What should I ask a concrete coatings contractor before hiring them?
Two quotes for the same garage or driveway can differ by thousands of dollars and describe completely different work, which makes concrete coatings almost impossible to shop on price alone. Five questions make bids comparable: is there a written warranty and does it transfer, what is the prep method, is a real moisture test included and what happens to the price if it fails, what is the named product system and mil thickness, and what is the cure schedule in three numbers. A contractor who answers all five plainly is describing work you can hold them to. One who answers none of them is quoting a number, not a job.
The real problem
Bids describe different work, not different prices.
Biggest single tell
Prep method — diamond grinding versus acid etching.
Most expensive surprise
A moisture test skipped now, priced on install day.
What to get in writing
Warranty terms, product system, mil thickness, cure schedule.
Ask every contractor the same five questions in the same order, and write the answers down. The comparison gets easy fast.
A low bid is not automatically a bad bid. A low bid that cannot answer question 2 or question 3 usually is.
None of this is about who is cheapest. It is about whether the quote describes the work well enough to be held to it.
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Question 1 — Written warranty
Is there a written warranty, and does it transfer if I sell the house?
Nearly every coatings company in this market advertises a lifetime or limited-lifetime warranty, and almost none of them publish the terms. A warranty you cannot read before signing is a sales line, not a warranty. Transferability matters more than homeowners expect: a coated garage is a selling point only if the coverage survives the closing.
What a good answer sounds like
The contractor hands you the actual terms — in the proposal or as an attachment — before you sign, and can point to the exclusions without being asked. Look specifically for how moisture and hydrostatic pressure are treated, whether tire staining is excluded, and whether the repair pricing in the contract contradicts what the warranty promises.
Our answer
Ask us for it in writing and read the exclusions before you sign anything. We would rather you compare our written terms against someone else's written terms than take either of us at our word.
Question 2 — Prep method
What is the prep method — diamond grinding or acid etching?
This single question separates more bids than price does. Acid etching is faster and cheaper and leaves a slab that looks ready but is not mechanically opened. Etched floors are the ones that lift under hot tires, usually within a season or two. Grinding is most of the labor in an honest quote, which is exactly why a cheap quote skips it.
What a good answer sounds like
Diamond grinding, described specifically — what gets ground, what happens to cracks and pitting found during grinding, and how the dust is contained. Vague answers about surface prep or cleaning and priming are the answer to a different question.
Our answer
We diamond-grind. Whatever is on the slab now — old sealer, stain, a previous coating — comes off during grinding so the new system bonds to concrete rather than to a finish that may already be releasing. That grinding step is part of why a proper install is not a one-hour job.
Question 3 — Moisture test
Is a real moisture test part of the job, and what happens to the price if it comes back high?
In the Lowcountry this is the question that decides whether a coating lasts. A shallow water table and roughly fifty inches of annual rain mean many slabs here pass moisture upward continuously, and a coating over an untested slab can be pushed off from underneath — bubbling, blistering, sheets lifting away. A taped-down plastic sheet is not a real check; calcium-chloride or relative-humidity testing is. The second half of the question matters just as much: an unpriced moisture risk becomes a day-of surprise fee after the grinder is already running.
What a good answer sounds like
A named test method, and a number for what mitigation costs if the reading calls for it — given to you before the work is scheduled, not after.
Our answer
We test, and we tell you up front what a moisture-mitigating primer would add if the readings call for one. You should not be finding out the price of a problem on the morning the crew is standing in your garage.
Question 4 — Product system
What is the named product system going down, and at what mil thickness?
Without a product name and a thickness, there is nothing to compare between two bids and nothing to look up yourself. Mil thickness is the quiet variable — two quotes can both say polyaspartic topcoat and differ by half the material.
What a good answer sounds like
A manufacturer and a system name you can search, plus a stated thickness per coat. Bonus points if they can say why that system suits a humid, salt-air, high-UV coastal garage rather than a freeze-thaw climate.
Our answer
We name the system on the proposal with the thickness per coat. For most Charleston garages that means a hybrid: epoxy as the basecoat, where it bonds well to prepared concrete and builds thickness affordably, and polyaspartic as the topcoat, where it cures fast and resists UV yellowing and hot-tire pickup better than epoxy alone.
Question 5 — Cure schedule
What is the cure schedule — walk-on, move-back, and park-on?
Three different numbers, and a contractor who gives you one number for all three is guessing. Most coating failures that are not prep failures are patience failures: a floor loaded or driven on before the system has cured is the one that peels first. A schedule in writing also tells you what the job actually costs you in access to your own garage.
What a good answer sounds like
Three separate numbers, tied to the specific system going down and the weather that week — not a generic figure from a brochure.
Our answer
We publish the actual schedule for the system going on your floor before the work starts. The typical ranges are in the table below. We would rather hand a floor back a day later than have it fail early.
The cure schedule, in three numbers
We don't rush a floor back into service to make a schedule look good. Here is what the wait actually looks like, so you can plan around it and compare it against what anyone else tells you.
Milestone
Polyaspartic system
Epoxy system
What it means
Walk on it
Often same day
Typically next day
Foot traffic only — no dragging, no sliding anything across it.
Move back in
About 24 hours
Commonly 2–3 days
Shelving, boxes, tool chests. Set them down rather than sliding them.
Park on it
About 24–48 hours
Commonly 3–7 days
Hot tires are the hardest thing a garage floor ever sees. This is the number worth waiting out.
These are typical ranges for the systems we install, not a promise for your floor — temperature, humidity, and the specific product all move them. You get the real schedule for your system in writing before the crew starts. If a schedule sounds too good to be true for the weather that week, it probably is.
Why do two quotes for the same garage differ by thousands of dollars?
Because they are usually quoting different work. Prep is the largest labor line in an honest coatings quote, so the fastest way to cut a price is to etch instead of grind, skip the moisture test, and put down fewer mils of a cheaper resin. None of that is visible on the day the crew leaves — all three show up a season or two later as peeling, bubbling, or hot-tire pickup. Compare the five answers, not the two numbers.
Is a one-day floor a red flag?
Not by itself. Fast-cure polyaspartic systems genuinely install in a day, and a good crew can grind, patch, and coat a standard two-car garage in that window. What matters is what was done inside the day. A one-day install that includes diamond grinding, crack and pit repair, and a moisture test is a fast job. A one-day install that skipped those is a shortcut wearing the same label. Ask what happened in the day, not how long the day was.
What should I do if a contractor will not answer these in writing?
Treat it as the answer. Every one of the five questions has a short, specific, written answer available to a contractor who is actually planning to do the work that way. Reluctance to put the prep method, the product system, or the cure schedule in the proposal is not a paperwork preference — it is the flexibility to do something different once the deposit clears.
