Below are some of our more frequently asked questions about Epoxy Flooring.
There are three main types: full flake, metallic, and single colour. Full flake is the most popular because it hides concrete imperfections, looks great, and is easy to maintain and clean.
Four main systems exist:
Water-based: older technology, less strong
Solvent-based: stronger but slow to install and very smelly
100% solid epoxies: mainly odourless, quite strong, fast to install, and safe for families in most cases
Exothermic Composite Epoxies: 100% Solid Epoxies reinforced with various materials such as Carbon Fibre that work like steel reinforcing, making concrete stronger. They are extraordinarily strong, almost totally odourless, safe to be around, fast to install, have great warranties, and you can walk/drive on them very quickly after installation.
Quality epoxy floors can last 25+ years and still look fantastic. Budget products may only have 12-month warranties, whilst premium systems come with lifetime warranties.
Installation time varies by product, ranging from 8 hours to 4 days, depending on the system you choose.
Top-tier systems allow you to walk on your floor in as little as 2 hours. Most other systems require 4-5 days to fully cure before use.
Australian-made epoxy performs best in our harsh climate. American and Chinese products struggle with Australian conditions, particularly our intense UV exposure and extreme heat.
Technically, yes, but professional preparation is the secret to success. DIY kits from hardware stores typically only include 500g of flakes, whilst professional installations use 20kg for proper coverage. Always grind the floor first.
Yes. It’s illegal to install epoxy for $3,000 or more + GST without a licensed installer. Unlicensed work voids your home insurance and leaves you without QBCC protection if problems occur.
Ask yourself these questions:
Is speed important?
Do you need it odourless and solvent-free?
How strong does it need to be? Is slip resistance critical?
Do you need a solid warranty? Will sun or rain hit the floor?
The answers to your questions will tell you what to look for in an epoxy system.
Epoxy floors are durable, cost-effective compared to tiling, incredibly strong, quick to install, easy to clean, add instant value to your home, and come in a huge range of colours and styles.
The industry’s “Fatal Five” problems occur when you choose the wrong system: delamination (peeling), hot tyre pick-up, toxic fumes, slippery surfaces when wet, and yellowing in the sun.
Quality systems with proper warranties eliminate these issues.
Most epoxy floors are slippery when wet. However, slip-resistant coatings can be added, and premium systems come with certified slip resistance ratings for peace of mind.
Yes, if you choose the wrong system. In Australian summers, inferior products turn brown within days.
Australian-made products formulated for our climate prevent this with UV-stable formulations and warranties.
Solvent-based systems release toxic fumes as they cure through evaporation. If this concerns you, choose 100% solid, solvent-free epoxy systems that are safe for families, asthmatics, pregnant women, and neighbours.
Delamination occurs if preparation isn’t done properly, moisture is present, or inferior resins are used.
Licensed installers use equipment to check moisture levels and concrete grinders to prepare the surface correctly.
Hot tyre pick-up happens with poor preparation or wrong product selection. Never use paint on garage floors. Always grind the concrete first and use mid-range to premium epoxy products with higher resin content for strength.
For a standard 36 square metre double garage, expect to pay between $2,500-$4,950 + GST from experienced, licensed operators. Price varies depending on the system and features you choose.
Epoxy flooring tends to last significantly longer than other types of coatings. For instance, while acrylic paint might last one to two years at best, and kits from the hardware store might last a few years, a high-quality epoxy product with the right preparation can last for a lifetime.
Epoxy flooring is very easy to clean. Even when it gets dirty, most grime can be wiped off with a rag and some water. This makes it a practical choice for environments that see a lot of wear and tear.
Even in high-traffic areas, high-quality epoxy flooring can last for a very long time. Here at Epoxy Flooring Co we offer a 20-year warranty. For instance, in our work truck where equipment weighing around 150 kilos is loaded in and out all day, the epoxy flooring has held up really well for over 12 months.
The average floor will last for years & the best products have a Lifetime Warranty.
The lifespan of epoxy flooring depends on three main factors:
- the type of epoxy product used
- the preparation of the floor before application
- the amount of wear and tear the floor endures
One of the great things about full flake epoxy coatings is that they can be patched. If a chip occurs, you can fill it with a bit more epoxy, sprinkle some more flakes on top, and the repair will blend seamlessly with the rest of the floor. There are no straight lines in the flake pattern, so it’s hard to tell where a patch has been made.
The warranty can vary depending on the product. For example, the epoxy product we use at Epoxy Flooring Co comes with a massive manufacturer’s warranty, and we confidently offer a lifetime warranty because we know it’s built to last.
While it’s possible for epoxy flooring to chip or crack if subjected to extreme conditions, it’s generally very durable and resistant to damage. In our tests, even with heavy equipment being dragged across it daily, the epoxy coating held up remarkably well.
Not under normal conditions and use. It’s extremely hard wearing and will easily handle sedans, 4WD’s, SUV’s etc being driven on it.
Industrial Grade epoxies are capable of forklifts, pallet jacks and even planes being moved on it. We did a short video to show the results of a test we did with our work truck to see just how much we could attempt to crack or chip & damage an epoxy coating in 12 months.
This video answers the question “Will an epoxy floor crack or chip?”. Check out the incredible results here…
Not if applied correctly. However the best way to ensure that the coating doesn’t peel is to confirm that the installer will be grinding the floor before applying the epoxy. Acid washing (also called acid etching) is a method that does get promoted and it can work but it’s risky due to Acid Residue, seen in Image A.
Acid residue gets left behind after acid etching and can be difficult to remove. This is because once the floor is wet from you scrubbing and hosing the residue is difficult to see and remains that way even when dry. The consequences of not removing it though are disastrous. Image B shows a floor we were called to repair which started to peel just days after the owner installed it. The cause of the peeling was acid residue.
