About Tim And Maggie, Epoxy Flooring Co's Resident Experts!

We have heard people refer to epoxy flooring as a “paint”, which it absolutely is not. Epoxy flooring is a coating which sets or ‘cures’ into a super hard surface on top of your substrate (concrete floor). 

Epoxy flooring is applied as a coating, and once it is cured, it cannot be uncured. It is formed when one part of the epoxide resin is mixed with one part of the polyamine hardener.

The hardener acts as a catalyst and gives epoxy its strength. Strong and durable, epoxy floor coatings are also easy to clean, and for overall value, they just look great.

Epoxy floor coatings offer a much more professional and long-lasting finish than paint and a much more pleasing aesthetic than plain old concrete. It comes in a variety of different systems, with each category providing certain characteristics to suit differing uses.

We explain this in-depth in our 7 Mistakes People Make With Epoxy Flooring.

Partial-flake floors are excellent for spaces with light foot traffic, whereas garages and sheds, likely to experience heavy-duty traffic, such as trucks and cars, would require a Full-Flake Epoxy.

Single-colour and Metallic Epoxy coatings are excellent for showrooms but require much more substrate preparation.

We highly recommend calling our team to discuss this in detail on 0438 333 326 if you have any questions.

Epoxy coating is applied to a substrate, which is your concrete floor or slab. Ensuring this substrate is at its best usually requires work with a grinder. Grinding the floor is so important. It not only helps to level the substrate, but also ensures the epoxy has the best chance of ‘sticking’ to or ‘curing’ on the concrete.

Part of Epoxy Flooring Co’s installation process begins with a test of your concrete to ascertain its hardness (yes, it’s a thing. Ask for our 7 Mistakes ebook for more information on this), before we smooth it out correctly with our specialist grinders.

Only then do we get to work with the actual epoxy. We know that acid washing (or etching) is another method to prepare the substrate, but it is really quite risky. Acid residue can get left behind after acid washing, and if it is not removed, can result in the epoxy being unable to cure properly and a peeling epoxy floor coating.

The difficulty with acid washing is with the process itself: after scrubbing and washing the concrete with acid, the floor must dry completely to see if there is any acid residue. You must then remove every trace of the acid residue, which can sometimes take two, three or even four washes.

Of course, this equates to the job taking more and more time between the floor drying and removing the residue. And then, even after it’s dry, miss just a little acid residue, and the results are disastrous: your floor will bubble and peel, often just days after installation.

In comparison, grinding your average double garage takes 2-4 hours. Find  out more about the process in our Acid Washing vs Concrete Grinding: Best Epoxy Floor Prep Method Explained article.

However, if a plain epoxy floor is exposed to large amounts of sunlight, it will yellow or discolour.

This is not the end of your epoxy dream, however: there are several solutions to prevent your floor from turning yellow.

Firstly, don’t expose it to sunlight. Simple! A great solution in theory, but most garages when the door is left open, will inevitably have sunlight creep onto the floor.

Secondly, and more effectively, cover the epoxy with vinyl flakes: these do not turn yellow after exposure to sunlight. This kind of system is called a Full Flake Epoxy Floor.

An added bonus is that these types are floors are better at camouflaging the kinds of dirt car tyres and vehicles unavoidably carry into the garage.

At Epoxy Flooring Co, we also cover our Full Flake Epoxy Floors in a 100% UV stable clear top coat of Polyaspartic, Polyurethane or Polyurea. Polyaspartic coats are an outstanding option for tough conditions like those in Australia, because they are:

Some Polyaspartic Top Coats Even Have Rapid Cure Properties, Which Means They Can Endure Traffic Just 4 Hours After Being Applied.

This Is Excellent News For Those Businesses Coating Their Floors In Epoxy Between Opening Hours.

Read more about epoxy flooring turning yellow in our Will Epoxy Flooring Turn Yellow? article.

Here’s a short video demonstrating the difference between the HEPA-rated vacuums we use on our grinders, compared without the use of a high-powered vacuum.

The mess with the latter is diabolical! Most importantly, inhaling concrete dust into your lungs is a health hazard, so avoiding that wherever possible is preferred.

Always ask your installer if their vacuums are HEPA- rated, or be ready to contend with a huge mess throughout your garage and home and a small pool of concrete in your lungs. (Okay, probably not a pool of concrete, but you get the idea).

I am a little biased, but I can categorically say after 25 years in the building and development business, that epoxy flooring is one of the most cost effective flooring solutions available.

Especially when compared to the median or average price of other common flooring options:

There will always be bargain tiles, end-of-line vinyl or sale rack timber flooring out there.

And of course, you might find installers willing to lay the flooring cheaply.

However as a general rule, epoxy flooring is usually cheaper, and at the very least, extremely competitive with all other flooring alternatives.