Epoxy Flooring Quote Guide Your floor. Your concrete. Your call.
A buyer's guide to flake flooring, grind & seal and epoxy floor coatings — for homeowners and trade alike in Moreton Bay and southeast Queensland.
"The decision for upgrading the garage floor and what performance the garage floor needs is yours to make. This epoxy flooring quote guide edition gives you the questions worth asking during the converation your selected floor coating contractor and comfirm the important items are part of that quote before you sign ."
Why this epoxy flooring quote guide exists
And what you'll get out of reading it.
A flake or epoxy floor is a one-shot decision. Correct surface preparation combined with fit-for-purpose concrete coatings and resin systems last ten to twenty years. Area of application, surface traffic, amount of direct sun UV [ultra-violet ] and what maintenance done or not done over the years determine long jeopardy. Done poorly — same product, same flake, same colour, but the wrong prep, or the weather conditions — underneath the finish that looks great can start breaking down sooner than it should. Peeling at the edges from untreated moisture ingress. Bubbles surfacing where the body coat cured over outgassing concrete. Hot tyre heat transfer pulling coating off car parking spots in the garage. The kind of failure that doesn't show up on day one and can't be fixed without stripping the whole floor and starting again.
Most homeowners getting a quote for a concrete floor have no way of knowing which of those outcomes the quote in front of them or considering seeking quotes is buying. The product names sound similar. The pitches look and sound similar. The price difference between a thorough job and a one-day job often isn't large — sometimes it's smaller than people expect. What separates them is the work done underneath the garage floor coating: the concrete floor assessment, the surface prep stages, is moisture testing required, the primer choice, flooring resin cure between coats. None of that shows up on a quote line item. It either gets done or it doesn't.
This guide is the light technical conversation most contractors don't have with their customers. Not because they're hiding anything — though some do just that — but because most quotes are written for a customer who isn't thinking about asking technical questions. So the quote talks about colour, flake size, square metres and price, and leaves out the part that determines the important stuff for informed choices.
This guide hands you the technical questions. Each section is built around a specific part of the decision: what the resin manufacturers actually specify in their own documents, how a flake floor is properly built stage by stage, and what a quote from a QBCC-licensed contractor should include — the details that make a warranty meaningful, with the regional considerations that matter for southeast Queensland concrete. By the end you'll have the vocabulary and the checklist to ask any contractor — including Ultimate Floors — what their quote actually includes, and to compare any two or three quotes on a genuine outcome technical basis rather than a price basis.
How to use this guide
Each chapter is independent — read what you need
What the products themselves say — the manufacturers' technical data sheets on how their concrete flooring resins are meant to be used. The chapter that closes the door on "one day epoxy flooring installation" claims.
Consideration, and example for how a resin and flake floor is actually built — Ultimate Floors' common nine-stage installation process for existing installations, stage by stage, with the technical specifications and the tools used.
What a quote should include — the QBCC requirements every quote must show, and the prep and product specifications that protect your warranty.
[Future chapter: Warranties that mean something — what makes a written warranty defensible]
If you're getting quotes right now, the two chapters above are the place to start. Together they'll take about twenty minutes to read. They'll change how you the information gathering process and read what a garage epoxy flooring quote has and should have, even floorcovering installation you chase pricing for.
What's actually being claimed — and why this guide goes to the manufacturers' own documents for you to be informed for lingo that just sounds good.
If you've been getting quotes or had quotes for residential concrete finishes in Queensland during the last few years, you've almost certainly seen or heard about the one-day epoxy floor pitch. The sources change — Facebook ads, social media reels of an installer throwing out flakes in slow motion — but the pitch is the same.
The standard one-day epoxy pitch
"Floor done in a day. No waiting. Drive on it tomorrow."
It's a compelling pitch. The price is often competitive. The turnaround is fast. The flake floors in the photos look good. For a homeowner who wants the garage sorted before a weekend, the one-day model lands as the obvious choice.
The öne-day epoxy floor” pitch has flaws. There are resins on the market that cure fast enough to install a floor area in a single day — polyaspartic chemistry, primarily. The manufacturers of those resins describe them in their own technical data sheets as suitable for fast-cure, fast-return-to-service applications. The chemistry is real. The use case is real.
What's not real — or at least, not what the manufacturers actually describe as real — is the model where the whole flooring system is installed on concrete that most likely hasn't been assessed for moisture or pH level, with no primer soaker coat, with no moisture tolerance, in a single day to a garage floor the contractor most likely seen for the first time that morning. Have the weather conditions and concrete temperature been factored in
One day epoxy floor - drive on tomorrow is not possible!
