How a flake floor is actually built
Ultimate Floors' nine-stage process — adapted to each project's floor conditions.
A flake floor isn't built to a fixed recipe. It's built around what the internal or external concrete surface needs. The previous chapter looked at what the resin manufacturers specify; this chapter walks through how Ultimate Floors commonly installs resin flooring and flake floor finishes, stage by stage. Some stages run on every job. Others run only where the concrete condition triggers them. The process adapts.
The build follows the concrete. Conditions are assessed first, and the stages required are determined by what the assessment reveals.
Below are the common nine stages. The reader can use this chapter to compare any quote against what could be actually involved in a properly-built flake floor — and ask any contractor which stages they include and which they leave out for genuine like-for-like — fit-for-purpose performance that a real warranty actually covers.
UF Stage 1 Site set-up
A real install starts with a real set-up. Customer-side coordination is sorted in advance — clear access, vehicles moved, pool fencing temporarily removed if required (UF can arrange this for a nominal fee if the customer can't manage it themselves). Trade-side protection is installed across the work zone: driveway protection at the garage opening, skirting and wall-spatter protection, masking of adjacent surfaces in patio, office, pool-area or workshop installs. Equipment selected, standard 240 volt site power confirmed, dust-extraction setup readied for the grinding stage.
What this means in practice: real world site costs that are probably not considered when thinking about "how much per square metre does an epoxy floor for a garage cost". Ultimate Floors treats the concrete coatings installation as a construction project, not a service call — in reality, that's what it is.
UF Stage 2 Crack treatment — where the substrate requires it
Heavily cracked structural concrete slabs require crack stitching before any coating goes on. Cracks are cut with a V-blade diamond wheel along the line of the crack, with cross-cuts at intervals for stability. The cuts are thoroughly vacuumed — a crack channel left full of grinding dust will never bond properly — then backfilled with a resin and sand mix. Cracks up to 4mm wide (measured after diamond-blade prep) are handled with an epoxy putty mix.
What this means in practice: cracks don't disappear under floor coatings. An unrepaired crack reappears through the finished floor from expansion and contraction. This stage either gets done or the floor inherits the concrete's problems from day one.
UF Stage 3 Floor flattening and profile grind
After crack repairs have hardened, diamond grind to re-profile. Ultimate Floors uses planetary, single-head, and edge grinders — the right floor equipment for the area being worked. Larger floor areas are profiled with planetary grinders; tighter spaces with single-head; perimeters and corners with edge grinders and hand-tool grinding. The diamond grit size is chosen for the concrete hardness and the resin system going on top.
- Target surface profile
- CSP 2–4 (Concrete Surface Profile — the international standard for prepared concrete texture before coating)
- Tooling used
- Planetary grinder + single-head grinder + edge grinder + hand-tool grinders for perimeters
- Diamond progression
- Matched to the resin system specification
What this means in practice: grinding isn't a "patchy hit and miss process." It's profiled to a texture standard. Skipping this important stage — or grinding to the wrong concrete surface profile — produces surfaces floor coatings have limited anchor points to lock into.
UF Stage 4 Concrete moisture testing — and the MVB decision
This is the stage most invisible to homeowners and most important to the floor's long-term performance. Concrete is rarely as dry as it looks. Moisture trying to escape from below a sealed coating creates osmotic pressure, blistering, and eventual coating delamination — a problem that doesn't show up until well after the install is complete.
Every Ultimate Floors resin coating install tests the concrete for moisture at the preparation stage. Where marginal moisture readings occur, moisture tolerant epoxy specification change is a recommendation we would make. Ultimately — the decision is yours.
- Test methods used
- Tramex CME (surface capacitance moisture meter) combined with Hygro-i in-slab relative humidity probes (per AS 1884:2021 standard)
- Ultimate Floors threshold for MVB
- Concrete moisture over 4.5% / 75% RH — Moisture Vapour Barrier system is installed before the base primer
- Under the threshold
- Proceed directly to base primer / soaker coat
- Australian Standard reference
- UF's 4.5% – 4.8% threshold sits below the Australian Standard maximum and below typical manufacturer disqualifying thresholds (e.g. ArmaFloor TDS specifies "do not apply" above 5% moisture)
What this means in practice: a floor that hasn't been moisture-tested is a coin-flip for what is not known. Ultimate Floors 4.5% threshold is tighter than the manufacturer's disqualifying threshold of 5% — meaning UF build resin floor install with margin. A contractor who doesn't test moisture has no idea whether a Moisture Vapour Barrier was needed. They've installed a non-MVB system to a concrete that may have needed one. Moisture and wrong surface texture is why coating delamination starts.
UF Stage 5 Air-entrained hole skim
Most modern concrete is air-entrained — profile diamond grinding and shot blasting reveal these small air voids that exist throughout the thickness of the concrete slab. If the holes aren't back-filled before the body coat goes down, these air holes are capillaries and where outgassing comes from as the heavier floor resin coat cures — producing small bubbles that surface in the final floor. Flake broadcast hides them — solid colour reveals how the floor coating system was approached during installation.
