San Francisco Epoxy Floors Co.
(415) 801-3047San Francisco epoxy floors explained, with requests sent to licensed installers.
San Francisco Planning's Sunset District context statement finds that, with few exceptions, Sunset tract houses of the 1920s to 1950s came with an integrated garage, the living spaces typically above it.
Epoxy flooring is a coating mixed on site from two parts, a resin and a hardener, that react and cure into a hard film that grips a prepared concrete slab. Sherwin-Williams calls its ArmorSeal 1000 HS a "two-component, catalyzed, polyamide epoxy" and lists 3.0 to 5.0 mils of dry film per coat, each mil one thousandth of an inch. Garage floor epoxy is the same chemistry built up in layers for a slab a car parks on: a primer, a pigmented base coat, vinyl flake scattered over the wet base by hand or sprayer until the resin will take no more (a broadcast to rejection, in the trade's term) and a clear topcoat. Sherwin-Williams gives its Resuflor Deco Flake II system, double broadcast, a nominal thickness of 60 mils. Which system suits a floor is decided after the slab has been measured and tested.
Every survey price on this page is national, because none of the surveys in this site's sources prices an epoxy floor in San Francisco. In HomeGuide's February 2026 epoxy survey, installed work runs $4 to $10 a square foot, and its two-car row, sized at 400 to 576 square feet, runs $1,600 to $5,800. Angi's August 2026 update, labor and materials together, spans $2 to $12 a square foot; HomeAdvisor's June 2026 update names $2,526 as the average job. Those figures do not agree, and blending them would create a number no survey printed. The epoxy cost page gives each survey its own dated rows, plus the multiplication for common floor sizes.
Whatever you send through this site is handed to a local installer who works independently and holds a California contractor license; the quote, the contract and the payments are then between you and that installer. State law is the reason for that arrangement. Business and Professions Code section 7027.1 makes it a misdemeanor to advertise construction work without a license in the classification advertised, and section 7030.5 requires the license number on every contract and advertisement. CSLB's fact sheet on online marketplaces says referral services "are legal in California, but within limits": a referral service may not negotiate contracts for a contractor, and the customer should sign with and pay the contractor directly. The hiring guide's license section shows how to look a license up.
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Four systems cover the home side, each for a different slab and use. Garage floor epoxy and polyaspartic coatings both suit a slab a car parks on. Citadel's comparison table rates epoxy for application only above 50 degrees F, while its polyaspartic grout coat is listed from 0 degrees F to 90 degrees F and above, and it marks epoxy's UV resistance "No". Metallic epoxy suits a converted ground-floor room or studio. Stained concrete colors the slab itself: a stain, in the Air District's definition, changes a surface's color without concealing "the grain pattern or texture."
Two-part epoxy and flake systems for the garages built into San Francisco houses: the moisture test a ground-story slab needs, the grinding profile the data sheets ask for, cure times in cool air, and national survey prices by garage size.
Published price: National survey range for a 2-car garage: $1,600 to $5,800 (HomeGuide, February 2026)
Fast-cure polyaspartic and polyurea coatings for San Francisco garages: return-to-service times from named data sheets, the humidity and dew point lines each sheet prints, color stability in sunlight, and the Bay Area's 100 g/L limit for floor coatings.
Published price: Polyaspartic, installed: $5 to $12 a square foot, national survey (HomeGuide, November 2024)
Metallic epoxy carries a pigment of metal-oxide-coated aluminum platelets in a clear resin over a colored base, so the floor shows drifting color instead of flakes. It suits a garage turned into a room, a studio or a shop, and its makers ask for a smooth, dry, tested slab under it.
Published price: $5 to $12 a sq ft for metallic floors, national, This Old House additive table (Mar 2026)
A concrete stain changes the slab's color and leaves its texture in view, so cracks, patches and old wear stay part of the floor. This page covers acid stains and dyes, the sealers that go over them, the Bay Area air limits for both, care and the national survey prices.
