Ordering & Delivery

Advice on how to avoid scheduling conflicts when planning your project

Ordering Enough Material For The Job

 in Ordering & Delivery by

Once you’ve made the decision to go ahead and put a coating on your floor, roof or deck the last thing you want to do is run short. We understand that no one wants a whole bunch of leftover materials but trying to order so that you use every last drop of coating leads to problems more often than not. This doesn’t even just apply to the coating, for example, if you were to start building your own deck, you’ll want to make sure you order enough material and items like these you can find at https://www.dinodecking.co.uk/products/low-profile-composite-joist/ and other stores to let yourself make a few mistakes, but not overcompensate to the point of losing money. Let’s just start by saying when it comes to coating concrete floors and wood decks that coverage is not an exact science. There are so many different factors that can affect the amount of coverage you get with any coating that it’s imperative you order material with a little safety factor built-in. Especially when doing wood decks or concrete floors. Wood decks are notorious for soaking up material like a sponge. If your wood is old and dry with lots of cracks in it. Expect to use more material then you think. We would recommend that you use a 20-25% safety factor when doing this type of wood deck. It takes lots of material to fill up all those cracks and dry wood will soak up the first coat similar to when you paint some sheetrock walls where the first coat seems to disappear as it dries.

When it comes to concrete floors the two main factors affecting your epoxy coverage are the porosity of the concrete and the roughness of the surface. Concrete comes in varying densities measured in psi. Your floor can have 3000psi, 4000psi or 5000psi concrete or anything in between. With the higher the psi the denser the floor will be. If you have an older floor with lightweight concrete chances are it will absorb more epoxy than normal, basement floors are notorious for this. If your floor has a very rough finish like a broom finish it will take more material than normal. In either case, it might be a good idea to think about using a primer. A primer will seal up a porous floor and add thickness to a coating to help smooth out a rough finish. That’s why you’ll see on all our epoxy product pages we urge you to add 10% to your actual floor area to be safe. Trying to order the exact amount of epoxy is not a good idea. Just like you wouldn’t go into your local paint store and try to buy the exact amount of semi-gloss to paint a room. You always end up with a little leftover when painting a room(s) and you should do the same when epoxy painting your concrete floors.

Epoxy coverage is usually stated in “up to” terms which means that is usually the most you will get out of the coating. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get more but it’s unwise to plan on doing so. Another factor that will affect coverage is how you apply it. If you apply it a little thicker than normal you will naturally get less coverage. This is not a bad thing as long as you ordered a little extra. It’s always a bad idea to try and stretch out epoxy to get more coverage. This results in less mil coverage than the coating is designed for. Thinner coatings, in general, don’t last as long as thicker coatings. We say in general cause you can apply 10 layers of low-grade epoxy on your floor and it still won’t last as long as even just one coat of our primer!

For interlocking tiles, you want to add 5% to your floor area. This seems to be the magic number for allowing for cutting waste and to have some spare tiles left over. If you are doing a floor that has lots of things you have to cut around you may want to increase the allowance to 10%.

For shingles, flat rubber or asphalt roofs and metal roofs, you can order right around the stated coverage for the product. When coating a roof you almost always get good coverage. Saying this though, if there is more that needs to be done to your roof than giving it a coating, it may be worth getting in touch with an austin roofing company (or one closer to where you live) to get the job done. At times, there are some tasks that are best left to the professionals.

Maybe if you want to be safe you can order an extra pail or two for a large roof. Otherwise when ordering if you round up to the next amount of pails that’s usually enough of a safety factor. Alternatively, you could hire a professional to do your roofs for you and not have to worry about over-spending on materials and worrying about not getting a quality finish to the job, look into commercial roofing companies.

So the moral of the story is you don’t have to go crazy and order a ton of extra material but don’t try to be a Swiss watch maker either. If your floor square footage is anywhere from 80-90% of the stated coverage of the product you’re ordering you are right where you want to be.

Ordering Renew-It Deck Coating

 in Ordering & Delivery  tagged deck coatings / deck primer / deck restore / deck resurfacer / Renew It Deck coating / super duty deck painting by

Renew It Deck coating

During spring and summer the back order time for our Renew It Deck coating can go out as far as two weeks plus shipping time. So if you’re tired of stripping and repainting your deck every year don’t wait till the week you want to tackle this project. Once you made the decision to do this awful job one more time order the product as soon as possible to avoid delays. The product is good for a year or more.

Ordering early allows you to take your time to prepare the deck properly. This is the most important step in doing the job right. Getting all the other products you’ve tried that are still on the deck in some sort of way completely off is a must.

