Project example: a 4,000 square foot warehouse floor in the Enterprise Street area — what it involves and what it costs

The scenario

A small distributor occupies a unit in a light-industrial building. The floor is a single large slab with sawn control joints every few feet, hairline cracks in the aisles and a patch near the dock door where a drain was moved.

Pallets and a single forklift move along two main paths. The tenant wants a sealed, brighter floor with marked lanes and does not want to stop shipping for a week.

The plan is two halves, one after the other, with stock moved to the finished side. The installer tests moisture across a grid of spots, because the slab edge at the dock is often damper than the middle.

A solid color epoxy with grit goes down in two coats. The joints are filled with a flexible filler and the coating is cut to follow them rather than bridge them.

What the job involves

1. The tenant and the installer mark forklift paths, rack footprints and the damp-looking edge by the dock door.
2. A walk-behind grinder works the first half in sections while the dust collector runs.
3. Cracks are cut and filled level, sawn joints are cleaned and filled flexibly, and moisture is read at a grid of spots.
4. Primer and two coats of pigmented epoxy with grit go down over the first half.
5. Stock shifts to the finished side and the second half gets the same sequence.
6. Lanes are painted over the cured coating, and carts and forklifts return at the data sheet times.

Materials and prep

• Walk-behind grinder and industrial dust collector
• Joint filler and crack-repair mortar
• Primer, pigmented epoxy and aggregate
• Striping tape and line paint

Add-ons often paired with this job

• Line striping and zone marking — +$300–$1,200. Lanes, pedestrian paths and rack footprints marked over the cured coating.
• Saw-cut joint filling, about 150 linear feet — +$300–$1,200. Sawn joints cleaned and filled with a flexible joint filler.
• Coved base, about 100 linear feet — +$800–$2,200. A coved edge is occasionally added at a wall where washdown cleaning matters.

Why it is done this way

Slabs in buildings like this are cut into panels, so joints outnumber cracks. A flexible filler absorbs the seasonal movement, and the coating is cut along each joint line instead of crossing it.

In the business path of the calculator the unit is one system rate, one surcharge for the cracks and two flat items. The schedule setting tells the contractor how the floor is used; it does not move the price in this model.

On a larger floor the rate per square foot may fall slightly, since setup is spread over more area.

What would change the price

• Moisture comes back high on the dock side and a primer line appears.
• The dock apron asks for a heavier build than the aisles.
• Old adhesive or paint covers part of the slab.
• Shipping runs on weekends, which stretches the phases.
• The unit grows from 4,000 to 6,000 square feet.