DIY or Pro
We recoat failed DIY floors every season, so you would expect this page to trash the kits. It will not. A box-store epoxy kit on a sound, dry, well-prepped slab with honest expectations is a legitimate weekend project — for the right garage. The problem is that the kit box cannot tell you whether yours is the right garage, and the label prep instructions are where most of those floors were lost. Here is the honest split.
A box-store DIY kit costs a fraction of a professional install — plus a weekend, plus etching supplies, rollers and spike shoes. The material is usually water-based epoxy paint at a fraction of the thickness a professional system builds: the box covers the same square footage with a tenth of the solids.
That is not a scam; it is a different product. Think of it as the difference between painting a car with rattle cans and a booth respray. Both put color on metal.
A dry shed or storage garage with sound, unstained, never-coated concrete, light use, no hot tires parked daily, and expectations set at a few good years rather than a decade — go for it, honestly prepped. Rent a grinder if you can; your floor will outlive the neighbors kit job by years for one extra day of work.
No judgment — it is one of our most common jobs. The failed coating gets ground off completely (it cannot be coated over), the slab gets the prep it needed the first time, and the new system goes down warranted. Mention it at the walkthrough so the removal is in the quote from the start.
Quick Answers
No — and neither can we. Anything applied over a peeling coating peels with it. The old material has to be ground off to bare concrete first; it adds prep time to the job, and it is why the recoat quote covers removal explicitly.
A kit costs box-store money plus a hard weekend, and typically lasts a few years on a well-prepped slab — often less on a bad one. A professional system costs more up front and is a decade-scale floor with a warranty. Per year of service the pro floor usually wins; per this weekend, the kit does. The cost guide covers what sets the professional number.
On honest prep and light use, a few years before wear paths show; with acid-etch-only prep and daily hot tires, sometimes less than one. Professional systems fail differently — which is to say, rarely, and under warranty when they do.
The Services This Covers
Free walkthrough, moisture check, and a written itemized quote — the ranges above become one real number for your slab.
