Performance Epoxy -Epoxy coat project!

[rugerlady]

Hi Guys,
I am very upset about the 2 floors and the yellowing issue. I am temporarily stopping sales of the clear aliphatic epoxy, they are going to be testing this batch (we make this in huge batches). I will be working closely with the two people with the problem and do whatever I can to fix the floors. I have been with this company for quite some time and have NEVER seen a problem like this occur. I will stand behind our company and our customer service.
I did get a PM asking to have others chime in about what they think it may be. I could do that, but, they have no idea of our formulations and were not here when this product was being built. I am finding our when this batch was built and I will be reviewing the process via the camera system we have in our facility.

Aliphatic epoxy will yellow faster than cycloaliphatic, but not in 4-5 weeks.

If ayone has any questions about this please call me. I will be trying to resolve this as quickly as I can.

Christine

 

[TheBanker]

Thank you.

 

[Rudyjr]

Hi Guys,
I am very upset about the 2 floors and the yellowing issue. I am temporarily stopping sales of the clear aliphatic epoxy, they are going to be testing this batch (we make this in huge batches). I will be working closely with the two people with the problem and do whatever I can to fix the floors. I have been with this company for quite some time and have NEVER seen a problem like this occur. I will stand behind our company and our customer service.
I did get a PM asking to have others chime in about what they think it may be. I could do that, but, they have no idea of our formulations and were not here when this product was being built. I am finding our when this batch was built and I will be reviewing the process via the camera system we have in our facility.

Aliphatic epoxy will yellow faster than cycloaliphatic, but not in 4-5 weeks.

If ayone has any questions about this please call me. I will be trying to resolve this as quickly as I can.

Christine

Every company that manufactures products can have problems form time to time with a product. It is how they respond to problems that determines the quality of the company and the product. We have had dealings with two kinds of companies in the industry that I work in. The ones that step up and deal with it and remedy the problem, and the ones that deny any knowledge of a problem and take no ownership. We have very good ongoing relationships with the ones that step up and make things right. This to me is the benchmark of a quality company. Jim

 

[gabeancounter]

Update:
I have really enjoyed being part of this website and going through my garage/ playroom process with all the other GJ members. This thread has received a great deal of attention from newbie's (like myself) with questions, comments and future flooring plans.

Truthfully, I did not know what to expect from my new floor. Knowing that all epoxy will amber over time, I expected some slight color change 1-2 years down the road. Unfortunately, this started occurring within just a couple of weeks. Really small areas with light coloring. I decided to give it a few weeks and see how things progressed.

My floor is now 5 weeks old. I really did not want to recognize how bad things had changed, but after seeing Eddie's post I needed to come out of my state of denial.
Had got to the point that I was somewhat avoiding going into the garage. I have spent a nice chunk of the little disposal money that is available these days on building my oasis. I will be pulling everything out of the garage and redoing my floor.

Every manufacturing plant has a product or batch that goes bad. Being in manufacturing for the last 15 years I have seen my fair share of product issues. I think everyone is aware of Toyota and their issues. My wife and I both drive Toyotas and I have no regrets and I am happy with them. The difference falls on how a company deals with these issues.

I think I stumbled across a loop hole in performance epoxy pricing. This kit was extremely low margin (Beancounter talk for no profit). I believe that is why Epoxy coat is limited to how much they can do to rectify the issue.

Epoxy coat will be providing 2 kits of the base color to redo my floor. They are not willing to provide the clear or flake. So I will be spending another $300-400 on the replacement materials for the clear coat and flake. Have not made a decision on exactly what type clear I will use.

I expect to redo the floor next weekend (May1) and I will post up the outcome.

Regards,
BC

 

[TheBanker]

I don't understand. Is the problem in the base coat or the clear? If it is the clear then does the base coat need to be done too? You have to strip the whole floor?

 

[Nch209]

I too am wondering if the grey base is OK... Any chance it will fail or is causing the clear to fail? I'm trying to plan my next step...