Published price: Staining an existing slab: $3 to $15 a sq ft, national, HomeGuide (Feb 2026)
San Francisco's Planning Code keeps PDR districts for production, distribution and repair businesses that need, among other things, "floors capable of bearing heavy loads", and OCII's plan for Mission Bay allows up to 4.4 million square feet of commercial space for office and lab uses. The Air District's rule text dated July 1, 2009 allows 250 g/L for industrial maintenance coatings, those labeled for floors and other surfaces facing the extreme conditions it lists. Restaurant kitchens follow the California Retail Food Code: floors smooth, durable, nonabsorbent and easily cleanable, coved at the wall with a 3/8 inch minimum radius and carried at least 4 inches up.
Resin floors for San Francisco warehouses, PDR workshops, labs and shops: system types and thickness, novolac and MMA, slip values, aisle marking under federal OSHA, static control and the Bay Area's 250 g/L industrial maintenance limit, each from a named source.
Published price: From $12 a sq ft for 100% solids commercial and industrial coatings, national (HomeAdvisor, Jun 2026)
Restaurant kitchen floors in San Francisco: urethane cement for hot water and steam, the Retail Food Code's floor, cove and drain sections, the City health department's construction guide, wet slip values, cure times and what a written quote should cover.
Published price: No survey prices urethane cement; HomeAdvisor's national commercial line starts at $12 a sq ft (Jun 2026)
A polished floor is the slab itself, ground, densified and honed to a measured gloss instead of coated. This page covers the grit stages, gloss levels and aggregate classes, wet slip tests, care, Cal/OSHA's silica rule for grinding and the national survey prices.
Published price: Basic polished finishes: $3 to $12 a sq ft, national (HomeGuide, February 2026)
Floor slabs only: worn, scaled or cracked garage, basement, shop and warehouse floors. It covers resurfacers and poured toppings by data sheet, crack and joint repair, bay fill and bay mud, and when a slab is past resurfacing.
Published price: $3 to $7 a sq ft to resurface a slab, national (HomeGuide, February 2026)
Under CSLB's rule, floor work needs a California contractor license when the combined labor and material cost reaches $1,000, and at any price when the work needs a building permit or the worker hires help; bulletin #24-07 explains the threshold, in force since January 1, 2025. Each request sent through this site is routed to an installer who holds that license, and you can confirm the number yourself.
Coating makers set moisture limits for the slab, and a reading over the limit calls for a different primer or system. Sherwin-Williams' surface preparation guide, Form G-1, sets two ceilings: 80% relative humidity for non-permeable flooring, measured by probes in test holes under ASTM F2170, and, under the calcium chloride method of ASTM F1869, "not more than 3 pounds of moisture per 1,000 square feet per 24 hours." Ask which test was run and what it read.
Business and Professions Code section 7159 lists what a California home improvement contract must show: the contractor's name, business address and license number, the contract price, a description of the project and of the significant materials, the down payment notice and the buyer's right to cancel. The contract comes from the installer, and you are entitled to a completely filled in copy, signed by both sides, before work starts.
In San Francisco and San Mateo County, floor coatings fall under the Bay Area Air District's Regulation 8, Rule 3. Table 2 of the July 1, 2009 rule text, effective from January 1, 2011, sets them 100 grams of volatile organic compounds (VOC) per liter, against a federal 400 g/L in 40 CFR Part 59. A 2011 District advisory says coatings made after those dates must meet the limits to be sold there. Ask for the product's VOC figure.
You fill in the form: what the space is, its size in square feet, the slab's age if you know it, any cracks, oil stains or damp patches you can see, the street address and when you want the work done. The form passes it to one independent installer near you whose California contractor license you can check.
The installer contacts you, visits, measures and checks the slab. Data sheets name the moisture test they rely on: for ASTM F1869, the calcium chloride method, KTA-Tator describes a weighed charge of the salt sealed under a dome on bare concrete for 60 to 72 hours, and ASTM F2170 reads relative humidity with probes set into the concrete.
