Epoxy Flooring Cost
In Commercial and Industrial Applications
Cost of Epoxy Floors
As you research flooring options for your commercial or industrial project, budget is always expected to be at the forefront of your decision making. To decide whether or not epoxy is the right choice for your project, it’s first important to understand the cost of installing an epoxy floor. There are many variables that impact the final epoxy floor price.
The main variables that impact price are the quality of the installation, the number of coats, color, how decorative the floor is, it’s intended application, durability, manufacturer, chemical resilience, non-skid properties and more.
This article will address these considerations and explain how they factor into how much an epoxy floor costs.
Installation Quality
When you’re installing an epoxy floor, you want to ensure that the installation is done well, using the right materials. To this end, you want to ensure that your installers have the experience, product knowledge, vendor relationships, proper equipment and the skilled labor and project management skills to do the job right.
If you want an inexpensive floor, hire an inexperienced contractor. Expect them to either provide the wrong solution for your application, perform poor quality work, use the wrong equipment or any combination of these factors.
You’ll pay more for a quality installer, but you’ll end up with a floor that looks and performs as it should. You’ll also have a quality floor that lasts, not one you need to redo when the first one fails.
Surface Preparation Costs
The underlying surface plays an important role in the cost of the floor.
Is the subfloor a brand new concrete slab or is it a 70 year old uneven and badly damaged one?
Does demo need to occur before the slab is prepared?
In order for epoxy to be installed, you need to have an appropriate substrate for it to bond to. This takes the proper subfloor preparation.
The cost to prepare new concrete flooring with a grinder and a shotblaster is going to be less than first having to demo and remove a lot of existing material.
There are other surface prep factors that increase epoxy costs. Unevenness in the floor. High relative humidity. Substantial crack filling in the slab.
Number of Epoxy Coats
The number of epoxy coats greatly impacts the cost of an epoxy floor. This is due to the increased material cost as well as labor cost to install each additional coat.
A basic single color commercial or industrial epoxy floor can be installed with two coats. For added durability and thickness, a third or fourth coat can be added.
Number of Coats for Decorative Epoxy Floors
Decorative floors (typically vinyl flake or quartz epoxy floors) require a broadcast of decorative aggregate into them. Typically a double broadcast is recommended for even appearance. This means that the floor has two broadcast coats, a grout coat and a top coat, for a total of four coats.
Moisture Primers (If Needed)
Depending on relative humidity (RH) in the slab, different measures must be taken. A moisture blocking primer or other more substantial moisture blocking solution may add another layer and increase cost.
Decorative Epoxy Floor Costs
Typically decorative epoxy floors have a quartz or decorative flakes added to them. This provides color variety and improves their appearance. Not all epoxy requires this kind of aggregate, but it’s essential to create certain looks that many customers prefer.
Additionally, there are specialty aggregates, like mica or metallic flakes. These are substantially more expensive than more basic aggregate, which drives the price up.
Metallic
Metallic floors use very fine metallic pigment to cause wild effects in the floor that often resembles clouds or marble effects. These floors are more labor intensive and require expensive pigment. They also often require specialty epoxy to do well. Again, driving up the cost of the epoxy floor.
What is the Expected Application for the Epoxy Floor?
Understanding the purpose for the epoxy floor is essential to specing the appropriate material to be installed.
Durability
A more basic epoxy in a storage room might be fine with a two coat basic epoxy. However, a floor that is subject to forklift traffic, should be designed differently to hold up to that use. The type of epoxy also matters: a basic water based epoxy vs. a high solid epoxy coating cost estimates will differ.
Along the same lines, what profile does the floor need to have? Should it be smooth, or rough and sharp? Different aggregates and numbers of coats can change this profile.
Chemical Resistance
Is the epoxy floor going to experience chemical spills? Which kinds of chemicals will be spilled? How long will it be before spills are attended to? It’s essential that the proper materials are put down to hold up to the expected chemical exposure.
A specific top coat (and even body coats), like a polyaspartic or a novolac epoxy may be necessary. Possibly, an entirely different floor, like a urethane cement, may instead be a better choice. All of these options add cost.
Specialty Epoxy Applications
Finally, there are high performance epoxy floor coatings and applications where costs can quickly climb. One such example is electrostatic discharge epoxy (ESD epoxy floors) used in labs, cleanrooms and other sensitive areas. In these areas, static can destroy sensitive equipment or cause an explosion.
Understandably, these and other specialty applications increase epoxy cost.
Floor Size and Layout
Is the installation for a 200 sq. ft. office space, or a 50,000 sq. ft. warehouse? Most installers, ourselves included, will adjust installation costs according to the size of the job.
Mobilizing a crew, setting up power, ordering materials, completing paperwork etc. all take time and effort. With that, a smaller job will be more expensive on a per square foot job than a larger project.
Layout
Small, oddly shaped areas with lots of wall space drive up the cost of prep. They also may add cost to the job if 4″ or 6″ integral cove base is to be included.
Access
What does access to the building look like? Is it on the main floor or at the top of a high rise or in a basement? Are there stairs? Is there onsite power available or not? What are the available working hours? All of these variables can change the price.
Epoxy Floor Costs are Complicated
You can see that we put a lot of thought into pricing every commercial and industrial epoxy installation.
In light of all of the variables, the pricing range is too great to provide fixed pricing by square feet. In order to provide an accurate price, we need to know more about the project. Seeing the space, or at least having photos and/or architectural drawings is important.
If you would like a bid for your Colorado area project we would welcome the opportunity. Please get in touch so we can review your project with you and provide a competitive bid.