled, chased out and filled, or coated over. All three are real answers on different floors, and knowing which one you are buying is the difference between a floor that looks right in April and one that still looks right the following April.
What to get in writing
The square footage that was measured, the prep method, what happens to the cracks and the joints, the system going down coat by coat, and the warranty document. Those five turn a number into something you can compare against another number.
Ask to see finished floors in the area that are a few winters old rather than a few weeks old. A coating looks good the week it goes down whatever is under it. What you want to see is one that has been driven on through a couple of salt seasons.
What a low number usually means
Almost always prep, and usually the grinding. It can also be a thinner build, a single coat where the quote next to it has two, or an old coating being covered rather than removed.
None of that is visible on the day the floor is finished, which is what makes it worth asking about beforehand. Ask the person quoting it to write down what the floor gets, and compare the descriptions rather than the totals.