My epoxy floor is peeling after a year. Whose fault is it, and what are my options?

A coating that peels inside a year did not wear out. It never bonded, and the pattern on your floor says why. Tread-shaped patches where the car parks are hot tire pickup: straight epoxy softened under tire heat and grabbed the rubber instead of the slab. That is a chemistry failure, the installer used the wrong wear layer for a Texas garage.

Sheets lifting at edges, cracks, or across whole sections point at prep or moisture. If the underside of a peeled piece is dusty and gray, the coating bonded to a weak surface layer that acid etching left behind. If the underside is damp, crusted white, or the slab beneath looks dark, moisture vapor pushed the film off from below. Pull a loose piece and look at its back before you call anyone.

If a company installed the floor, put the claim in writing before paying anyone else to touch it. Email, not phone, with photos and the install date, and ask one direct question: is this failure covered, yes or no, and under which clause. A written denial naming the exclusion is worth having. User reports across the industry describe warranties denied for unregistered paperwork, moisture exclusions, and hot tire exclusions, which are the exact failures that actually happen.

Know what you are up against: many coating warranties exclude moisture and hot tire pickup, the two most common causes, and some evaporate when a franchise changes hands. If the denial cites an exclusion for the very thing that destroyed the floor, you have learned what that warranty was worth. It also tells you precisely what to demand from the next company: coverage that names those failures, attached to the job, no registration.

Slabbr removes a failed coating for $1.50 per square foot, about $660 on a 440 square foot 2-car garage, adding a half day to the job. The rebuild is published pricing: One at $6 per square foot, Prime at $8 with the moisture vapor barrier under the polyaspartic base, Ironclad at $10 with two polyaspartic topcoats. A complete removal-and-Prime rebuild on a 2-car garage lands near $4,180, installed in one day.

The second floor should be the last one. Every Slabbr build is diamond ground with HEPA extraction, moisture is read before coating, cracks are repaired with rigid polymer at no charge, and the wear layer is polyaspartic, which does not soften under hot tires or amber in sunlight. The lifetime residential warranty attaches to the job with no registration, and nothing is due until the floor is installed and you have walked it.