Every failed floor we are called to remove failed for one of four reasons. None of them are bad luck, and all four are preventable before a drop of resin goes down.
Cause 1: The Slab Was Never Opened
Concrete has a closed, dense surface layer. Resin needs a mechanically opened profile to key into. The industry scale for this is CSP, and a coating needs CSP 2-3 at minimum. Acid etching, which is the cheap alternative, produces an inconsistent profile, leaves salts behind if the rinse is imperfect and cannot remove contamination. Coatings over etched concrete bond to the surface film rather than the slab, and lift in large, clean sheets. This is the single most common failure we see.
Cause 2: Moisture From Below
A slab on grade with no functioning vapour barrier moves water vapour upward continuously. Seal that under an impermeable coating and vapour pressure builds until it pushes the film off, usually in year two, usually in bubbles or sheets with a chalky white residue underneath. This is entirely preventable with a calcium chloride or in-situ RH test before quoting, and a moisture-mitigation primer where readings are high.
Cause 3: The Wrong Product
Consumer kits are typically 40-50% solids water-based epoxy. Half of what goes down evaporates, leaving a film a fraction of the thickness of a 100% solids professional system. Thin films have no reserve. One gouge goes through to concrete and moisture gets under the edge. Cheap product is also often applied without a topcoat at all, so the pigmented base takes the wear directly.
Cause 4: Hot Tire Pickup
A tire that has been on the highway comes home hot and soft, and plasticizers migrate out of the rubber into a coating that is thin or not fully cross-linked. When the car moves, the coating comes with the tire in a perfect tread pattern. It is the signature failure of consumer kits and of professional floors driven on before full cure. A properly built 25-35 mil system with a polyaspartic topcoat, given its 72 hours, does not do this.
How to Tell Which One Happened
Turn a lifted flake over. Clean grey concrete on the back means the bond failed at the slab, prep. White chalky residue and a domed shape means moisture. A perfect tread pattern means hot tire pickup. Brittle, paper-thin flakes that crumble mean low-solids product. The floor tells you exactly what went wrong, which is useful when someone is telling you it was just bad luck.
Fixing a Failed Floor
Failed coatings have to come off completely, grinding for thin or already-lifting films, shot blasting for thick or well-bonded ones. Coating over a partial failure just guarantees the new floor fails along the same lines. Removal typically adds $1-$3 per square foot, which is why doing it correctly the first time is cheaper than the cheap quote.
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