- A professional epoxy garage floor coating, for a standard 2-car garage floor, will range from $2,500 to $3,500. Price depends largely on the condition of the concrete floor: cracks and pitting that require concrete repairs will increase time on the job and thus price.
- It’s important to recognize that while many homeowners will use the term “epoxy flooring” for the types of coatings we apply, the product used in professional installation is generally polyaspartic, a superior epoxy garage flooring that will last longer and hold up better.
How Much Is A Professional Epoxy Garage Floor Installation?
At Everlast Concrete Coatings, we provide professional garage floor coating installations in Penn Yan, New York. We’ve done epoxy garage floors in hundreds of homes and businesses, so while we can’t speak for every epoxy garage floor cost – we can speak to our experience.
A 2-car epoxy garage floor generally runs from $2,500 to $3,500 depending on the quality of the garage floor, additional spaces like drains or stairs that need work, and exact square footage. All of these increase labor costs and thus overall cost to epoxy your garage floor, which will be reflected in your flat fee quote from our time.
We go into more detail about epoxy garage floor cost below, but let’s start by laying some groundwork and correcting some common misunderstandings about epoxy flooring.
Epoxy Versus Polyaspartic Garage Floor Coatings
Epoxy is an incredibly hard and durable two-part resin that can be applied over a concrete garage floor. For many years, it was the go-to solution to protect concrete and other surfaces both indoor and outdoors.
True epoxy coatings have some drawbacks, however, and this is no longer the epoxy coating of choice for discerning homeowners or professionally installed projects. Polyurea and polyaspartic coatings are now the superior epoxy coating.
Ultraviolet Light Issues
Epoxy flooring will yellow over time and exposure to UV light. Because garage floor epoxy receives regular and consistent exposure to sunlight through either open garage doors or windows, your once gleaming surface will dull and yellow over time if it’s made with standard epoxy and not polyurea or polyaspartic.
Longer Curing Time
Water based epoxy or other older epoxies take a lot longer to cure than newer polyurea and polyaspartic coatings – some can take 7 days for the full curing process, and we’ve come out to fix a DIY project more than once as a result!
Our new epoxy flooring options can be done and cured within 24 hours: we usually tell customers you can walk on it the next day and start moving your things back in another 24 hours later.
Too Hard? That’s Right!
Believe it or not, solid epoxy is so hard that it’s actually TOO hard to be a good epoxy garage flooring!
Anyone who used to install epoxy flooring twenty years ago can tell you that garage floors will sometimes crack and chip. This is because epoxy coatings are so hard, they don’t provide any flexibility for the underlying concrete slab. Since garages are not conditioned spaces, cold and hot weather will cause the concrete floor to expand and shrink ever so slightly. This expansion process is natural, but because epoxy floors are SO hard, the epoxy doesn’t expand with the concrete.
Polyaspartic coatings, by contrast, are highly durable but also have a small amount of “give” to them, allowing the concrete floors to flex beneath them. They are a higher quality sealant with a reliable application process, are chemical resistant, and also block oil stains. Polyaspartic is the perfect top coat for any garage floor – and a compelling alternative to a “true” epoxy floor.
| Average Costs of Epoxy Garage Floors Nationwide According to HomeAdvisor, the national average for epoxy garage floors is approximately $2,227, with prices ranging from $1,447 to $3,006. |
What Goes Into Your Epoxy Garage Flooring Costs (Our Application Process)
One of the least expensive and most impactful home improvement projects out there, a new epoxy garage floor can totally transform your home without breaking the bank.
Generally priced per square foot, our epoxy garage floor costs reflect 1-2 days of work for most garages, plus materials. The average price is $5 per square foot to $8 per square foot.
Here’s how we do it:
Epoxy Application (Or Polyaspartic for Professionals)
Repairs to the Garage Floor
We begin by repairing cracks and pits in your concrete floor, when necessary, using a cement-based formula for deeper cracks, and a durable epoxy filler for smaller cracks and divots. Most epoxy floor companies won’t provide foundation repairs, but we can do a lot of the concrete garage floor repairs you might need.
Cleaning Before the Floor Coating
This is critical to a fine finish! We thoroughly sweep before any floor coating, and we often grind the entire floor to a rougher finish as well. This can help with adhesion if the surface is too smooth to begin.
Polyurea Base Coat
With the concrete garage floor swept and cleaned, we apply a polyurea base coat. Polyurea is the ideal base coat for a garage floor coating due to its strong adhesion. It “grabs” the underlying concrete, including polished concrete, with unrivaled strength. It does a great job sealing concrete as well.
The polyurea coat is rolled on, and brushed on at the edges and corners.
Decorative Flakes
While the polyurea base coat is still wet, we apply your choice of decorative flakes, sometimes called decorative chips. These decorative options look great, but they also help to hide dirt and debris on your epoxy garage floor when in regular use!
We then go over the surface with a scraper to ensure there are no chips sticking up.
Polyaspartic Top Coat
Finally, we apply a clear polyaspartic coating. This could be thought of as your “traffic coating”, providing the protection you’re after while preserving the underlying concrete and more decorative prior coats. Polyaspartic coatings are oil resistant, chemical resistant, and with proper maintenance can last for more than a decade with little more than regular cleaning using a mild cleaning solution.
Because this is a thicker solution, this coat is applied with a squeegee, then rolled for a smooth finish.
Curing Time
We aim to finish most epoxy flooring or garage floor projects within one day, and most homeowners can be walking on their epoxy flooring the next day. We advise waiting to bring vehicles or furniture back in until the end of the second day, or 48 hours after we leave the project.
The Best Epoxy Floor Requires Professional Installation
As professional installers who have seen and worked on repairing a DIY installation or two over the years, experience goes a long way towards a beautiful finish. We think the installation fees are well worth it to avoid costly mistakes, get the right epoxy type for your home, and create lasting garage floors that will save money with less maintenance, provide great anti-slip properties, resist staining, and clean easily. We consider epoxy garage floor costs by a professional well worth it.
FAQS on How Much Epoxy Garage Floors Cost
Should I try to DIY my own garage floor epoxy flooring?
We don’t recommend it. Although it seems like an easy home improvement project, we’ve seen enough epoxy flooring projects that look terrible (and don’t last!) to recognize that experience means a lot in applying epoxy for a picture-perfect finish.
Does my epoxy coating cost include concrete repairs?
Most professionals will give you a flat fee that includes concrete repairs. That’s because we want to be able to stand by our work for years to come! We offer a 15-year warranty on all of our epoxy garage floor projects for that reason.
Do commercial concrete coatings cost more?
Commercial concrete coatings by Everlast Concrete cost about the same as for homeowners: from $5 to 8 per square foot.