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Well,

If Epoxy Coat will not step up to the plate, maybe another epoxy vendor on the board would be nice enough to send you the flakes and clear coat out of good will. I can't imagine them not replacing a failed product though......

This certainly narrowed my choices down in a hurry.....

 

[gabeancounter]

I believe the issue is in the clear coat. I can see no coloring occuring in the base color. Problem is how do you get off all the clear without getting into the base and flake? Take a chance you got off enough of the clear to recoat with clear?

The only solution I can find at this point is to sand the floor enough to roughen up the surface and pretend I have one hell of a primer coat! Start over.

 

[Ruddy]

Maybe I should get some yellow flakes.... Just kidding. I'm way frustrated!!!
Geeezzzzsssjhhhhhhh

Maybe just picked the Beige or Tan base color!? (sorry, bad humor)

 

[Ruddy]

I believe the issue is in the clear coat. I can see no coloring occuring in the base color. Problem is how do you get off all the clear without getting into the base and flake? Take a chance you got off enough of the clear to recoat with clear?

The only solution I can find at this point is to sand the floor enough to roughen up the surface and pretend I have one hell of a primer coat! Start over.

Right, how could just sand out the yellow so perfectly you could not touch the base?
Since you have to scuff and recoat anyway, maybe now is a good time to do some stress testing like rolling a loaded steel wheel jack around or a massive burnout with the Suzie!

 

[gabeancounter]

I can barely touch the ground on old yeller. I bet that thing would stand straight up and leave me to test the floor!lol

What do you guys think about doing a two foot wide stripe around the perimeter in black with the same flake (only have 5lbs left) and the rest with straight gray no flake?

 

[TheBanker]

Couldn't you do the minimum to the clear so that it takes another coat? Use a base color to cover or even a thin coat of clear with heavy flake, then coat clear over. What is the min. that can be done to recoat an epoxy floor? I think if mine yellows I will just sand, put a thin layer of clear, flake it properly this time, then clear again.

 

[Rudyjr]

I would wait to get some advice from the manufacturer to see how they think you should proceed. I am sure given the chance to look into the situation they will be able to reccomend a course of action.Just my 2 cents before you get too carried away. Jim

 

[Ruddy]

What do you guys think about doing a two foot wide stripe around the perimeter in black with the same flake (only have 5lbs left) and the rest with straight gray no flake?

I think the black or the dark gray would look good. Since you have the Black / White / Dark Gray / Metallic Blue / Sparkle flakes you only "lose" one color of flake either way.

 

[gabeancounter]

Jim, that was the advice. Sand it enough to rough up surface then but down the grey.
I am trying to keep my tonuge under control about the whole conversation and keep things in perspective. Really just want to get things fixed with the least amount of additional expense.

Banker, I am talking about just taking a pole sander with a med grit screen and sanding the floor with it. Then wipe with denatured alchol. Then re-start the application process. EC is providing the grey base. I will need to figure out the top coat and flake part. I have 5 pounds of flake. I am thinking I could purchase enough high grade urethane coating to cover just a plain grey floor for about $200. If you do a heavy flake you need the full epoxy clear because urethane is thin. I am thinking to dress up the floor I could do a light flake boarder and a straight grey center to keep things cheap.

Ruddy, great suggestion about the dark grey. Did not even think about the flake colors being the same. I think I may play with some construction paper from the kids and toss some flake on it.

 

[Ruddy]

Hey I've got about 1/2 lb of of blue/white/flake and a lot of aluminum oxide I could send you. Maybe you could start up a flake drive from everyone's leftovers!

 

[TheBanker]

I have about 5-6 pounds of flake left over.

 

[Nch209]

Its my understanding that we are dealing with Aliphatic clear top coat. My question is what are peoples thoughts/comments about using PE's Cycloaliphatic clear top coat? I have been talking with Christine, but frankly, dont know about the difference. I plan on using quite a bit of flake, which is why I want a clear coat.

