Michigan Doesn't License Floor Coating Installers. So Who You Hire Matters.

There's no license to check

With a roofer or an electrician you can look up a license number. With floor coating you can't, because Michigan doesn't require one for this work. The state classifies us as painters. We say that up front because we'd rather you hear it from us than find out after a bad floor.

That doesn't make the work simple. It means the paper trail you'd normally lean on doesn't exist, so a track record, real reviews and a written warranty are what you have to go on.

The 15-minute problem

The products on a good floor today, polyurea and polyaspartic, aren't like epoxy. Epoxy levels itself and stays workable for a long time, which is why it comes in DIY kits. Polyurea and polyaspartic give an installer 15 to 18 minutes after mixing, and they don't level themselves. They have to be spread and set properly on the floor, not left curing in the bucket.

That window is the whole job. A crew that's new to the product, rushing, or working on a slab that wasn't prepped right will show it: a splotchy topcoat, flake that's thin in spots, edges that lift. We get a call about a floor like that about once a week. Our slogan, from 15 minutes to forever, is about getting that window right.

Questions to ask any installer

1. How long have you used this exact product? Not "how long have you been in business." The product only came out around 2018, so nobody has decades on it.
2. What's the base coat and the topcoat, and who makes them? If the answer is "epoxy" or a shrug, keep asking. We use Simiron polyurea and polyaspartic.
3. How do you prep the floor? Listen for diamond grinding, crack and pit repair, and what they do with hairline cracks. We cut those out and stitch them.
4. What do you do if the slab is wet? The right answer is "we wait." Moisture is the one real threat to a coating.
5. Can I see reviews and photos of your own jobs? Real before and after shots, from the same spot, of floors they did.
6. Is the warranty in writing, and what does it cover? Ours is a limited lifetime residential warranty, written down, covering peeling, chipping, blistering, fading and delamination from install or material defects.
7. Who trained your installers? See below for our answer.

How we train our installers

Plenty of companies send new installers out of state for a short class and a certificate. We train ours in house, on our own floors, with the people who've used this product since it came out. We pulled together installers with lead experience from across the industry, and we teach the small things that never show up in a class: knocking down the shark fins at the walls, keeping the perimeter scrape even, grinding out a filled saw cut instead of hiding it.

Ready to compare? Read what sets a coating price, or see our garage floor process step by step.