Ok, So I have been wondering about posting my experience with Hellfire coating and was holding off, mostly because I was not sure about some things, but seeing as this thread has come up, Ill post them.
Purchased a "new" used house in November of 2019. I based everything around the garage of the purchase as its where I spend my time and wanted to enjoy it. I spent weeks (like almost ALL of us) researching what would be the best garage floor coating for my application. Having experience with a 2 part epoxy (Rhino Linings 30,000 sq ft) where I currently work, I was highly impressed with its performance, but was not set on the flakes, or two part. I really didn't need the "looks" I more wanted something that was simple, durable, cleaned up easy, and would look good. After all I ended up on garage journal because I was looking for flooring reviews and what not. Hellfire coating came into view and sure as hell seemed to have the reviews and check all the boxes. I sent a few emails to Scotty at Legacy Industrial and asked a few questions, he responded quickly and all was set. I was set on Hellfire coating. I let him know my scenario and that I was going to be grinding all the concrete with diambrush for best adhesion/surface and durability. Que the weekend I get the key's Ive got an entire weekend to complete my 3 car Hellfire project.
Saturday I get my sander, diambrush, mask and PPE and let it rip sanding all 656 sq feet to a very desirable finish. Then comes the countless hours of clean up. Finally get everything read to begin the application of the Hellfire Coating.
Sunday Coat 1 - looks good. Since I grinded the concrete down it really absorbed. Coat 2 - Looks good, more coverage but still seeing some marks but mostly due to the absorption of product. Coat 3 - Looking perfect like all the reviews and what I've seen online. I added the tint as I wanted a little darker finish and it looked great. A few buddies saw it as I was showing it off and all had complimented how nice it looked.
All looked great and I felt I was on track to having exactly what I was looking for. I let the garage cure for another 3 day's as my better half was working a lot and I had an entire house to move into. I left the garage untouched till the following weekend where I began to move things in lightly. All my tool boxes, tools, and other garage items remained at the old house as I really wanted things to be in place before making the big move.
Carefully moving things in over the next few weekends I began to move things around the garage as I was getting ready to have custom cabinets installed, custom work bench, as well as new tool boxes were on order too. In completing some stuff around the house, I needed to grab a tool or two from the garage and while setting some 3/8 sockets on the bench a socket and wrench fell off and landed on my garage coating.
The coating deformed. I was dumbfounded. I then began to look around the garage at the coating and realized that some of the scuff marks I though were going to come up with a little cleaning were not. The coating in its self was damage, deformed, discolored, how every you want me to describe it.
Instantly I emailed Scotty, and he called me asap. We went over all the scenario's of what I did and he stated that all he could think of was that there was not enough humidity.
That was the first time I had heard of anything regarding the humidity possibility. I found this to be extremely frustrating because had I know this I would have changed game plans. Not sure what I could do about the humidity seeing is that I live in Vegas and we're know for our "Dry Heat" thinking things over I did realize that the day of my application I was worried that leaving the garage door open to fully cure wold be an issue as a "November Rain" decided to roll into the valley. So, I looked up the humidity forecast for that time frame and from Sunday, till the next Sunday Humidity ranged from 26% to 100% back to 61%. It was raining all week!
Defeated regarding this I wondering how the hell I could get more humidity than that, I expressed my dissatisfaction with Scotty and he insisted that humidity was the reason but he had no hesitation in sending me all new product to match what I had bought and that another application with humidity would be a good decision. I told him let's shelve that for a month or two as I still had so much moving to do, it wasn't on my priority list.
Que up April.. April showers... I'm working from home, the garage is set up and I can move things out of the way quickly... I contact Scotty, he sends me out the product right away, its at my door step in 5 or so days. I set aside a weekend that's full of rain and has some more in the forecast.. I decided to prep the floor with a nice cleaning, and then go out and rent the floor sander along with scuff pads. Get to cleaning and notice that nothing is really coming up except silverish grey when cleaning. I was using diluted 3:1 Purple Power Degreaser along with 3:1 Awesome degreaser. Same thing with both, silver/grey is all over my clean up rags. Well this is great. After thinking things over I grab a "tough towel" and go after a small spot. Same thing happens. Inspecting over the floor, I've now found a spot where the Hellfire was supposed to "soak into" the concrete yet it has fully flaked and chipped off. It was going to continue to chip so I finally admitted Hellfire is not what I thought it was.
Every time I move anything, it left marks that are not cleanable, or removable. Id have to recoat. I understand that you can't drag a jack stand or a fridge across the floor and expect the coating not to discolor or something, but the fact that I have to put down a towel, blanket, or just pray the wheels of something don't leave marks all over my new floor is bonkers.
Hellfire anything aborted.
Scotty is a stand up 10/10 guy and I've got nothing bad to say about him.
Hellfire product in my experience, is nothing what it seems or claims. 0/10