Floors That Last Finishes That Land

Nine times out of ten the answer is prep. Acid-etching is what most rolled-on DIY kits and discount jobs lean on — it pickles the surface but barely opens the concrete. Epoxy then sits on a sealed slab and lifts the first time a tyre rolls in hot or moisture pushes up from underneath. I diamond-grind every floor with a hand-held planetary grinder. That removes the laitance, exposes the aggregate, and gives the resin a mechanical key it actually bonds to. Same product, two different floors — one peels, mine doesn't.

Flake epoxy is a base coat with vinyl chips broadcast across it — durable, forgiving on small surface flaws, and what most garages get. Metallic epoxy is a hand-poured pigmented resin that swirls into a marble look — harder to install, more visual impact, suits showrooms and feature floors. Both seal the same way; the look and price differ.

They're cousins, not the same product. Epoxy is the build coat — thick, durable, the workhorse for most garages and warehouses. It's not naturally UV-stable, so outdoors it can amber. Polyaspartic is a fast-cure top-coat, often used over epoxy — UV-stable, harder, lets you walk on a floor in 24 hours instead of 3 days. Polyurethane is more of a flexible top-coat, good where there's movement (think parking decks). For most Sydney garages I run an epoxy build coat with a polyaspartic top-coat.

Indoors, properly prepped and top-coated: 15–20 years easy on a residential garage, 7–10 on a working warehouse where there's heavy traffic and forklifts. Outdoors is where Sydney is brutal — UV breaks down a lot of resins, so an external floor needs a UV-stable top-coat (polyaspartic or solvent-based) and you should expect to refresh the top-coat every 6–8 years.

Foot traffic is generally safe after 24 hours. Vehicle traffic and heavy furniture should wait 5–7 days for full chemical cure. We walk you through the exact timing on handover.

Honest answer: there's a real range, and "from $X" pricing online is mostly bait. The factors that move price are area (smaller jobs cost more per m² because mobilisation is fixed), prep condition, system (basic flake vs metallic vs polyaspartic top), and whether the floor needs primer over a porous slab. I quote every job after seeing it — that's the only way the number is real.

Yes — typically 30–60% more. Two reasons: the pigmented resin itself is more expensive, and metallic is hand-poured and worked with rollers and brushes to get the swirl. That extra labour is the real cost. The trade-off is visual — metallic floors are showroom pieces; flake is a tougher, more forgiving everyday surface.

For a standard residential garage: full clear-out before day one, foot traffic at 24 hours after the final coat, vehicles back in at 5–7 days for full chemical cure. So plan on roughly a week of the garage being out of service in total. With a polyaspartic top-coat we can drop vehicle return down to 24–48 hours if you've got a hard deadline.

Fair question — the kits are real products. The difference is system, prep and longevity. Hardware kits are typically water-based 2-pack with thin film build. They etch instead of grind, they roll instead of squeegee-and-back-roll, and they top-coat with a basic clear instead of a polyaspartic. You're looking at 18–36 months on a working garage before it starts lifting around tyre tracks. A professional system is 100%-solids epoxy at 2–3× the film build, mechanical prep, primer where the slab is porous, full broadcast or hand-poured decorative coat, then a UV-stable top. Expected life is 15+ years on a residential garage.