The real answer depends almost entirely on which surface you are asking about, and the gap between a basement floor and a pool deck is enormous. Anyone giving you one number for all of them is giving you a marketing number.
Three things, roughly in order:
Notice what is not on that list: oil, salt, chemicals and hot tires. A properly built floor shrugs those off, and they are what people worry about.
No UV, no freeze-thaw, light traffic. These floors have the easiest life of anything we install and they look essentially unchanged for a very long time. The thing that ends a basement floor is almost always water intrusion from outside the coating, not the coating wearing out.
Protected from weather, moderate traffic. The body of the floor holds up for many years. What ages first is the traffic lane where tires track grit in, and the first few feet inside the door where salt and snowmelt collect all winter. Rinsing that strip through the winter genuinely extends the life of the floor.
A woodshop floor lasts a very long time. A floor with forklifts, pallet jacks, steel wheels, jack stands and dropped tools wears in the lanes and takes point-load damage. That is why we build these heavier.
Full UV, full freeze-thaw, shovels and salt on a walking surface. Done properly they look good for years. They will show their age before an interior floor does, and the edges and step noses go first.
Sun, freeze-thaw, plow blades, shovel edges, road salt dripping off the car, and a moving joint between two separate pours. It is the first part of almost every coated garage to show wear. We have a whole guide on why the apron fails first.
Constant water, pool chemicals, chlorine or salt systems, full sun, bare feet, and freeze-thaw in the off season. This is the toughest environment we coat. A pool deck done right with the correct exterior system and anti-slip aggregate looks great and performs for years. It will still show wear before anything else on your property, and the heavy traffic paths at the steps and ladder go first.
If a company tells you a pool deck will look like day one in a decade, they are setting you up to be unhappy. We would rather say it now.
Total exposure, vehicle traffic, plows, and large square footage. We will talk through whether it is the right spend for your property rather than just quoting it.
Lifetime and limited lifetime warranties are common in this trade. Read what they exclude and who pays for labor, because the exclusions are where a lifetime warranty meets reality: substrate cracks, settlement, moisture from below, rust, chemical damage, and often normal wear on exterior surfaces. Our position is a written 10-year workmanship warranty with the exclusions handed to you at the estimate. See what a warranty really covers.
This is the part that makes the math work and almost nobody explains it. When a top coat eventually wears in the traffic lanes, the floor does not come out. The surface is lightly abraded and a new top coat goes over it. The base coat, the vapor barrier and the flake all stay. It is a fraction of the cost and the disruption of the original install, and you get a floor that looks new again.
That is only true if the floor was built properly in the first place, with a real vapor barrier and a bonded base. A failed one-day floor with no vapor barrier has to be ground off and started over, which costs more than the original job did.
Full detail in cleaning and care.
No, and anyone saying otherwise is guessing. Water, pool chemicals, full sun and freeze-thaw are far harder on a coating than a protected garage. A good pool deck performs for years and will still show its age before your garage does.
On a garage, the apron and the first few feet inside the overhead door, because that is where salt and weather live. On any floor, the traffic lane where grit gets ground in under tires.
No, as long as the original floor was built properly. The surface gets abraded and a new top coat goes on over the existing base and flake. It is far cheaper and far less disruptive than a new install.
Tell us the room, the rough size and your town. You get a written price, not a two-hour pitch. Fastest way is to text a photo of the floor to (815) 585-1750.
