Before you sign for a
"branded"
floor coating,
read this.
A plain-English breakdown of the marketing claims — and the questions every Erie homeowner deserves answers to before spending thousands on a garage floor.
Erie, PA · The Area's Only Locally Owned & Operated Coating Contractor · No Franchise MarkupYou may have seen ads for CycloSpartic™ — a trademarked coating system sold by Garage Force, a national franchise. The marketing is impressive. But when you look closely at the specific claims being made, important questions go unanswered. This guide gives you the context to ask the right ones — whether you hire us or anyone else. 814 Epoxy and More is the Erie area's only locally owned and operated resinous flooring contractor. No franchise. No territory rep. Just Erie people, accountable to this community.
The claims — tap each to see the truth
This number has no source. Stronger how? Tensile strength? Compressive strength? Impact resistance? Adhesion pull-off? Each is measured differently under ASTM standards. No independent lab result, no test method, and no comparison product is cited anywhere. Polyaspartic coatings are genuinely better than cheap water-based epoxy — but "20x" with zero data is a marketing number, not a performance number.
"Can you show me the ASTM test data behind that 20x claim? Which specific epoxy product are you comparing against?"
CycloSpartic™ is a polyaspartic. Garage Force's own website describes it as "a blend of polyurea and polyaspartic floor coatings." Claiming to be 3x better than polyaspartic while being a polyaspartic is either a misrepresentation or a comparison to a low-grade product they won't name. No third-party ASTM D4060 Taber abrasion test is cited — anywhere.
"Which specific polyaspartic product is this being compared to, and who ran the abrasion test?"
Garage Force is a national franchise with over 100 locations across the country. They are not running a chemical R&D laboratory. Polyaspartic chemistry was invented by Bayer MaterialScience (now Covestro) in the early 2000s and has been commercially available for decades. The word "molecular" sounds scientific — but it isn't saying anything specific. The chemistry isn't new. The trademark is.
"Who manufactures the raw chemical? Can you provide the product data sheet for both the base coat and topcoat?"
VeriFloor™ is a QR code embedded in a coin left on your floor after installation. It links to a warranty registration system. It does not independently verify product quality or installation quality — it registers their own product in their own system. It's primarily a retention and legal protection tool dressed up as a consumer guarantee. Your warranty is also backed by a local franchise operator whose business may or may not exist in 10 years.
"If the local franchise closes, who honors the lifetime warranty? Is that commitment from Garage Force corporate provided in writing?"
The brand name CycloSpartic™ is exclusive to Garage Force. The underlying chemistry — polyaspartic aliphatic polyurea — is not. Every serious flooring contractor has access to industrial-grade polyaspartic products from manufacturers like Sherwin-Williams, Sika, and Dur-A-Flex. Exclusivity of a name is not exclusivity of performance. You're not locked out of the chemistry — just the trademark.
"What is the generic chemical name of this product? Who else uses the same base chemistry under a different name?"
5 questions to ask any floor coating contractor — before you sign
This is the single most important question you can ask. A coating's solids content is the percentage of material that actually stays on your floor after it cures — everything else evaporates into the air. A 50% solids product loses half its thickness during curing. A 70% solids product loses nearly a third. We use 100% solids epoxy as our base coat — meaning what goes down is exactly what you get. No shrinkage. No evaporation. No hidden thickness loss. Ask for the product data sheet and look for the solids percentage yourself.
Shot blasting fires thousands of steel pellets at your concrete to create a surface profile. It's fast, it's cost-effective for large industrial slabs, and it's legitimate in the right context. But it's not the right tool for every floor — and it can cause real problems when it's used as a one-size-fits-all approach. Shot blasting leaves directional "cornrow" patterns in the concrete that will telegraph through thin coatings. It can remove too much concrete from soft slabs, and it cannot get within inches of your walls — leaving edges unprepared. On residential and light commercial floors, diamond grinding gives the installer precise control over surface profile, works right to the wall, and is better matched to the coating system being applied. Ask your contractor why they chose their prep method — and whether it matches what they're putting on top.
Get it in writing. Confirm that peeling, delamination, and hot tire pickup are explicitly included — and find out who backs it if the local franchise or company closes.
Ask for the manufacturer name, product name, and technical data sheet. A contractor who knows their chemistry hands it over immediately. One who doesn't may be relying on a brand name instead of a specification.
Not a national review platform. An actual floor they installed in the Erie area that you can drive to, look at, and run your hand across. Ask how old it is and whether the homeowner is available for a quick question.
We'll answer every one of these questions on the first call.
No invented stats. No franchise scripts. No territory rep who disappears after the sale. Just straight answers from the guys who will actually be doing your floor — Erie people, PA licensed, accountable to this community.