Either way, I think I am going to use a final top coat from Norkan for UV protection. Not sure how to proceed... just deciding whether to use there Cyclo top, or move on completely.

FWIW, Ive been talking with PE over that past few times, and its apparant that they are disappointed in this happening and are being very good with me. ***** its a problem, but they are standing behind their product.

-Nate

 

[Eddieb794]

Hey guys,
I didn't get a chance to talk to Christine today. I am working nights and was asleep when she called. I am wondering how much prep I will have to do to recoat. I put down aluminum oxide in my floor to make it slip resistant.
The whole thing is really got me steamed. I have my motorcycle club coming for a spring gathering and won't have time to geth the floor done before it.

 

[Nch209]

Hey guys,
I didn't get a chance to talk to Christine today. I am working nights and was asleep when she called. I am wondering how much prep I will have to do to recoat. I put down aluminum oxide in my floor to make it slip resistant.
The whole thing is really got me steamed. I have my motorcycle club coming for a spring gathering and won't have time to geth the floor done before it.

This *****, no doubt. I am NOT a flooring expert by any means, but I'm
wondering if you scuff it rough as he'll and start over if you'll be ok? I'm having some wild ideas on how to scuff- and think it would stick. My concern is if there is any problems with grey, and if any problems will
leach up to the new coat. Doubt it, but I'm just going on my lack of knowledge

I too work nights, and tryto research this during the day. I'm beat! On that note back to work... Where I'll be following on my iPhone!

 

[Rudyjr]

Beancounter, My understanding is that they have determined that this is a problem with the clear? Have they determined what the cause of the problem was? And even though the clear was part of the package they are only replacing the grey and it is up to you to find a clear? Thanks, Jim

 

[Ruddy]

Hey guys,
. I put down aluminum oxide in my floor to make it slip resistant.
The whole thing is really got me steamed. I have my motorcycle club coming for a spring gathering and won't have time to geth the floor done before it.

I'm thinking it might turn out better. I threw my AO into the clear and it really sat on top and is very sharp. Looking back at the original instructions for base it said AO if you want then flakes. I'm wishing I would have done that then cleared on top of both to just get some rounded texture for anti slip.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

OK,

Everyone else has been skirting this issue but I would like to have a direct answer to this question. The coating failed in less than 2 months and the only thing they are going to do is replace the base coat?

They are not going to replace the flakes or offer you an alternate product for a clear coat?

I can't believe that others here are considering this "normal". At the very least the product should be replaced or their money refunded. The people on this board have crucified other vendors on here for a lot less than this. Is Epoxy Coat somehow immune to the expectations of a warranty?

 

[gabeancounter]

Nch209,
If it were me in your shoes I would let them swap out the PE clear for the EC clear. I think the cyclo clear is fine. I have neither seen nor heard of problems with the EC products. I have no issues with the base from PE. I think you will be fine.

Jim,
Yes, the problem lies in the clear coat. I was given a choice of either another batch of EC clear OR grey. My thought here is that what good is the clear for putting over the bad clear? It appears the PE clear has yellowed all the way to the base color. I can think of no way to get just all the clear off. I do not want to put a clear down then flake to rejection just to try and cover the clear below.
Yes they are working on finding out what happened to the batch of PE clear. No they do not know yet as I would assume it will take a couple of weeks.
I choose to get the grey over the clear. My thinking is if I need to buy one of them then it would be better to try and find something with a really high UV protection for clear.

Guys, I appreciate the offers on the flake. I think I will be fine using the flake I got or just going without flake. Also, this issue lies with EC and not of the other vendors on here. No need for a charity drive. This is one of the lessons learned in life.

Side note: The guys at Norkan (ebay guys that I got supplies from)have been really helpful. Ryan spent almost a full hour trying to help me decide how to fix. Very honest in the fact they many of the 100% epoxies are almost identical. As my thought here was go for polyaspartic- never yellows. I was told the poly has a real hard time binding on to epoxy. It will peel off. This would have been another disaster. The HPU is a very good urethane but it very strong on fumes. May be a problem doing it in the basement below a living area.

