The right concrete floor coatings can give your floor a whole new life. You are not the only one that wants to do this considering that the floor coating industry is worth over $3 billion.
To do this right, you are going to have to look for a flooring contractor. What should you look for when choosing a floor coating contractor?
This guide will tell you some of the biggest things to look for.
Ask About the Price
The first thing you are going to want to do is to ask a flooring contractor how much money they will charge you to coat your concrete floor. This is important because you want to make sure that there is no misunderstanding about the price. You also want to make sure that you have the money to pay for this flooring job.
What you need to do is sit down and do some research on flooring contractors. Get an idea of how much money they may charge for the coating job that you want them to do.
Then, you need to sit down and come up with a realistic budget that you can spend on this based on your research. From there, you can start to look for a flooring contractor that can meet your budget needs.
However, the one thing that you need to be careful of is basing your decision entirely around money. You may run into a flooring contractor that will offer to coat your concrete floor for much less money than what other flooring contractors will quote you.
While this can sound great if you are trying to save money, you need to be careful in this situation if this contractor is the only one that is charging you that price.
There could be a reason why this contractor is charging you a smaller rate. They could have less experience with flooring, could have inferior equipment for this job, it could take longer to finish the job, etc.
Try to find a balance between money and other benefits when making your final decision.
Search Your Local Area
The next thing that you need to do is use your local area to your advantage. Realistically, any flooring contractor that you are going to hire is likely going to be in your local area. Some may have regional limits while others may charge you a premium price if they have to travel too far to get to your destination.
Google is your friend here because you can use it to search for a flooring contractor near you.
Let’s say that you live in New York City and you are looking to hire a flooring contractor. In this situation, you can search for flooring contractors in New York City and see what results come up.
From there, you can at least say you have narrowed down the field to flooring contractors in your local area. Then, you can take a closer look at these contractors to see if they meet your other criteria.
It is not uncommon to search for a service based on location. About 46% of all Google searches are for local information. Use this to get what you are looking for and get one step closer to finding the right floor contractor for you.
Read Reviews and Testimonials
Something else that you should consider is asking a floor contractor for any references that they may have. This can come from past customers or anyone that they may have done business with.
The goal of this is to see what past customers have to say about this contractor. Did they like this contractor? Did everything go smoothly?
It is also a goal to find out if there are any red flags with certain contractors. By reading online reviews and testimonials, you could get an idea of if a flooring contractor has any consistent issues.
An example could be if they do a coating job that does not last long enough. If this is a pattern, enough customers will complain about it for it to be noticeable in the business’s online presence. In that situation, you can take note of this and choose to move in another direction.
It can also be a red flag if there are no reviews of this contractor available. This is especially the case if they claim to have been in business for several years. You would assume after all of that time, at least one customer would have something positive to say that they would share publicly.
Now, there are some contractors just starting that may not have enough experience to build up credibility with reviews. This is understandable.
However, if someone has been around long enough and either has a lot of negative reviews or very few reviews, these are things you need to take note of and consider going elsewhere with your business.
Ask Around
If online reviews are not enough for you, you do have the option of asking people around you if they know any good flooring contractors. This can be a colleague, someone in your social network, a neighbor, a close friend, a family member, and more.
What this does is it helps narrow down your search a little more. The reason for this is that if you are asking these people for recommendations, you are admitting that you have some sort of trust in their opinion. If they know anyone good enough for them, they can be the connection that you need to get a good floor coating job done.
Asking someone you know for this advice is human instinct. About 88% of people place the highest level of trust in family and friends when it comes to recommendations.
So, by asking people close to you if they know anyone who is a good flooring contractor, you are following your human instinct to ask your social circle for advice.
Ask About Experience
Another good indicator of what type of contractor you are getting is how long they have been in business for. While it is not impossible to find a good flooring contractor who is new to the business, the ones that have been around for years have the luxury of having built up credibility. Regardless of how long they’ve been running their business, you should definitely work with a contractor who is fully trained and certified with floor coatings.
That goes a long way once you take a deeper dive into how often new businesses actually succeed. To echo this point, 20% of businesses fail within their first year and nearly half of all businesses fail within five years.
So, if you find a flooring contractor that has been doing this for about a decade, you should know that there is likely a good reason why they have been able to do this for so long. They are likely qualified to do this, have done projects like yours before, have enough funds to support their business, and are likely organized when it comes to business needs.
Ask this question to try to get an idea of what kind of experience you are working with here.
Ask About Warranties
Something else that you need to think about with flooring contractors is what type of warranty they will offer for their service. You will have to do some initial research to get an idea of what you might expect here.
You may find that a couple of contractors may not offer any warranty at all. Some may have limited warranties and others may structure the warranty based on how much time has passed.
An example could be that if something goes wrong with the coating on your floor within the first two years, a contractor may offer to either replace it free of charge or give you a full refund. Then, they may only offer 50% of this if it happens by the fourth or fifth year.
The reason some contractors choose to structure a warranty like this is that they have to account for depreciation. Like almost anything, your coating is far more likely to hold up when you first put it on your floor. However, it can wear down as years go on just like a lot of things.
Contractors need to protect themselves here but they also need to offer you a reasonable solution if something goes wrong. This can be the insurance that you need if something does happen to go wrong sooner than you expect.
Ask About Insurance
A vital part of working with a contractor is making sure that they have some sort of insurance. A smart independent contractor should have no problem showing you this because having insurance likely helps their business avoid big payouts or big lawsuits. So, it could be a big red flag if a flooring contractor fails to provide you with any insurance information.
On top of this, you could be potentially exposing yourself depending on what type of floor you get coated.
Let’s say that you are a business owner and you have this done in your business’ building. The contractor does the job and then leaves. All of a sudden, somebody else in the building falls on your coated floor and hurts themselves right after the job is done.
You may find out that the flooring contractor did a bad job and they have no insurance to cover these damages. Now, that person who fell in your building could be looking at you for a personal injury lawsuit.
On top of the potential for a lawsuit, if there is damage that occurs because of this job and your flooring contractor does not have any insurance, you could be left on the hook to fix that damage. That could end up costing you thousands of dollars.
Do not forget to ask a potential contractor about their insurance before you decide to hire them.
Review the Contract Carefully
Before agreeing with a flooring contractor, make sure you review your contract terms carefully. If you are not confident in your ability to read the contract terms extensively, hand it off to a lawyer or somebody else that you trust.
This makes sure that you get everything that you agreed to in writing. It also helps verify that these conditions are met and you can catch any surprises at the last second by reading this over yourself.
If any issues come up while reading the contract, get those corrected and have someone type up a new version of the contract before signing.
Go With Your Gut
Finally, if you are a business owner or a homeowner, you have to go with your gut after all is said and done. This is the thing that will give you an inkling of whether or not you can trust somebody.
Trusting somebody with this type of business is important because this person could be spending extensive time in your home or office. This is also the person you have to trust to do a good job with all of the money that you are paying them for their service.
On top of this, you have to have a good feeling that this contractor will not go back on their word. In other words, they will do the job properly and honor the terms of the agreement.
Get Concrete Floor Coatings
These are things that you should consider before choosing a floor coating contractor for concrete floor coatings. Make sure you know what your budget is, ask for references, ask about warranties and insurance, plus make sure that you listen to your gut for the final decision.
Are you ready to get started? Book an appointment with us today.
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