You receive a written quote. If you go ahead, the home improvement contract carries section 7159's terms, a down payment capped at 10 percent of the contract price, or at $1,000 if that is less (section 7159.5), and, unless an exception applies, such as negotiation at the contractor's place of business, a notice that you may cancel within three business days, or five if you are 65 or older.
The installer prepares the slab, applies the system and hands the floor back with the recoat, foot traffic and vehicle times in writing. Those times move with temperature: the ArmorSeal 1000 HS data sheet allows foot traffic after 24 hours at 77 degrees F but after 48 hours at 50 degrees F, with full cure at 7 days and 10 days respectively.
The Sunset District's housing is old, and most of its tract houses stand over a garage. San Francisco Planning's context statement for the district says that, "With few exceptions," its tract houses from the 1920s to 1950s had garages integrated into the house, typically with the living spaces above a ground-story garage. Planning's SunsetForward profile adds that 96% of housing units in District 4 were built before 1960, and for the Bayview, the City's area plan finds that older housing there "generally consists of one-story dwellings over a garage." Citywide, the Census Bureau estimates 421,342 housing units for July 1, 2025 and an owner-occupied rate of 38.2% for 2020-2024. A ground-story slab of that age should be tested before a system is chosen, since Sherwin-Williams describes moisture vapor moving "upward through the concrete slab from the ground." The Sunset District page covers those garages in detail.
NOAA's 1991-2020 normals describe cool air all year. The San Francisco Downtown station's annual mean is 57.7 degrees F and its January normal low 46.6 degrees F; at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the January normal low is 44.5 degrees F. Both stations record outdoor air, not a slab, but the readings sit near the ArmorSeal 1000 HS sheet's 50 degrees F application minimum, where it lists a 10-day cure, and below the 60 degrees F that a Rust-Oleum and Citadel chip-floor specification asks for in room and floor from 72 hours before, during and after installation. The National Weather Service's January 1995 climate memorandum describes summer mornings with "only partial clearing on the cooler ocean side." On humidity, Sherwin-Williams' flake instructions keep the substrate "at least 5 degrees F above the dew point", and ArmorSeal caps relative humidity at 85%. The San Francisco numbers page lists every month.
The ground under San Francisco floors runs from dune sand to bay fill. Open-File Report 2006-1037, prepared by the USGS with the California Geological Survey, rates artificial fill laid over the bay's estuarine mud as having "very high" liquefaction susceptibility, notes that fill dredged from sandy areas, as in the Marina District, may be very susceptible, and rates the bay mud itself and the dune sand as moderate. The State's Seismic Hazards Mapping Act, passed after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, requires the State Geologist to establish regulatory zones; CGS's liquefaction zones mark where "the stability of foundation soils must be investigated", and a seller must disclose a zone to buyers. A coating cannot correct the slab beneath it: where a floor has settled or cracked through, the slab comes first, and the concrete resurfacing page covers slabs too far gone for a topping.
San Francisco has its own building code, and its 2025 edition says to replace the California Residential Code's administration chapter, which holds the State's permit-exempt list (section R105.2), "with Chapter 1 & 1A of the San Francisco Building Code." For the City's rule on a floor coating, ask the Department of Building Inspection before work starts. A garage turned into a new unit goes through SF Planning's ADU program, whose page says "Many ADUs are converted from existing storage or garage space," describes Junior ADUs of up to 500 square feet in a single-family house, and says an ADU may not remove housing services such as a garage. CSLB's rule links the two: work that needs a permit needs a license at any price. A floor for a converted room, such as metallic epoxy, is part of that larger job, which section 7048(b) keeps out of the exemption.