As far as the anti slip, I think up north with out a doubt use it, but south unless you think the floor will be getting wet I am a pass. My floor is not a problem unless it gets wet.

 

[gabeancounter]

Georgiahybrid,
I think we are getting the picture across on how the company is handling the situation. Majority of the time that epoxy fails is user error. I have no peeling issues, no concentrated area, and all my supplies used were brand new. I even bought two squeegees, one for the clear and one for the base. New rollers for each, new buckets for each. This situation is an exception to user error-this coming from the user.

I am very upset. Like Token said - most folks will try and work something out behind the scene. I do not want to just be on here bashing vendors. I think the EC products are quality products. Now how they handled fixing this batch issue is wrong. Even though this will cost me 20 hours of labor and the new supplies, I think the right thing to do would have been supply another batch for clear and base in the EC line with the 20lbs of flake. Then follow up with me about the process etc.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

gabeancounter,

Thanks for the response and I can understand about you being upset, I know that I would be. They should have replaced the product in this case (base, flake and clear) and offered an upgraded product for your lost time in labor. The cost to them would have been minimal compared to the bad press this issue has caused.

I can fully understand a product not performing as expected and, as noted before; any company can have quality control issues. How well a company responds to that problem gives you the measure of their commitment the their customers.

Epoxy Coat has failed in more ways than one on this issue. With the presence that Garage Journal has on the net and the number of people that read this forum to find out about products and make decisions about the coating they will use on their floor, it will be their loss, not yours, in the long run.

 

[Jokeman]

I would suggest a mod change the topic to Performance Epoxy - Clear Coat Failure - Users Beware.

I was planning on buying Performance Epoxy for my garage. Needless to say I am going to pass.

 

[TheBanker]

Ok I understand now that they gave you a choice of base or clear. I too thought they were replacing a defective clear with a base. I agree, they should give you the clear too. I assume it would be just about impossible to only sand the clear to get rid of the yellow and reclear. That being the case everything beneth the yellow is ruined and would need to be replaced so should be covered.

So far my epoxy-coat product looks fine and am hoping it is in fact different. I think your plan to scuff and base over your clear is a good one. I hope it is much easier to accomplish than the original base.

 

[Ruddy]

Georgia Bean,
So essentially they only want to replace to the value of your original purchase? Like you said before you hit that loophole sweet spot of $450 for a lot of thickness. I'm thinking this fix-it coat could be a lot thinner, so you could get away with one and one half kits of EC base and clear rated at 750 sqft for your 800 sqft. I figure this is $616 retail value, so a $166 retail difference. Who knows how big the markup is on these products. Your $450 could easily be covering their costs for both sets of product.
This all assumes that the cyclo is compatible with the aliph.
You and this thread has made money for them and like GeorgiaHybird said, it can easily go the other way.

 

[rugerlady]

Update:
I have really enjoyed being part of this website and going through my garage/ playroom process with all the other GJ members. This thread has received a great deal of attention from newbie's (like myself) with questions, comments and future flooring plans.

Truthfully, I did not know what to expect from my new floor. Knowing that all epoxy will amber over time, I expected some slight color change 1-2 years down the road. Unfortunately, this started occurring within just a couple of weeks. Really small areas with light coloring. I decided to give it a few weeks and see how things progressed.

My floor is now 5 weeks old. I really did not want to recognize how bad things had changed, but after seeing Eddie's post I needed to come out of my state of denial.
Had got to the point that I was somewhat avoiding going into the garage. I have spent a nice chunk of the little disposal money that is available these days on building my oasis. I will be pulling everything out of the garage and redoing my floor.

Every manufacturing plant has a product or batch that goes bad. Being in manufacturing for the last 15 years I have seen my fair share of product issues. I think everyone is aware of Toyota and their issues. My wife and I both drive Toyotas and I have no regrets and I am happy with them. The difference falls on how a company deals with these issues.

