Before you buy an epoxy floor coating
KNOW WHAT YOU’RE BUYING
Whenever you are buying anything it helps to know what exactly it is you’re buying. By that, we mean not simply knowing you’re buying a certain product such as a car, a steak, or an epoxy floor coating. A question that we get asked a lot is why is your epoxy coatings or garage flooring is more expensive than the other coatings and flooring products out there. Of course, you want the best Garage Flooring NH but you also should want it for the best price too.
Garage Floor Epoxy
To answer that the best way we can; lets use the analogy with the items above such as the car and a piece of steak. If you’re car shopping you can ask why is a Mercedes so much more than a Toyota? Well as we all know the Mercedes is a higher quality vehicle with much more expensive components and options. But why is a Mercedes S class so much more than a C class. Well again it’s a higher quality car, it’s bigger, with a bigger engine, more horsepower and has a lot more expensive options. Now lets take a piece of steak as an example. You can buy a nice Ribeye for about 9 bucks a pound and you can buy one for 29 bucks a pound. Why the difference, they’re both steaks? People tend to think that way with their epoxy flooring and garage flooring purchases. Why is one garage tile or epoxy floor paint so much more than the next one, they’re both tiles and paint. Well with the steaks, the $9.00 a pound steak is probably Choice grade, the $29.00 a pound steak is Prime grade, big difference. The more expensive steak may also be Dry Aged and Hormone free. We could go on but I think you get the picture.
The point we are trying to make here is that knowing the details about the products you want to purchase will give you a better understanding about the price levels of each product. For instance, before you buy an epoxy floor coating you should know whether it’s water based or not. If you buy an epoxy that’s water based you can be paying for water that comprises up to 50% of the product versus a high quality epoxy that is 100% epoxy. Lets say the 100% solid epoxy is like the Mercedes, now you have a C class epoxy and an S class epoxy. What’s the difference, they’re both 100%? One way to know is does the epoxy come with a true topcoat that has a hardened finish and not just a clear version of the unhardened epoxy? A true Topcoat is a hardened epoxy. To find out, check the abrasion rating, the lower the mg loss rating the better the coating. An abrasion rating over 20 means the Topcoat or epoxy is not hardened and it will not last. Check the impact rating, check the thickness of the coating. Thinner coating will obviously wear out faster than thicker coatings especially if they do not have a hardened finish with an abrasion rating of 20mgs or less. These are critical things to know. Knowing these facts will make sure you are buying an epoxy that will be up to the traffic load on your floor. It will also make it easier for you to make the purchase knowing that you are getting a much higher quality product.
The same can be said for garage tiles, some tiles are hollow core and made from recycled soda bottles versus our tiles that our solid high quality PVC. Again, a big difference. A hollow tile weighs less than a pound of the cheapest quality plastic while our tiles weight 4.5 lbs each of high grade PVC. So there is a perfectly good reason for the price differential just as there was for the steaks and the Mercedes. You just need to know there’s a difference and what that difference actually is.
So before you buy, check the specification, ask questions and make sure you know what you are buying and that you are satisfied with the level of quality you are purchasing.