Personally when I just did my own garage recently I ran a grinder over it first. We did a small sample on a garage to show the difference between grinding and acid washing which you can see below. You can be the judge which you think is the best way to prepare your floor.
NO provided that the flooring is not exposed to UV light. But if a plain epoxy floor is exposed to sunlight it will yellow or amber like in Image A (below). Image B shows what the floor looked like when it was first applied. This is the section of the floor that did not get sunlight on it.
There are a number of solutions to prevent your epoxy from turning yellow.
Firstly, don’t expose it to sunlight. This is good in theory but in a garage, for example, a lot of the time when you open the door sunlight will creep in. So that leads to the second solution and that is to cover the epoxy with vinyl flakes because they will not turn yellow. This is called a full flake seamless epoxy floor (shown below).
These flakes are then covered with a 100% UV stable top coat. Polyaspartic, Polyurethane and Polyurea clear top coats are excellent options for UV stability. Polyaspartic coats are fast drying, have no harmful VOC’s and are extremely hard wearing and flexible so they are suitable for very tough conditions. Some polyaspartic top coats have Rapid Cure properties which means they can have traffic on them 4 hours after being applied.
If you use a 100% solids epoxy this is virtually odourless.
If you use a solvent-based epoxy it will smell until it is fully cured and this can be around 10-14 days.
100% solids means that evaporation doesn’t occur in order for the epoxy to cure. Think of honey. It is a 100% solid product IE it is just all 100% honey and if you spill it none of it will evaporate. It will just sit as a sticky mess for ages, or until your dog comes and licks it up. So it releases no gases from evaporation and therefore you don’t smell these gases being released.
100% solids epoxy are like honey and don’t evaporate and release smelly or harmful gases to get hard. The epoxy that is made from the chemicals being blended together are just like all different types of honey they all blend together in the bucket and react with each other to create a reaction that makes them all form one hard substance.
Smelly and potentially harmful types of epoxies are made with solvent bases. Think of ACETONE or nail polish remover. This is a solvent and these solvents evaporating from the epoxy are what you smell until they are fully cured. So if you don’t think it’s a good idea to sniff solvents, like sniffing nail polish remover for example, you need to check that the product you want to install isn’t solvent based.
Not normally and under ordinary day to day use it is basically bullet-proof. But if you try hard enough you can probably scratch it.
One of the commercial bakery jobs we did gave their floor a rigorous test. About 8 hours after we finished the bakers returned to work and dragged a 200kg machine across the floor.
Here’s a pic below of me trying to push the machine myself and I couldn’t shift it at all.
The next image shows the floor close up after they dragged the machine back into place.
You can barely see where they had scratched it and the owners were delighted with the floor’s strength.
Yes.
A picture tells a thousand words so take a look for yourself…
No… but only if it has had a a form of Slip Resistance coating seeded into the top coat.
Common types of slip resistance grits are Aluminium Oxide and Silica and they look and feel like grains of sand.
These grains are pressed into the top coat and once the coat has cured the grains are a permanent part of the floor.
There are different sizes of grains so the slip resistance can be increased or decreased as required.
There are two types of epoxy flooring; one is solvent-based and cures via evaporation.
This means during the curing process the epoxy releases gases which are also known as VOC’s (volatile organic compounds). Some of these gases can be harmful to people. Once the epoxy has cured however these gases are no longer present.
The second type of epoxy flooring is 100% solid and cures purely by the thermal reaction of mixing the chemicals together. Thus it releases no gases while curing and is safe for humans during and after the curing process.
There are a myriad of different flooring systems but if you budget between $50-80 plus GST per sqm in Australia you will cover yourself for most finishes.
(NB metallic epoxy flooring is around $130 plus GST per sqm)
You can get an instant online dollar estimate of what your flooring choice will be by clicking here to choose your colour.
Epoxy flooring is one of the most cost effective flooring solutions available when compared to other common flooring options.
Polished concrete averages around $130.00 plus GST per SQM
Tiles vary greatly in price but a medium quality tile is around $40.00-60.00 plus GST per SQM. Plus you then pay for it to be installed at around $60-80.00 plus GST per sqm.
Vinyl flooring for medium quality sits around $80.00 plus GST per sqm for supply and installation.
Entry to mid-level Engineered floating timber flooring is around $80.00 -120.00 plus GST for supply and installation.
There will always be bargain tiles and vinyl for example and installers willing to install cheaply because they are looking for work.
However as a general rule epoxy flooring is usually cheaper, if not at least very competitive, with all other flooring alternatives
If the installer uses a high quality HEPA-rated vacuum attached to their grinders when they prepare the floor then the process is virtually dustless.
Here’s a great short video to show how effective HEPA-rated vacuums can be. It also shows how messy things get without a high powered vacuum.
You should always ask your installer if their vacuums are HEPA rated otherwise there will be a huge mess throughout your garage and home.
But most importantly you don’t want to be inhaling concrete dust into your lungs because no good ever comes from that.
- Depending on the type of epoxy system you choose it can take 5 days to install. Then another 5 days before you can put full traffic on it.
- Depending on the type of epoxy system you choose it can be smelly during and after the installation.
- Not easy to remove once installed.
- Difficult for the average handyman to install.
- Can be dusty and messy during installation if not done properly.
- Not as many options for finishes or colours for indoor living areas as compared to alternatives such as tiles or vinyl planks.
If you don’t find your question listed here then please send us an online enquiry or contact us on 0438 333 326.
You may prefer to download our Free Report that answers all the epoxy flooring questions you’ve been waiting to ask.