I think I stumbled across a loop hole in performance epoxy pricing. This kit was extremely low margin (Beancounter talk for no profit). I believe that is why Epoxy coat is limited to how much they can do to rectify the issue.

Epoxy coat will be providing 2 kits of the base color to redo my floor. They are not willing to provide the clear or flake. So I will be spending another $300-400 on the replacement materials for the clear coat and flake. Have not made a decision on exactly what type clear I will use.

I expect to redo the floor next weekend (May1) and I will post up the outcome.

Regards,
BC

I take issue with this post. I have sent 2 kits of the Epoxy-Coat (cycloaliphatic) in replacement (value 569.90). I also said I would check into replacing the flake. Originally beancounter said he would be coating with a polyurea or urethane. I suggested he put this on his gray coating rather than risk a clear epoxy again. I am doing what I said I would do. If he had issue with the offer, he should have spoke up on the phone with me rather than post that I was not helping.

 

[rugerlady]

Also, beancounter was offered a new clear, but did not feel comfortable with sanding the top of his floor. I am trying to do everything I can to make this as easy for him as I can. I do still have to check on the flake. He did not buy them from me originally.

 

[gabeancounter]

Christine,
The converstation was that you would supply the clear in the EC version as the method to rectify the problem. My response was the same as posted above several times. How do you get all the clear off without tearing up the base coat and flake? No soultion.

The other option proposed was to provide the gray. I agreed I needed the gray, but asked about what I will do about the clear and flake. Informed you that I will be out atleast another $300 to reproduce my floor. Asked if you would provide the clear and flake. You were not willing to provide the clear or flake.

 

[Nch209]

Just an update on my PE dillema...

PE/rugerlady/Christine has been great with me. She is sending me new cyclo clear since we are under the assumption the stuff now has some type of defect. She has been very helpful, and is OK in my book.

I know everyone is pissed, but IMO, rescuff, regrey and move on....

Sorry your pissed BC, I really hope things work out better. I must say I am in better position since mine is in buckets, and not on floor. I hope you guys can work this out...

 

[gabeancounter]

Nch209,
That was the right thing to do in your situation. Mine is different.

 

[Nch209]

Nch209,
That was the right thing to do in your situation. Mine is different. If you had the same floor as me with a heavy flake broadcast, and epoxy clear coat, would you be happy with them supplying you a bucket of grey?

Hey BC,

At the end of the day you need to be satisified. Would I be happy? Good question- and frankly, I don't know since I'm not in your shoes. My point is simply that she worked well with me and I hope you guys can work things out as well. Maybe it's worth another phone call to get things settled, and more importantly, get your floor redone!

Keep us posted!
Nate

 

[Eddieb794]

Talked with Christine this afternoon. She is sending me out a kit of the cycloaliphatic floor coating which is a better product than I payed for. She has been nothing but helpful with me. She didn't try to lay blame on me for the installation. It ***** that I have to sand my floor and recoat but in life these things sometimes happen.
She said that with this product I won't need a clear coat. I will keep everyone informed on how it goes and will post pictures when done.
Eddie.

 

[gabeancounter]

Eddie,
So you are ok with just a base color? Did you get the flakes? If so, you are going to flake with no clear? Thanks

 

[Eddieb794]

Guess I hadn't thought about the fact that I was flaking the the gray and not putting a clear coat over it. I had bought my flakes at Lowes and have some left over. Will neeed to purchase some more.
Can someone chime in here about flakes and no clear coat over it? Will it stand up? Or will I need to clear coat in the future?
Thanks Eddie

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

If you flake the base coat, you need to put a clear on top of it.

 

[TheBanker]

You can do base and flakes without clear but dirt may get trapped eventually in some of the flakes. My floor was fine without the clear but I personally like the clear over the top for a very smooth surface. You won't get that really smooth surface without the clear. And if you are going to do it without clear make sure you put it nice and thick so the chips sink in. It is glossy without the clear if you do the correct thickness.