UF flat-blade or trowel-skims the exposed air-entrained holes before the body coat is applied. The fill material is matched to the body-coat resin system, so the chemistry stays consistent through the build.
What this means in practice: this is one of the stages most one-day installs skip — there's no time in a same-day sequence to trowel-skim air holes. Floors that skip this stage have small bubbles surfacing days, weeks, or months after the install. They look like product faults. They're prep faults.
UF Stage 6 Body coat and flake broadcast
The body coat is where the floor gets its colour, film depth, and structural character. It's a measured resin mix volume to achieve coating film thicknesses, and the flake broadcast is to a specified, full coverage density — not a rough scattering.
- Body coat film thickness
- 250–700 microns (0.2–0.7 mm) — the exact micron range within that band is determined by the resin system being used
- Resin systems used at UF
- Liquimix Aralox-FL150 or similar systems; EP200 epoxy primer (residential / commercial flake builds); 1180 system (heavier-duty industrial and high-use floors). The system is chosen per job and per build specification.
- Flake broadcast
- Full coverage to rejection — flake is broadcast until the wet resin can absorb no more. This is the industry-standard density target for a properly-built flake floor.
What this means in practice: "body coat" sounds simple, but it's a measured film thickness with a specified flake density. A body coat thinner than the resin system's spec, or a flake broadcast that stops before rejection, never has the depth and wear-resistance of a properly-built flake floor.
UF Stage 7 Scrape, clean, and prep for clear coats
Once the body coat has cured and the flake is locked in, the excess flake (the portion the resin didn't absorb during broadcast) is scraped off. For custom installs that require a specific surface character — smoother feel, particular sheen — rotary sanding may be done at this stage to refine the surface. Everything is then thoroughly vacuumed before any clear coat goes down. Dust contamination between the body coat and the clear coat is a bond inhibitor for the finished floor.
What this means in practice: the surface that receives the clear coats has to be properly clean. This stage is the boundary between "flake on the floor" and "floor ready for finish." Cut corners here and the clear coats encapsulate the dust.
UF Stage 8 Clear protection coats — two recommended
The clear coats are what your feet, car tyres, and garden chemicals actually contact. They protect the body coat below, give the floor its final sheen, and determine how the floor wears over time. Ultimate Floors applies two clear coats as the recommended standard, with proper cure between coats.
- Polyurethane
- Durable, cost-effective, classic clear-coat option. Used where premium UV-stability isn't required.
- Aliphatic urethane
- UV-stable, non-yellowing finish. Used where colour stability matters — sun-exposed floors, lighter-finish floors that would show yellowing in a standard urethane.
- Polyaspartic
- UV-stable, fast-cure, premium aesthetic finish. Used where the project specifies a polyaspartic topcoat.
This is where polyaspartic legitimately sits in a flake-floor build — as a topcoat, applied over a properly-built body coat, on a concrete that's been verified. Exactly as Sika, Liquimix, Rhino Linings and the other manufacturers describe in their TDS documents. UF uses polyaspartic where it's the right choice for the project — and uses it the way the documents say to.
What this means in practice: the chemistry of the clear coat is chosen for what the floor has to handle. Two coats is the standard for proper protection — one coat leaves the body coat under-protected and the floor wears prematurely.
UF Stage 9 Skirting and wall-base chalking — where required
The boundary where the floor meets the wall is where moisture, dust, and visual finish quality all live. Floor-to-wall-base chalking is the standard finishing step for garage floors, and is available for all internal installs — patio enclosures, office floors, workshop floors, and internal living areas.
What this means in practice: a sealed wall-base joint is the difference between a flooring install and a finished garage floor that can be hosed out. It's a small detail that closes the install neatly — and signals the skirting board is protected from water being absorbed.
What this chapter means for your decision. The floor you get is the floor that was built. Each stage in this chapter is either done or not done. Stages skipped don't show up on day one — they show up in years two, three, five.
A quote can be compared against this chapter. The questions worth asking any contractor:
- What's your moisture-testing method? What threshold do you use to trigger an MVB system?
- What CSP profile do you prep the concrete to?
- Do you fill air-entrained holes before the body coat goes down?
- What film thickness is your body coat, and what resin system are you using?
- How many clear coats — and what's the chemistry?
The answers to those questions tell you what the quote is actually buying. Ultimate Floors doesn't run every stage on every job — the process adapts to what the concrete needs. But the stages exist, and skipping one that the substrate actually requires is the difference between a floor that lasts and a resin floor application that can inherit problems. Quality assurance during the floor preparation and resin flooring installation ensures there is no guesswork — the process has quantifiable data if a warranty issue arose.
The decision remains yours. This chapter just gives you the questions worth asking.
Compare any quote against this build
Download the full PDF — the nine-stage flake-floor build, with the specification and tooling for each stage. Read it offline, or check your next quote against it, stage by stage.