Order enough of our deck cleaner to get the job done. Then you need to order the deck primer which will soak into the wood and lock in. The only thing left to do now is pick a color and order enough of the deck coating to be sure you don’t run out. Keep in mind that older wood with lots of cracks will soak up material much more than you can imagine.

Our Renew It Deck coating uses raw aggregate materials that are natural products, natural products come in different shades. Just picture marble or stone, they all are a little different, even material from the same cut. So each batch of Renew It can be shaded slightly different. Ordering a sufficient amount easily avoids this problem.  Also don’t forget to order enough Renew It rollers. Applying the Renew It Deck coating with regular rollers will not work and voids the warranty.

In sum order Renew It as early as possible. Sometimes if you order in November and December we offer discounts on larger quantities. We don’t ship Renew It during January and February when temperatures are extremely low. The product is subject to freeze damage in transit during very cold weather. If you order during winter months in preparation for a spring job just make sure you store the product where it won’t freeze. Order the right quantity with enough cleaner, primers and rollers to get the job done right. You’ll thank yourself for doing this next year when all you have to do is put out the furniture and relax!

General Ordering and Delivery Guidelines

 in Ordering & Delivery  tagged Epoxy floor kits / garage floor epoxy coating / garage flooring epoxy / industrial epoxy flooring by

EPOXY ORDERS

Today we’re going to talk about ordering epoxy floor kits. During busy season very often the demand will outstrip our production capacity. So instead of orders going out the next day they’ll go out a day or two later than that. Which should not be a problem in most cases. Problems can and do arise if you wait till the last minute to order and you have a specific date you want to epoxy your floor. Such as over a holiday weekend or during some time off from work. Please keep in mind that if you plan on doing your project over a long holiday weekend that you’re not the only one with the same idea. Back orders pile up and sometimes we get sold out of certain colors. So when you have a specific date in mind you should order two weeks in advance. This allows for back orders to be cleared up, it allows for delivery issues such as a package getting lost or damaged. It also allows you to do an inventory check once you receive all your packages to make sure you didn’t forget to order something or we didn’t send you something that you did order. Always allow a week cushion from when you should receive everything and when you want to do the job. The epoxy has a one year shelf life minimum so it won’t go bad sitting inside your residence, garage or place of business. Getting your orders delivered quickly can be difficult, thankfully there is software similar to last mile delivery software that can help make last-minute deliveries a little easier.

We ship the epoxy part of your order separately so that if FedEx roughs it up and it leaks it doesn’t ruin the entire order. You will usually get the etching and accessories first, this allow you to get a head start on the cleaning and etching process. The epoxy will arrive a day or two later. So on typical garage orders you would get two packages, on larger garage or commercial orders you will receive 3-5 boxes and on larger commercial or industrial orders your order will arrive on a pallet via truck.

If your order is arriving via FedEx ground you don’t have to be home to sign for it. If it is arriving by truck someone needs to be present to unload and sign for it. Once you have received your order you should open all the boxes as soon as possible to check that all items have been received and that there wasn’t any serious damage. If a can has gotten dented or a little bit of paint has leaked out, the product is still ok to use. If your cans have been damaged to the point where more than just a few ounces leaked then call us for a replacement. We will ship out a replacement right away and arrange for FedEx to pick up the damaged goods.

If you are using a contractor, it’s very important that you do NOT schedule your contractor till you have received everything and that you checked for damaged items and did an inventory check. When using a contractor please allow for Murphy’s Law to come into play. You can make a mistake, we can make a mistake, FedEx can make a mistake or all of the above can happen. If you order well enough in advance we can resolve any issue without it impacting your original desired completion date. It’s when you try to surgically plan everything to arrive by the day before you want to start that things could go south. Contractors get upset when they schedule jobs and then can’t do it due to last minute issues. If you give your contractor enough notice he can usually reschedule your job without a problem if need be. If you need to schedule your contractor cause he’s so busy than schedule him a minimum of 7-10 days after the anticipated delivery date of all your items. This allows time for problem solving if needed.

If you have an emergency type situation and you need to get your order asap just let us know and we will do everything possible to get it to you in time. Keeping in mind that we ship our epoxy orders from our NJ distribution center and all epoxy orders online must go Ground. Since our epoxies are not water based they are DOT restricted to FedEx ground delivery so please allow sufficient travel time in your calculations. Especially if you’re on the west coast. CA orders can take 5-6 business days to arrive once shipped.

