How to quote an epoxy garage floor
A two-car garage looks like one number and is really six. Here is the order an experienced estimator works in, and where the money leaks.
Measure the floor, then measure the walls
Take the room, not the slab. A 22 by 24 garage is 528 square feet of floor and 92 linear feet of wall line, and that second number is what cove base, edging and masking are priced on. Most quotes that come in low are low because somebody measured one wall and multiplied.
Deduct anything you are not coating: the furnace pad, a built-in bench, the strip under a cabinet run. Do not deduct a column you still have to cut in around — that is more work, not less.
Price the system, not the pail
A flake floor is not "epoxy". It is:
- mechanical prep, usually diamond grinding
- a primer if the slab is on grade or you have any moisture doubt
- a pigmented base coat
- a full flake broadcast, to rejection
- a polyaspartic or urethane top coat
- cove base where the floor meets the wall
Quote them as one system with one price per square foot and you will be compared on price. Quote them as six lines and the customer sees what they are buying.
Waste is not optional
Add it per item, not once at the end. Base coat wastes differently from flake, and flake wastes differently on a rough slab than a smooth one. Eight per cent on coatings and ten on broadcast is a reasonable starting point; adjust from your own last ten jobs, not from a forum.
The four lines most people leave off
1. Moving and protecting contents. Shelving, a freezer, two bikes and masking the drywall is an hour nobody wrote down. 2. The trip charge. Getting the crew and the grinder to site costs the same for 200 square feet as for 2,000. 3. Joint and crack detail. Chasing and filling is priced by the linear foot and it is never zero on a slab older than ten years. 4. Drains and penetrations. Each one is hand work.
Sanity-check the margin before you send it
Work out what the job costs you — material at pack prices, not per square foot, because you cannot buy 2.16 kits — and compare the margin to what you normally land. A quote that is fifteen points under your usual is either a mistake or a decision, and it is worth knowing which before the customer says yes.