HOW TO AVOID AN EPOXY FLOORING FAILURE
This Page Is Your Insurance Policy Against Costly Epoxy Floor Failure
If you’re considering an epoxy floor coating, there are a few critical things you must understand before you begin. Failing to understand them will result in a floor that looks exactly like the one shown below — stained, peeling, worn-out looking, and prematurely destroyed in a very short amount of time.
why Most Epoxy Floors Fail
Epoxy floor failures are not random. They are almost always caused by one (or more) of four things:
- Using a low-quality and or thin-build epoxy.
- Using a good quality epoxy but in the wrong application (the epoxy was not designed to handle the traffic loads on it)
- Poor surface prep
- Defective concrete, if not addressed and treated, will fail as shown in a subsequent section.
- Any one or combination of any of these will result in a guaranteed floor failure
Our epoxy coatings for garages are engineered to be impervious to the conditions that destroyed the floor below — But only when the correct epoxy system with the right options is chosen and applied to a properly prepared concrete slab. For example, you can't just put down one of the standard garage coating kits as is and then use your garage as a repair shop or park dual pickups, ATVs, and tractors on it without using a primer and the military topcoat. This is a misapplication of the product and not the product's fault when it wears out prematurely.
Epoxy Myths That Lead To Floor Failures
“All Epoxies Are the Same”
False. Epoxy formulations vary wildly in material quality, solids content, adhesion strength, and abrasion resistance. Most failures begin with low-grade products that were never designed for garage floor use or for anything other than light passenger vehicle parking in mild climates.
“100% Solids Means Best & High Solids Are Good Enough”
Not all products labeled 100% solids are truly 100% solids by weight and volume. Those that aren't are what we call fake 100% solids. Even full 100% solids epoxies vary in quality depending on the grade of materials used. The example of the ugly failed floor below was a 100% solids epoxy that got like that in a little over a year! We use our 97% high-solids epoxy as a primer; most high-solids epoxies are less than 97%. We would never use our high-solids epoxy as the base layer for any of our floors, and neither should you.
“Polyaspartics & Polureas Are 10X Stronger”
Despite marketing claims, many polyaspartic & polyurea coatings have higher abrasion loss ratings than high-quality epoxy and polyurethane systems. We make and sell polyaspartics & polyureas and only use them in the right applications for them. Specifications matter more than buzzwords.
When You Should NOT Epoxy Your Floor
Epoxy is not the right solution for every slab. If your floor has uncontrolled moisture vapor, severely deteriorated concrete, extreme operational conditions such as in steel mills or conditions that cannot be corrected, epoxy may fail regardless of product quality.
In these cases, garage tiles or doing nothing may be a better long-term solution. We had a customer who manufactured abrasive ceramic beads for oil drilling. Every coating they tried got ground to dust within a month or two. When they called us, we advised them not to try to coat the floor but to install our interlocking tiles, which they did, and it worked perfectly for them.
Choosing & Using The Right Epoxy Floor Coating
Choosing the right epoxy flooring system for your specific application is the first and most important step, and we've made it easy to do so.Visit our Interactive Epoxy Floor Selector Tool to select a coating that is properly rated for your traffic level, vehicle type, and usage conditions. Using a product that is not up to the task — in quality, thickness, or performance rating — is a guaranteed failure that often requires diamond grinding and a complete redo. The picture below is from a customer of ours who had their floor professionally installed with a 100% solids epoxy!
This garage epoxy floor if you can believe it is only 14 months old! The professional epoxy installer told this customer that his epoxy was 10X stronger than standard epoxies. This required a full diamond grind back down to the bare slab and was recoated with our Armor Granite Pattern 2 Garage Epoxy flooring kit.
Proper Surface Prep
Next comes surface preparation. Using the right epoxy on a properly prepared slab is 50% of the battle, applying the right product the right way is the other half. We provide full detailed, step-by-step instruction on how to prep and coat your floor correctly so your epoxy bonds permanently instead of peeling prematurely on our How To Prep & Epoxy Paint Your Floor The Right Way page. Also see this very informative article written by one of our customers ArmorGarage Epoxy Application Suggestions And Lessons Learned
Here's just the start to get an idea of what your floor should look like before coating it with any paint or epoxy.
These floors are not epoxy-ready! The reason for this information and other information on our website is so that you only do your floor once!
YOUR FLOOR MUST LOOK LIKE THIS IN BOTH CLEANLINESS AND OPEN PORES.
Epoxy Quality Matters Just As Much As Proper Prep
With epoxy coatings, you truly get what you pay for.
