​Most Common Reasons That Concrete Floor Epoxy Fails

If you’re a professional installer of garage floor epoxy, you know very well that your job is much more complex that most people would give you credit for. While many think you just mix some stuff up and paint it onto the garage floor, you know very well that there’s so much more to it than that, regarding not only the epoxy floor coating but also the concrete that’s beneath it. It’s a complex process, one that most people just don’t understand.

As an installer, you know exactly what can go wrong with such a big project. But trying to convince someone that it’s a much more involved process can be difficult. The next time you have to convince someone that putting down a concrete floor sealant, let them know about the most common reasons that concrete floor epoxy fails.

Bad Surface Prep

Most customers will have no idea just how important it is to properly prepare the concrete surface before applying the epoxy, polyurethane, or polyaspartic flooring. And even if they did, it’s likely that they’d skip the step because it’s just not something that most people are able to take care of on their own. After all, grinding, etching, or shot-blasting isn’t really something that most people have on their resume.

Even if they get the concrete properly prepared, many will simply not get it clean enough. All of the dust has to be removed to get that proper contact between the concrete and the resin. After all, contact with dust just isn’t going to hold! Similarly…

Remove Contaminants

Not every floor that’s getting a concrete floor sealant is going to be in the garage of a new home. Sometimes the concrete is going to be years or decades old, having seen constant use during that time. That’s when it’s important to remove any contaminants that could affect the surface. At an auto mechanic’s shop, it might be necessary to remove all of the oil from the concrete before epoxy application. In a school or industrial kitchen that’s replacing a tile floor with a metallic epoxy floor coating, any grease or food-oil that has seeped through the tile over the years will have to be removed in order to ensure proper adhesion.

Applying It To The Wrong Surface

Anyone in the business knows that you don’t apply epoxy to wood or tile. But you know that laymen have tried it, because they think of epoxy as being a hard glue that will simply hold everything together. If you know the science behind it, you know very well that that’s simply not the case.

Poor Concrete

If concrete cures too quickly (due to extreme cold, wind, or incorrect water content), the top layer of it can become brittle and flake off. Essentially, it’s weak concrete that will soon break.

If the concrete breaks when there is no epoxy, it simply flakes away and you’re left with a rough hole in the concrete. But if the epoxy resin floor paint is applied, the top layer of the concrete will become attached to the epoxy but become detached from the concrete below it.

Too Much Moisture

Of course, it’s always important to keep the work area completely dry when working with garage floor coatings. The concrete surface must be completely dry before any layer of the coating is applied. Even more important is to determine if the concrete itself is full of moisture; if there is constant moisture coming up through the concrete or if it has absorbed enough moisture in the from the air because of high-humidity, the project could be a non-starter.

Use The Right Primer

It’s always important to use the right primer when installing a garage floor sealant. Failing to match the sealant to the substrate (such as concrete) can lead to premature failing of the epoxy. Check out our primer/base combinations to find the one that would work best for your project.

Bad Mixing

When it comes to epoxy failure, most of the problems we mentioned above were due to problems with incorrect preparation of the environment. But this reason is all about user error. Sometimes the epoxy just isn’t prepared properly in order to give the floor the right hardness or shine. Perhaps the mix cured to quickly, or was still stickly long after it should have hardened. Maybe the mixture had the wrong proportions, or it wasn’t mixed for long enough so that all of the agents combined properly.

If you’re in the concrete floor sealant industry, you know just how much goes into putting in a floor covering that will adhere correctly long before it has to hold up to the wear and tear use. The next time someone questions what it takes to apply a proper an epoxy, polyaspartic, or polyurethane concrete sealer, just send them this article. Your job is a lot tougher than it looks!