What a floor coating may contain is set by Regulation 8, Rule 3 of the Bay Area Air District, which covers San Francisco and San Mateo counties. The rule's definition of a floor coating, "An opaque coating that is labeled and formulated for application to flooring", names "garage floors" among its uses. In the rule's July 1, 2009 text, Table 2, effective from January 1, 2011, sets 100 grams of VOC per liter for floor coatings and for concrete and masonry sealers and 250 for stains and for industrial maintenance coatings, the class for floors facing immersion, corrosive agents, heavy abrasion or temperatures above 250 degrees F. For a product recommended for several specialty categories, "the most restrictive limit shall apply," subject to the rule's exceptions. CALGreen's 2025 table also lists 100 for floor coatings, applied "unless more stringent local limits apply"; the federal rule allows 400 g/L.
California's minor work exemption rose from $500 to $1,000 on January 1, 2025 under Assembly Bill 2622, and section 7048, as amended effective January 1, 2026, keeps that line: below $1,000 a job is exempt only if it needs no building permit and the person employs no one, and section 7048(b) bars dividing a job into smaller contracts to evade the law. CSLB defines several classes that touch this work, among them C-33 Painting and Decorating and, under C-61 Limited Specialty, the D-12 Synthetic Products subcategory, which names "resin and epoxy application", but CSLB's definitions do not single out epoxy floors. Section 7117.6 makes contracting outside one's classification a cause for discipline, so check the class as well as the number. From July 1, 2026, CSLB's minimum fines for unlicensed activity start at $1,500.
Each epoxy flooring cost on this page is a national figure, printed by a named price survey and dated by the page that carried it. None of those surveys prices a job in San Francisco or in Daly City, South San Francisco, San Bruno or Pacifica, and none says by how much a Bay Area floor differs, so no local markup has been added to any row. Treat each row as one survey's range for its own scope. HomeGuide, Angi, HomeAdvisor and the rest do not agree with one another, and a blend of their figures would be a number none of them printed. What a particular floor costs is settled by the installer's written quote, prepared once the slab has been measured and checked for moisture; the garage floor epoxy page explains the systems these ranges pay for.
| What is priced (survey, page date) | Published national range |
|---|---|
| HomeGuide epoxy flooring page (February 2026): installed epoxy, by the square foot | $4 to $10 per sq ft, national |
| Angi epoxy flooring page (August 2026 update): materials and labor together, by the square foot | $2 to $12 per sq ft, national |
| HomeGuide (February 2026): epoxy installed in a one-car garage the survey sizes at 288 to 392 sq ft | $1,200 to $3,900, national |
| HomeGuide (February 2026): epoxy installed in a two-car garage the survey sizes at 400 to 576 sq ft | $1,600 to $5,800, national |
Only national figures exist in this site's sources; none of the surveys prices San Francisco itself. HomeGuide's two-car row (February 2026) reads $1,600 to $5,800, and its installed rate $4 to $10 for each square foot. Angi's August 2026 update ranges from $2 to $12 a square foot, and HomeAdvisor's June 2026 update makes $2,526 the average job. In a December 2024 release that it now marks superseded, the Bureau of Economic Analysis put the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro's 2023 price parity at 118.2, where 100.0 is the national level; that index covers all consumer goods and services, rents included, and prices no floor. The full cost table has the dated rows.
Yes, as soon as labor and materials come to $1,000, and at any price if the job needs a permit or the person doing it employs help, under CSLB's rule and Business and Professions Code section 7048. Every garage row in HomeGuide's February 2026 national survey starts above it, the one-car row at $1,200. The contractor's license number must appear on contracts and ads under section 7030.5. Look the number and its classification up on CSLB's site before you sign; the hiring guide walks through the check.
No independent lifespan figure appears in the sources this site relies on, so the years quoted are the surveys' and makers' words. HomeGuide's February 2026 survey gives "3 to 5 years for water-based epoxy or 10 to 20 years for solid epoxy"; Angi's August 2026 update says 10 to 20 years "with proper surface preparation and installation." Stonhard, which makes resin floors, puts no figure on it and says the key is to "buy the correct floor for your space and ensure that it is properly used and cleaned." The sources name what shortens a floor's life: moisture rising through the slab, sunlight on epoxy, grit, chemical spills and stiff brushes.
