Most floor coating companies in Calgary will not publish a price. You book a visit, sit through a presentation, and get a number at the end. We would rather tell you upfront so you can decide whether this is in your range before anyone comes to your house.
Here is what we charge, what changes it, and how to read the quotes you get from anyone else.
Our Starting Prices
For our complete system — diamond grinding, moisture barrier primer, 100% flake broadcast, UV-stable polyaspartic top coat, 5-year warranty, installed in one day:
| Garage size | Approximate area | Starting price |
|---|---|---|
| Single car | ~250 sq ft | From $1,900 |
| Two car | ~400 sq ft | From $2,800 |
| Three car | ~600 sq ft | From $3,900 |
These are starting prices for a slab in reasonable condition. They are not the number for every garage, and any company that gives you a firm price without seeing the floor is guessing.
Basement floors start from $2,800 for up to 400 square feet and from $4,200 for 400 to 700. Larger or irregular spaces we quote after seeing them.
What Drives the Number
Square footage is the biggest factor, but not linearly. Mobilization, equipment setup and dust containment cost the same for a small garage as a large one, so the price per square foot drops as the floor gets bigger.
Slab condition is the second. A clean, sound, previously uncoated slab grinds quickly. A floor with an old failing coating on it has to be stripped first, and that can add hours of grinding. Heavy oil contamination needs degreasing and sometimes localized remediation before anything else happens.
Moisture matters more than people expect. If testing shows high vapour transmission, the primer specification changes. That is a material cost difference, and it is not optional — skipping it is how floors fail.
Access and layout affect labour. A detached garage with a narrow approach, a floor drain, a set of stairs, or a lot of built-in shelving all add time.
What Is Quoted Separately
We list these separately rather than burying them, because pretending everything is included is how quotes become misleading:
- Crack repair. Structural cracks and control joints need filling with a semi-rigid material before coating. Small hairlines are usually part of normal prep; significant cracking is priced after inspection.
- Cove base. Carrying the coating up the wall a few inches creates a sealed, cleanable transition. It looks excellent and it costs extra because it is hand work.
- Stairs and landings. Coating steps is slow, detailed work — each tread and riser is essentially its own small floor.
- Old coating removal. If there is a failing epoxy or a sealer on the slab, it comes off first.
- Concrete repair. Spalling, pitting or a deteriorated threshold has to be rebuilt before a coating goes on. A coating does not fix bad concrete.
Reading a Quote That Looks Cheap
If a quote comes in dramatically below the range above, one of these is usually true.
The prep is chemical, not mechanical. Acid etching or a pressure wash instead of diamond grinding. This is the biggest single cost difference in the industry and the biggest predictor of failure.
There is no moisture barrier. Cheaper primer, or none at all.
It is a thin single-coat system. Sometimes marketed as "epoxy paint." Very little material on the floor.
Partial flake coverage. Broadcasting flake to refusal — 100% coverage — uses several times the material of a light scatter. A light broadcast looks similar in photos and wears very differently.
The warranty is decorative. A long warranty term from a company with no service history is a marketing number, not a commitment.
Ask for the prep method, the primer, the top coat product, the flake coverage and the cure schedule in writing. Two quotes that both say "polyaspartic floor" can be entirely different jobs.
On Warranties and Price
You will see 15-year and 20-year warranties advertised around Calgary. Ours is 5 years, and that is a deliberate decision rather than a limitation of the system.
A warranty is a promise to come back. The value of it depends on the company still being there and honouring it without a fight. We would rather publish a term we will service on every floor than a longer one that reads better in an ad. When you compare, ask what the warranty actually covers, what voids it, and whether it transfers if you sell the house.
Is the Difference Worth It?
That depends on your horizon. If you are selling in a year, the cheapest option that looks good may be rational. If this is your house and your garage for the next decade, the gap between a $1,500 wash-and-roll and a properly ground, primed, fully broadcast system is the difference between doing it once and doing it twice.
There is a longer discussion of that trade-off in is a garage floor coating worth it, and a breakdown of what separates the two approaches in why DIY epoxy kits peel.
The Calgary Market
There are well over a dozen established floor coating companies operating here, and several of them do genuinely good work. This is a competitive market, which is good for you — it means you can and should get more than one quote.
What we would encourage is comparing on substance rather than on the headline number or the length of the warranty. The prep method is the thing that determines whether you are still happy with this floor in eight years.
Getting a Number for Your Garage
The quote builder walks through space, size and finish and shows the starting price for your configuration in about a minute, with no phone call required. If you want the full system detail first, it is on the garage floor coating page, and what is included versus what costs extra goes line by line.
