Project example: a 3-bay auto shop floor near Auto Park Way — a quartz-broadcast system priced by the square foot

The scenario

An independent repair shop leases a light-industrial suite with three bays and a small parts room. The old floor is bare concrete, gray from years of tire dust and stained under each lift.

The moisture test comes first. Two readings in the back bay are high, so the plan adds a moisture-vapor primer under the whole floor rather than patching one corner. The installer also checks the cracks at the lift posts, because those posts concentrate the weight on a small patch of slab.

The shop owner reads the product's chemical-resistance chart for brake fluid, motor oil, coolant and degreaser, and asks which ratings apply to the top coat.

The job runs over two weekends, one bay at a time, with the lift sitting idle on the finished side.

What the job involves

1. The owner and the installer pace out the three bays and mark lift footprints, the floor drain and the door openings.
2. A grinder with a dust collector opens the slab, and cracks near the lift posts are repaired first.
3. Readings are taken at a grid of spots, and the vapor-barrier primer goes down across the whole floor.
4. The epoxy base is rolled on and quartz is thrown into it until the surface is covered.
5. Quartz that did not stick is swept up and the sealing coat locks the rest in place.
6. Once cured, bay lines are painted, and vehicles come back at the times on the data sheet.

Materials and prep

• Grinder with a dust collector
• Vapor-barrier primer, epoxy base coat and quartz in unlabeled bags
• Sealing coat, squeegees and rollers
• Tape and line paint for the bay edges

Add-ons often paired with this job

• Line striping and zone marking — +$300–$1,200. Bay boundaries and walkways marked over the cured floor.
• Saw-cut joint filling, about 150 linear feet — +$300–$1,200. Sawn joints between bays cleaned and filled.

Why it is done this way

A bay is hard on a floor in three ways at once: lifts press their load into small patches, tires arrive hot, and brake fluid, oil and coolant land on the surface all week. Quartz broadcast makes a thicker, rougher build than a roller coat, and reading the chemical chart before ordering keeps the choice about the shop's real fluids.

The primer sits under the whole floor in this job, not only the damp corner. Moisture readings differ from spot to spot, and one low reading beside one high reading is a reason to treat the slab as a whole.

Priced on the home page calculator, the job is a rate for the system, a per-square-foot surcharge for the primer and one striping line. The shop owner can open the business path, enter 1,800 square feet and see the same ranges in seconds.

What would change the price

• Every moisture reading is low and the primer line falls away.
• A hot-water wash bay joins the job and calls for urethane cement.
• Oil-soaked concrete or an old coating must come up first.
• A fourth bay brings the floor to about 2,400 square feet.
• The parts room gets a plain solid color instead.