Epoxy's main drawbacks are sunlight, moisture, slow cure in cool air and slip when wet. The ArmorSeal 1000 HS sheet warns that "Epoxy coatings may darken or yellow," and Citadel's comparison table rates epoxy's UV resistance "No". Water vapor leaving a slab can be trapped under the film and blister it, as the inspection firm KTA-Tator explains. Full cure takes ArmorSeal 10 days at 50 degrees F. And Sherwin-Williams notes that smooth floors "can become slippery" when wet, which is why textured finishes use sand or aluminum oxide. Each drawback has a cause a written quote can address.
Only within the moisture limit the coating's data sheet sets; a slab over it needs a different primer or system. Sika's sheet for its Sikafloor-264 epoxy wants probe readings of 85 percent or less under ASTM F2170 and a moisture content of no more than 4 percent by weight, while Sherwin-Williams' Form G-1 caps relative humidity at 80% for non-permeable flooring. Citadel's table calls plain epoxy "Not intended for MVT resistance/damp concrete application." Moisture-mitigating primers carry their own makers' limits, and Simiron warns that "seasonal variations in ground moisture" can raise vapor after a passing test.
Yes, but the conversion comes first, through San Francisco Planning's ADU program. Its page says "Many ADUs are converted from existing storage or garage space," describes Junior ADUs of up to 500 square feet in a single-family house, and sets a 60-day review timeframe from a complete application under the State program. If the work needs a permit, CSLB requires a contractor license at any price. A converted room is still a ground-story slab, so the moisture test applies; the metallic epoxy page covers floors for converted rooms.
Ask the Department of Building Inspection (DBI) before work starts, since the San Francisco Building Code has its own administration chapters. The State's 2025 California Residential Code, section R105.2, exempts "Painting, papering, tiling, carpeting, cabinets, counter tops and similar finish work" from permits, but the City's code replaces the chapter holding that list with its own Chapters 1 and 1A, so DBI is the office that can say how the City treats a floor coating. Two points are firm: work that needs a permit needs a license at any price, and a garage converted to living space goes through SF Planning.
The Air District's Regulation 8, Rule 3 sets 100 grams of VOC per liter for floor coatings in Table 2 of its rule text dated July 1, 2009, effective on and after January 1, 2011; the earlier limit, in Table 1, was 250. Industrial maintenance coatings, for floors exposed to immersion, corrosive agents, heavy abrasion or high heat, are held to 250 g/L in the same table. The federal rule in 40 CFR Part 59 allows 400 g/L for floor coatings. The District's September 2011 advisory says coatings made after the effective dates must meet the limits to be sold in the District, so the product named in your contract should show a compliant figure on its data sheet.
The product's data sheet and the temperature of the slab decide, so get the times in writing. HomeGuide's February 2026 survey advises: "don't walk on it for 16 to 24 hours or drive on it for 2 to 7 days." For the ArmorSeal 1000 HS epoxy, heavy traffic waits 48 to 72 hours in 77 degrees F conditions but 4 to 5 days in 50 degrees F ones. A polyaspartic chip floor is quicker: Laticrete's guide says it "should remain out of service for 24 hrs." The Downtown station's January normal low, 46.6 degrees F, describes outdoor air rather than your garage, so ask for times at the slab temperature on the day. The garage floor epoxy page covers curing in cool air.
Ask for six things in writing: the license number and class, checked on CSLB's site; the moisture test, its standard and the reading; the system and products by name, in the description of significant materials that section 7159 requires; each product's VOC content against the Air District's 100 g/L floor coating limit; the cure, recoat and traffic times at the expected temperature; and the dust control for grinding. For walk-behind floor grinders, Table 1 of Cal/OSHA's silica rule offers two set-ups, a machine feeding water to the cutting surface or one fitted with the dust collector its maker recommends, and indoors adds a HEPA-filtered vacuum between passes.
Send what the floor is, its size in square feet, the street address and your timing, plus any cracks or damp patches.
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