Most common garage floor “epoxies” fall into these categories:
Water-based epoxies sold in big-box stores
High-solids epoxies incorrectly sold as base layer epoxies.
“Fake” 100% solids that are not 100% solids by weight and volume
Low-grade imported materials
Paints with additives to legally label them as epoxies
Most of these products apply at 2–4 mils thick — essentially the same as wall paint. Paint belongs on walls, not floors.
A proper epoxy flooring system should be:
14–25 mils thick
A true hihg grade 100 % solids epoxy base coat
Finished with a high-performance polyurethane topcoat with Abrasion Resistance rated for the traffic on the floor
The industry benchmark for durability is the Taber CS-17 abrasion loss test. It measures material loss in milligrams.
Lower loss = higher durability
Most epoxies have 24–50 mg loss ratings
Our military-grade topcoats: have a 4 mg loss (best in the industry)
This is why ArmorGarage floors still look new after 15–20 years.
⚠️ Abrasion loss is exponential, similar to the Richter scale. One or two milligrams makes a massive difference.
Ignore hype — read the technical data.
We make it easy with our Interactive Epoxy Coating Selector Tool, which matches the correct system to your floor conditions.
When Failures Aren’t the Epoxy's Fault
Once a floor is properly prepped and a high-quality epoxy is used, the only remaining causes of failure are:- Incorrect mixing ratios
- Moisture vapor issues
- Weak, chalky, or compromised concrete
Here's another type of concrete to look out for. It's called a pea gravel slab. See all those black spots they're pea gravel or river stones which are very smooth and nonporous. Which makes them very difficult to get anything to adhere to them. If you have a slab like this you need to use the Bonding Primer first. These types of floors are not very common, they're the result of the contractor cutting corners when he poured the floor to save money. As long as you know what to look for it's not a problem.
Garage Floors Demand the Toughest Coatings
If you park large vehicles, do mechanical work, or use your garage as a workspace, we strongly recommend our Military Grade Topcoat and a primer. Garages may seem like low-traffic spaces, but in reality they are some of the harshest environments for floor coatings. Even slight turns of the wheel pulling in and out mean your tires are constantly twisting, with the dead weight of your car on them, grinding in wear spots in the coating.
Without:
High epoxy adhesion strength, and
A topcoat with excellent abrasion resistance,
an epoxy paint or coating will wear through, peel, or delaminate very quickly.
For maximum durability, we also strongly recommend using our primer for added adhesion — even though our epoxies are self-priming.
If the budget allows, using a primer is never a bad idea, especially in garages.
Check Your Concrete Before You Buy
Before selecting any epoxy system, evaluate the condition of your slab.
Perform a simple scratch test:
If you can easily remove concrete by lightly scratching the surface, the slab is weak or compromised.
In this case:
Run a floor prep machine over the surface to remove weak concrete
(available at Home Depot or local rental shops)
For floors in very bad condition, use a commercial grade diamond grinder
Follow up with a primer to soak into the slab and strengthen it.
Moisture Testing Is Critical
Moisture is one of the most common causes of garage floor coating failure.
Do this test before coating:
Tape down a 3–4 ft square of plastic using high-quality duct tape
Seal 100% of the perimeter
Leave it in place for 2–3 days
Check for moisture underneath
No moisture: You’re good to go
Moisture present: Contact us for proper prep recommendations before coating
Many garages built in the 1970s or earlier do not have a vapor barrier under the slab. Almost all newer homes have vapor barriers
If you live in a high water table area, moisture may be unavoidable. In those cases, you may be better off using garage floor tiles or a garage mat instead of an epoxy coating.
Coating over an existing paint or epoxy. With our Bonding Primer you can lightly sand the previous coating and apply any of our epoxy kits over it. Critical things to do and know before doing so. First if the coating was a low quality type product and is peeling off the majority of the floor we recommend a full removal. If the floor has peeled off or worn off in 10% or less of the floor than it's ok to coat over it. We strongly suggest doing a pull test first. Take a sharp utility knife and cut 1/4" squres in a grid pattern over a 12' x 12" area or so. Then firmly apply a good duct tape over the entire section and then rip it off. If more than 10 or 15% of the squares come off then don't coat over it. Our epoxy can only stick to your caoting so if that comes loose our epoxy comes loose with it.
Choose an epoxy floor system that has the right look and durability for your garage
We offer four primary epoxy garage floor kits, designed for different:
Vehicle traffic levels
Usage conditions
Appearance goals
Also very important, don't be afraid to ask questions, don't guess when doing an epoxy floor project, see our Epoxy FAQ section for expert answers.