Calgary has well over a dozen established floor coating companies. Several do excellent work. The quotes will look similar, so the useful comparison happens in the conversation.
These are the questions worth asking, and what a good answer sounds like.
Preparation
1. How will you prepare the slab?
You want to hear diamond grinding with dust extraction. If the answer is acid etching, a chemical wash, or pressure washing, that is a fundamentally different job with a different lifespan. This one question predicts more about your floor's future than any other.
2. What surface profile do you grind to, and why?
A company that works to a specification will name one and connect it to the primer they use. This is not gatekeeping trivia — it is the difference between someone following a manufacturer's system and someone winging it.
3. What happens if you find an existing sealer or coating?
The correct answer involves grinding it off and a conversation about cost, not coating over it.
Moisture
4. How do you test for moisture, and what do you do if it is high?
On a Calgary slab on grade, this matters. You want to hear that they test rather than assume, and that a high result changes the primer specification. If moisture is not mentioned at all, that is informative.
5. Is a moisture barrier primer included in the price?
It should be standard, not an upgrade.
Materials
6. What exact products are you using, at what thickness?
Manufacturer and product name for primer, flake and top coat. "Industrial-grade epoxy" is marketing language, not a specification.
7. Is the flake broadcast to full coverage?
"100% coverage" or "broadcast to refusal" means flake is thrown until the surface stops accepting it. Partial coverage uses a fraction of the material and photographs almost identically.
8. Is the top coat UV-stable?
Sunlight through an open garage door yellows non-UV-stable products over a few summers. It is cosmetic but permanent.
Schedule and Cure
9. How long will the install take, and when can I use the floor?
A polyaspartic system should be a single day, with foot traffic the next morning and vehicles after roughly 24 hours. A multi-day epoxy build is legitimate but you should know upfront.
10. What happens if the weather changes?
Slab temperature and dew point affect whether a coating can go down. A company willing to postpone is being professional, not disorganised.
Warranty and Business
11. What does the warranty actually cover, what voids it, and does it transfer?
Read the exclusions. A warranty that excludes delamination excludes the main failure mode. Ask how many claims they have serviced and what happened.
Be a little sceptical of very long terms. You will see 15 and 20 year warranties advertised in this market. A warranty is a promise to come back, and it is only worth as much as the company's willingness to honour it. Ours is 5 years — a deliberate choice to publish a term we will service on every floor rather than a longer number that reads better in an ad. Whichever company you choose, the question is the same: what will you actually do if this fails in year three?
12. Are you insured, and can I see recent work?
Liability insurance and WCB coverage, plus photos or addresses of jobs from the last year — ideally ones that have been through a Calgary winter. Recent work in your area beats a portfolio of unattributed stock photos.
Two More Worth Asking
13. Who is actually doing the work?
Some companies sell the job and subcontract the install. That is not automatically bad, but you should know who will be on your slab and whether the warranty is honoured by the company you signed with or by the sub. Ask whether the crew is employed or contracted, and how long they have been installing.
14. What happens if you find something unexpected?
Grinding reveals things — soft concrete, deep oil contamination, hidden cracks, a previous patch. The answer you want describes stopping, showing you, and discussing cost before proceeding. The answer you do not want is silence, because it means the surprise gets coated over.
Related: ask what they would do if your slab turned out to need concrete repair before coating. A company willing to tell you "not yet, fix this first" is one you can trust with the easy jobs too.
Answers That Should Concern You
- "We just clean and roll it on" — no mechanical prep
- "Moisture is not an issue in Calgary" — it is, on slabs on grade
- "It is a proprietary blend, we cannot share the products"
- "Sign today for this price" — pressure tactics on a quote that should stand on its own
- A warranty period much longer than anything else in the market, offered without detail
- No written scope, only a total
What Good Looks Like
A company that answers these directly, puts the scope in writing, tells you what is excluded, and is willing to say "your slab needs concrete repair before we coat it" is worth more than one with a slicker presentation.
Two or three quotes is sensible. Compare them line by line — what is included and what costs extra has a table for exactly that.
Where We Stand
For the record, our answers: diamond grinding with dust extraction; moisture barrier primer included as standard; 100% flake broadcast; UV-stable polyaspartic top coat; single-day install with vehicles back after about 24 hours; 5-year warranty; published starting prices from $1,900 for a single-car garage, $2,800 for a two-car and $3,900 for a three-car.
If that lines up with what you are looking for, the quote builder will give you a starting number for your garage. If you are still comparing, our cost guide explains what should drive the price.
