Epoxy flooring questions

€30 to €120 a m² for most jobs. A roller coat in one colour is €30 to €50 a m²; a full system with diamond-ground prep is €50 to €120 a m²; flake and metallic floors are €60 to €100 a m². See our price guide.

On sound, dry concrete, yes. It won't hold on a slab that's damp, dusty, oily or painted unless that's dealt with first, which is why the grinding and the moisture test matter more than the resin. A new slab needs time to dry out before it's coated.

At 20°C, about a day before you can walk on it, about 4 days for light use and about 7 days to a full cure. In a cold garage it's slower. See cure times.

Laid on a well-prepared slab, 10 to 20 years. The top coat in busy areas wears first, and it can be sanded and recoated without starting again.

A smooth gloss coat can be slippery when wet. An anti-slip grit in the top coat fixes that. See anti-slip flooring.

Epoxy is the hard, well-bonded base most floors start with. Polyurethane takes heat, steam and UV better; polyaspartic cures in hours. Many good floors use two of them. See resin flooring.

A home garage, yes, if you grind the slab properly and the concrete is dry. Paint-shop kits cost about €7 to €8 a m² for two coats, ex VAT. See garage floors, done for you or DIY.

One epoxy flooring installer that covers your county. They ring within one working day, look at the floor, price it in writing and deal with you directly.

Epoxy is one kind of resin floor, the most common. Polyurethane and polyaspartic are the others. See resin flooring.

Not usually. Plain epoxy yellows in sunlight and frost works at the slab. Outdoor areas use other systems.

While it's laid and curing, a little. Most modern systems are solvent-free. Air the space and keep people out until it's cured.

Not as a rule. Timber moves and the coating cracks. Resin floors go on concrete or screed.

Filled cracks are hidden under the coating. A crack that's still moving will come back through.

The tiles and adhesive usually come up first. Some systems bridge sound tiles; the installer will say after a look.

Sweep the grit and mop with warm water and a little floor cleaner. Avoid harsh solvents and abrasive pads.

Cured food-grade systems are used in food premises. Near heat and steam, polyurethane cement is the usual choice. See kitchen floors.

Yes. See epoxy over underfloor heating.

Your request goes to one epoxy flooring installer that covers your county. They ring you, usually within one working day, ask about the floor and arrange a look or a price.

Hardware-store 'epoxy floor paint' is usually a single-pack acrylic or weak water-based tint that dries by evaporation to a thin 50–80 micron skin and peels under warm car tyres within a year. A true 2-pack 100%-solids epoxy floor mixes Part A resin with Part B chemical hardener on site and cross-links into a 400–2,000 micron rock-hard plastic shell bonded directly into diamond-ground concrete.

Standard epoxy primers require a concrete slab relative humidity below 75% RH (roughly 4% moisture content on a Tramex meter). If an older Irish garage or ground-floor slab tests between 76% and 95% RH, the installer rolls on a two-coat epoxy moisture vapour barrier (MVB) primer first to lock down rising damp.

Standard aromatic bisphenol-A epoxy resin is for indoor floors only—outdoor UV sunlight turns it amber/chalky within months and trapped rainwater vapour can blister an impermeable film. For outdoor steps, balconies, or patios, contractors use UV-stable aliphatic polyaspartic flake systems or permeable resin-bound aggregate instead.

At 15–20 °C ambient slab temperature, a 2-pack epoxy floor accepts light foot traffic after 16–24 hours, domestic cars and pallet trucks after 48–72 hours, and reaches full chemical resistance at 7 days. Fast-cure polyaspartic garage floors shorten vehicle turnaround to 24 hours.

Yes, provided the heated screed has completed its full commissioning heat-up cycle before grinding. Installers switch the heating off 48 hours before priming so the slab doesn't outgas pinholes, use a slightly flexible polyurethane-modified resin build, and bring the flow temperature back up at 2–3 °C per day a week after completion.

A smooth high-gloss epoxy coat is easy to mop indoors but can be slick under wet boots by a garage door or commercial wash bay. Installers broadcast PVA vinyl flakes, fine 80–120 mesh aluminium oxide, or kiln-dried quartz sand into the wet body coat before sealing to achieve a wet Pendulum Test Value (PTV) above 36–45.