Install day, hour by hour

Before the day: what you handle

• Empty the garage completely, including shelves, benches and wall hooks. Dust settles on everything.
• Park both cars somewhere you will not need to move them for three days.
• Clear access to an exterior outlet or let us know we are bringing a generator.
• Make sure we can get a grinder through, and tell us if the only route is a tight side gate or an alley.
• Plan for pets. There is noise, open doors and wet product all day.

Morning: arrival and prep

Start of day. The crew walks the floor with you, confirms the color, confirms the scope and points out anything they see that was not visible at the estimate. Slab temperature gets read. Masking goes up: the door to the house, wall bases, sills, the overhead door track, anything that stays in the room.

Grinding. This is the loud part and the longest part. Diamond grinding opens the concrete, takes off old sealer, paint or coating, and gives the base coat something to key into. Vacuums run the whole time. On a rough floor this can take most of the morning on its own.

Repair. Cracks get chased and filled, popouts and spalled areas get patched, joints get treated, the apron edge gets rebuilt if it needs it. Filler has to cure enough to be ground flush, so there is usually a wait built in here.

Vacuum and tack. The floor is vacuumed thoroughly, then gone over again. Dust left on the slab is a bond-breaker, and this step is where a floor quietly gets ruined by a crew in a hurry.

Midday: base coat and flake

Base coat. The moisture vapor barrier base goes down. This is the layer that bonds to the concrete and the layer that stops slab vapor, and it is the one a same-day floor leaves out.

Flake broadcast. While the base is wet, flake is thrown by hand to refusal. It goes everywhere, which is why the masking happened. This is fast and it has to be continuous, so the crew will not be chatting through it.

Set and scrape. The base has to set before the excess flake can be scraped off and the surface knocked down smooth. This is the long quiet stretch of the afternoon.

Afternoon: top coat

Vacuum again. All loose flake has to come up before the clear goes down.

Polyaspartic top coat. Rolled out, back-rolled for consistency, with anti-slip aggregate added if your floor is getting it. Once this is down nobody walks on the floor.

Cleanup and walkthrough. Masking comes off, flake gets vacuumed from sills, wall bases and the door track, horizontal surfaces get wiped, the driveway gets swept and checked. Then a walkthrough with you, with the lights on, before anything gets loaded. Anything you want addressed is easiest to address right then.

After: the part that is on you

• 24 hours before foot traffic.
• 72 hours before any vehicle. A hot tire on a floor that has not fully cured is the most common way a brand new floor gets damaged in its first week.
• About a week before heavy or sharp loads, jack stands, or dragging anything.
• Keep the garage ventilated for the first day to clear the smell faster.
• Cold weather extends all of those, and we will give you your actual numbers before we leave.

Then it is just a floor you hose off. See how to clean and care for it.

Get my free quote  See our pricing