When you invest in garage flooring, you’re not just paying for a smooth finish—you’re paying for long-term performance. And in Maryland, with its humid summers, coastal storms, and freeze-thaw winters, your floor has to stand up to serious environmental pressure.
A great garage floor is built to last—and a great warranty is written to prove it. Here’s how to tell the difference between a warranty that protects you and one that protects the installer.
1. It Covers Moisture Damage—Not Just Surface Wear
Moisture from below the concrete slab is one of the leading causes of floor coating failure. Yet most warranties fail to address this at all.
🧱 What to look for:
- Coverage that includes potential moisture damage, not just surface defects
- A coating system built on a 100%-solids, moisture-mitigating epoxy base coat for deep concrete penetration and reliable moisture mitigation
At Garage Floor Coatings of Maryland, we use a high-build, moisture-mitigating epoxy as our foundation (we save our polyaspartics as clear top coats only)—and we cover moisture damage with our lifetime warranty.
2. It Doesn’t Exclude Hot-Tire Transfer
If you’ve ever seen black, gummy tire marks or peeling under parked cars, you’ve seen hot-tire transfer in action (aka plasticizer migration). It’s one of the most common and frustrating failures in garage flooring—and it’s usually excluded from coverage.
🛞 What to look for:
- A warranty that clearly includes hot-tire transfer
- A system that uses high-cross-linked, 100%-solids polyaspartic topcoats, applied in two durable layers
GFC warranties cover hot-tire pickup because our coatings are engineered to resist it—even during Maryland’s summer heat.
3. It’s Not Just About Duration—It’s About What’s Behind It
Short-term and “limited lifetime” warranties can be a red flag—they can hide significant warranty exclusions. Typically, these warranties are associated with:
- Coating systems that use a quick-curing polyurea or polyaspartic as the direct-to-concrete base coat. In the presence of medium to high concrete moisture, these thinly applied coatings do not have sufficient time to deeply penetrate and strongly bond with the concrete slab
- “1-day” coating system installations that focus on speed rather than quality
- Vague language in their “warranty exclusions” section that fail to cover real-world problems like moisture-related issues (moisture vapor transmission and high hydrostatic pressure; the primary causes of peeling) or staining due to hot-tire transfer
🔍 What to look for:
- Instead, look for a lifetime warranty that reflects long-term confidence. That is, all moisture-related issues and hot-tire transfer (aka plasticizer migration) are fully covered under the warranty
- A 2-day installation that uses a moisture vapor barrier (like a slower-curing, moisture-mitigating, 100%-solids epoxy) and 100%-solids polyaspartic topcoats.
At GFC Maryland, our full-flake garage flooring systems are built for performance—and backed by a warranty that actually holds up.
Garage Flooring That’s Covered Where It Counts
Your floor should handle Maryland’s weather, tires, and traffic. And your warranty should reflect that. With Garage Floor Coatings of Maryland, your garage flooring is covered for the long term—not just the honeymoon period.
Schedule your free estimate today and protect your floor for life.