A same-day epoxy install cannot be done, epoxy resin chemistry simply does not allow it. A genuine same-day install compresses the entire floor coating build into one short window: arrive, grind, primer if any, colour coat, flake broadcast, topcoat, leave. Whatever the concrete is doing on the day — moisture content, air temperature, concrete temperature, age of the home, contamination, air dew point, humidity — garage floor install goes forward. The one-day floor model doesn't have time for before and during coating assessment conditions. If the concrete needed a moisture vapour barrier, it cannot get one. If the concrete is too hot, too cold, air too humid, or concrete too new, the install is likely to proceed anyway. There's no other option in the “one-day epoxy floor” installation model.
The result could be fine. Many one-day floors are still active years later. The concrete happened to be in good condition, the day happened to have the right weather, the resin happened to bond properly. Lucky concrete + lucky day = a polyaspartic resin coating that holds.
But sometimes the concrete is reactive, or the slab is too new, or the moisture content is too high, or it's a humid Queensland day — and the floor that looks great on day one could start failing inside the warranty period. The contractor blames the concrete. The customer blames the contractor. Who is right? Has the manufacturer's technical data been observed, following the specified conditions under which the product is and isn't meant to be applied.
Why this guide mentions data sheets
Anyone can disagree with a contractor's opinion. It's a lot harder to argue with the document the resin maker published describing how their own product works with application rates and in-between coat cure periods.
Technical data sheets — TDS, in industry shorthand — are the documents manufacturers produce for the flooring resin installers buying their products. They specify what the product is, what surfaces it bonds to, what conditions it requires, what temperature ranges it can be applied at, what cure times it needs, recoat windows, and what is and isn't recommended. They're public documents. They're written by the people who made the floor coating resin. They're the technical reality of how the coating system actually should be built.
The next chapter walks through what resin manufacturers — Sika, Liquimix, Rhino Linings — actually say about their own products. Six pieces, in their own words, from their website documents. The chapter doesn't argue. You read what's there.
After that, the chapter following it walks through how Ultimate Floors commonly installs a flake floor, stage by stage, on existing concrete slabs in Moreton Bay and southeast Queensland. By the end of both chapters, you'll have what you need to read any flooring quote you're given.
What a floor coatings quote should include
The detail a QBCC-licensed contractor's quote should show — and the specifications that make a warranty worth having.
A quote is the document your warranty rests on. In Queensland, domestic building work over the set threshold must be carried out by a QBCC-licensed contractor under a written contract — and the quote is where the detail that protects you either appears or doesn't.
Epoxy flooring quote in Queensland — QBCC requirements
At a minimum, a compliant epoxy flooring quote should include:
Contractor details — the contractor's exact QBCC licence number, as it appears on the licence.
Supervisor details — a QBCC-licensed supervisor is required on site where the licensed trade contractor does not attend the on-site epoxy flooring installation.
Site details — the physical address where the concrete floor coatings installation is taking place.
Scope of work — a clear description of how the floor coating installation will most likely roll, itemising the surface preparation (diamond grinding, shot blasting, crack repair) and the exact epoxy/resin floor system including colours being applied, with any matching repairs or add-ons itemised separately.
Pricing & payment — the total amount to be paid (or how it is calculated), with the timing of any payment schedule.
Timeline — with no start date confirmed, an expected completion can't exist. The timeline needs to state how the floor coating installation timeframe is calculated (e.g. “within 5 days of work commencing”).
Opinion — let's be real: is epoxy flooring building works? In reality, it is not — but according to the broad definition the QBCC uses for building works, epoxy flooring apparently is.
Epoxy flooring quote guide; What should a quote estimate look like?
Beyond the legal minimum, a floor coating quote should include specific details that you can fall back for product type and colour if repairs are ever needed — helps protect you against future installation issues and if warranty disputes occur. Floor resin quote should also specify:
Preparation steps — the required concrete surface profile (CSP) and the moisture-mitigation stepsif required, both crucial to preventing epoxy floor failure.
System details — the number of coats (primer, base, topcoat) and the film thickness specified for the area's traffic.
Product specifications — the brand, type (e.g. 100% solids epoxy) and colour of the coating.
Exclusions & variations — any additional costs for heavy stain removal, moving heavy items, or repairing unforeseen subfloor damage.
Here's an excerpt from an actual Ultimate Floors resin floor systems quote estimate — the floor coating build and the scope of works, set out so you can genuinely compared two or three quotes like-for-like:
From an Ultimate Floors quote — system build & scope of worksactual excerpt
The layer build and micron spec for each system, plus the proposed areas — the detail that lets you compare quotes like-for-like rather than on price alone.