So in sum just keep in mind our epoxies are not an off the shelf type of product. You can’t just go down to the corner paint store and get some. If you are buying home improvement or local paint store type epoxy, scheduling will not be an issue, you’ll have more serious issues later on but scheduling and getting the job done quick won’t be one of them. If one of the accessories items is an issue such as the etching solution leaked or a roller is missing or damaged or some such thing, you can go out and purchase it locally. Just give us a call or send us an email and we’ll be happy to credit you for any costs. Most times this is the easiest and quickest way to keep things on schedule so that your project is not held up for something minor.

Ordering & Delivery

 in Ordering & Delivery  tagged commercial epoxy floor coating / deck coatings / garage epoxy / garage epoxy flooring / super duty deck painting / waterproof deck basecoat by

Today lets talk about the ordering and delivery process. Since it is still busy season this is a good time to go over some of the issues we encounter. When planning their project some customers like to try and schedule them with military precision. They wait till the last minute to order then schedule a contractor to come in and do the work the day after the estimated delivery date from us. This more often than not leads to problems and frustration when using a contractor. Please do not attempt these types of surgical strikes when planning your project.

Here’s some of the reasons why. During busy season demand often outstrips our production capabilities for epoxy and deck coatings. So instead of next day shipping epoxy can go out 2-3 days after the order and in the case of our Renew It Deck Coating lead times can stretch out as far as 10 -14 days.  So when you make your decision to go forward with your project using one our products please allow as much of a cushion time wise between when you should get your order and the time you plan on doing it.   This advice holds true even if you decide to go with another brand. The only time you don’t have to do this is if you’re going to your local home improvement store and buying off the shelf product. You’ll have other problems but scheduling won’t be one of them.  We do not make or sell off the shelf type products.

You will notice that if you order an epoxy kit from us it will come in multiple shipments. Why because sometimes the delivery company can be abusive with our packages and the epoxy can and does sometimes leak out. When that happens we rather just the epoxy be damaged and not the whole order. When you get an epoxy kit from us it comes with a lot of other items such as rollers, mixers, squeegee, nonslip additive and such. These items ship separately and usually go out first with the epoxy a day or two behind depending on the order volume at the time.

Also besides your shipment getting damaged in transit, it can get lost or you may have forgotten to order something or  believe it or not we could have made a mistake and shipped you a wrong item or left out an item from your order accidentally and yes we do make mistakes even though we try our best not to.

So when planning your floor, deck or roof project allow for a little bit of Murphy’s Law to creep in. Order you product to arrive at least a week before you want to do the job if you are doing the work yourself. We would allow a little more time if you are scheduling a contractor to come in and do the job for you, just to be extra safe. Once your product arrives,  open the boxes to check for hidden damage. A lot of times a customer will receive everything way ahead of time and not open anything or check the packing list until the day they are doing the work. Then if there was some hidden damage or something is missing,  all the planning goes out the window and now we both have an emergency on our hands. We don’t like these emergencies any more than you do. To avoid these situations order in advance, the product will not go bad if you get it a week or two ahead of time, it won’t cost any less if it gets there at the last minute. When you receive the product bring it inside where it is protected from the elements. You can store it anywhere you want just don’t let it freeze during winter months. Once safely inside open the boxes and cross check everything against the packing list. If you think you’re missing something or don’t know what a certain item is give us a call or send us an email. Same goes for something that might have been roughed up by the delivery company. We had a customer call in the other day saying he’s not sure if the Part A of the epoxy is still good since the can looked like it was kicked up and down a soccer field. It happens to be that the epoxy was fine but it was good that he made sure before applying it.

Another factor to keep in mind is that the majority of orders ship from our distribution center in NJ. So if you live on the west coast you need to allow for at least 5-6 days of travel time plus a day or two for us to pack and ship your order. While we are on the subject of packing and shipping. If you call in or order online at any time past 3:00 EST your order goes in as a next day order. If you order lets say at 5PM EST on a Friday, your order will then be processed as a Monday order. So please take this into account too. We have had customers order online over the weekend and then call first thing Monday morning looking for a tracking number. We understand why it happens in the age of Amazon, but we are not Amazon and the products we sell are basically custom made products.

In sum if you pressed the go button on your project give yourself as much time between ordering and when you plan to do the job. We do our best to get all orders out the door and to you asap. But just in case something goes wrong, if you allowed some extra time it gives us time to get you out replacement product if you missed something, we missed something or FedEx damaged something. And finally if using a contractor DON’T schedule him until you get all the tracking on your order and then schedule him at least 2 days past the time it would take us to get you replacement product just in case Murphy’s Law hits us.