And the epoxy flooring quote itself, line by line — the concrete preparation and the floor resin system for each area, every step specified, quantified and priced:
Preparing the concrete — shed areas
Shed internal — resin / flake installation
Carport / dog area — flake installation
Concrete floor coating contractor experience and industry background
Residential garage flake flooring services have exploded recently. Contractors entering the market: what real world trade skills and genuine experience do they bring to your job. What is their actual trade: concreter, floor finisher, painter, tiler or water proofer — 2 of the 5 listed licences or no good. Confirm your contractor has the problem solving knowhow professional trade contractors should have and holds the correct licence; typically Floor Finishing and Covering – Hard Sector — concreting, painting decorating , feel free use the link QBCC Licensee Register before you sign.
A quote that covers the surface profile from preparing the concrete, is the concrete to be moisture tested, the resin system and the coats coverage is a quote you can hold a contractor to — and that is what makes a warranty meaningful, since a warranty is only as good as the garage floor coating specification it is written against. In southeast Queensland in particular — reactive clay slabs and coastal humidity — the moisture-mitigation line is the one most worth checking.
A note on voice
What this guide is, what it isn't, and where Ultimate Floors stands.
This guide is published by Ultimate Floors; a Moreton Bay concrete grinding - polishing, epoxy and flake flooring contractor, flooring & finishing industry experience since 1985 — Trading since 1994. Installing flooring and concrete flooring finishes across Moreton Bay, South East and regional coastal, central and western Queensland locations – coastal & inland.
It's worth being clear about what the guide is and isn't, before you read further.
What this buyers guide for flake flooring isn't
This guide isn't a sales document. It doesn't suggest that you should use Ultimate Floors for your concrete floor finishes. The decision about which contractor installs your concrete floor is yours, and there are good operators in southeast Queensland that aren't us. If, after reading this guide, you decide to get quotes from three contractors and we're not one of them, that's a legitimate outcome. The guide is doing its job if you walk into those quote conversations better informed.
It also isn't an argument against polyaspartic. Polyaspartic is a real, capable, manufacturer-supported resin used in flooring across Australia every day. Ultimate Floors uses polyaspartic where most suitable — as a semi-flexible system and topcoats, on properly-built body coats, on concrete that's been assessed and conditioned the way the manufacturers describe. The chapter on the products' own data sheets goes into detail on this. The guide doesn't talk anyone out of polyaspartic. It just clarifies what the “one-day epoxy installation” terminology really means - what manufacturers themselves say about how polyaspartic is meant to be used and is your short listed garage epoxy contractor planning on following these requirements.
And it isn't a takedown of any particular contractor. The "one day epoxy" business model exists because epoxy is what everyone knows it as - rather than educate the market what one-day, same day resin technology actually is, the industry got lazy. The market demand for fast turnaround is real, and a number of operators deliver with that floor coating model. The guide doesn't name names. It points at the chemistry, the manufacturer documentation, and the practical reality of what fits in a single-day site window. The reader can draw their own conclusions about which contractors are operating within manufacturer guidelines and which aren't.
What this buyers guide for flake flooring is
This guide is the technical information that ought to be part of every resin flooring quote conversation, written down in one document so it doesn't have to be reconstructed every time. It's what we'd want a customer to know during the garage floor finish installation buying process before they sign anything — ours or anyone else's.
If we've done our job, you'll finish this epoxy flooring quote guide for the one-day epoxy floor model guide knowing:
What the major resin manufacturers actually require for their products to perform properly
What stages a properly-built flake floor goes through, and what gets checked at each stage
What questions to ask any contractor — including us — before agreeing to a quote
What signals in a quote indicate corners could be getting cut, and what those cuts could cost downstream
What “one-day epoxy floor installation” definition actually means and potential problems fast-cure polyaspartic can face from concrete chemistry
You won't need a chemistry degree to read it. The technical detail is there, but it's translated into plain practical terms at every step. The point of the guide isn't to make you an expert in epoxy chemistry, it's to give you enough of an informed footing to ask the right questions and recognise possible answers from those questions.
The stance, in one paragraph. Ultimate Floors doesn't run one-day flooring installs. Ultimate Floors runs fit-for-purpose, fast return-to-service floor coating installations The reasons are in the TDS section that follow — chemistry, manufacturer documentation, and the practical impossibility of doing concrete slab assessment, primer build-up, body coat, broadcast and topcoats properly inside a single same day site window. We work the way the manufacturers' documents describe. We test concrete to build the coating process. For example; is a moisture tolerant epoxy required or multi-coat moisture vapour barrier? We adapt the process to what each resin flooring project's concrete actually needs.
That said: this guide isn't here to tell you what to do. It's here to give you the information you need to decide. Your floor. Your concrete. Your call.
Download the buyer’s guide
Take the full guide offline — every chapter in one PDF. Read it at your own pace, or check your next quote against it.
