Was a written flooring requirement in place before contractors were contacted?
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Facility Floor Scope · Free estimate
Request written flooring proposals for your facility
Use this form to describe the facility, the areas to be floored, the operation and its exposures, the cleaning method, and the shutdown windows available. Independent commercial flooring contractors who install the relevant systems in your region will contact you to arrange a site walk and return written scope and pricing. There is no fee to the facility and no obligation to award.
What to include
- 01Facility type and the operation in each area to be floored, with square footage by zone.
- 02Traffic: forklift and pallet jack types, wheel material, gross weights, point loads from racking or equipment, foot traffic volume.
- 03Exposures: chemicals, oils, sugars, blood, solvents, and their contact time; thermal range including wash-down and freezer temperatures.
- 04Cleaning: agents and concentrations, method (mop, auto-scrubber, steam), frequency, and water temperature.
- 05Existing floor and slab: current finish, known coatings, cracks, moisture history, any prior test results, drawings if available.
- 06Downtime: shutdown windows, phasing possibilities, what must keep running nearby, and required return-to-service times by activity.
- 07Compliance requirements with the standard named: slip resistance, ESD program limits, infection-control risk assessment, food-safety program.
- 08Who defines acceptance criteria and who will sign off, plus any existing specification or engineer's report.
Contractors price commercial floors from a requirements brief, and the completeness of that brief decides whether the proposals can be compared. The list in this section is the brief; the sections after it cover the site walk, what to require in each proposal, and how to normalize them. A one-page document covering these items is enough to start, and it is what a qualified specifier would ask for before writing anything. It also helps with scheduling: BLS projects only 4% employment growth for the flooring occupation group from 2025 to 2035, so experienced industrial crews book ahead, and a complete brief gets priced faster.
What happens after you submit
The brief goes to independent contractors who serve your region and install the systems it describes. Those interested contact you to arrange a site walk, where they measure, inspect the slab, and take moisture readings, and then return written scope and pricing. Ask that proposals be itemized by zone for preparation, mitigation, system layers, coves and drains, phasing, testing, and warranty; the service pages explain what each line should contain for each system.
There is no obligation at any stage. Collect several proposals against the same brief, review them with your own specifier or operations staff, and award or not. Facility Floor Scope charges no fee to the facility and is not a party to the contract.
What to establish during the site walk
Ask each contractor how the slab will be prepared and to what profile, and how moisture will be tested; ask for the reading as a number and the system's limit, and what happens if it is exceeded. Ask which product data supports the system for the exposures in the brief, and for return-to-service times by activity at a stated temperature; Craftsman lists 24 hrs / 48–72 hrs for self-leveling versus trowel urethane cement. Ask how coves, drains, and transitions will be detailed, and how phasing will work around the operation. For specialty floors, ask which standard and test method the acceptance test will use and who witnesses it. The resin flooring page and ESD page carry the full lists.
Watch how the contractor inspects. One who looks for old sealers, asks about the cleaning chemistry, and wants to see the drains is pricing your floor; one who measures and leaves is pricing a generic one.
Normalizing the proposals
Compare per-square-foot rates by zone for the same scope, then separate the fixed lines: mobilization, mockup, testing, and phasing premiums. Craftsman's ESD tiers span $3.34–$13.55 per sq ft, falling from $6.70 to $13.55 under 5,000 square feet to $3.34 to $4.40 above 20,000, and its urethane cement pricing runs $4–$17 per sq ft by size, so two proposals for different zone groupings are not comparable until the fixed costs are isolated. The calculator rebuilds each proposal from its lines; the comparisons help when proposals are for different systems.
Read warranties by exclusion. A resin warranty that excludes thermal shock and chemical exposure in a wash-down kitchen excludes the two ways the floor will fail. An ESD warranty that covers adhesion but not resistance is not a static-control warranty. And remember that labor dominates many bids: BLS puts the median wage for the flooring occupation group at $54,390, and a crew's billing rate carries equipment, insurance, and testing on top of that.
If the requirement is not written yet
Write it first. The specification quiz tests whether a brief is complete enough to bid, and the facility polls show which items other managers left out and regretted. Lifecycle cost is decided at the brief stage: Terrapin's example of a $350,000 saving that became a $1.1M replacement started with a requirement that did not state the wash-down temperature, in a sector where Terrapin describes a 160°F swing, 2–3x daily cleaning cycle. Ten minutes on the exposures list is the cheapest flooring work you will ever do.
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How many written proposals did you collect?
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Questions about requesting an estimate
How many proposals should a facility collect?
Three against the same brief is usually enough to see the spread and identify scope differences. More than that tends to produce proposals for slightly different scopes and slows the review. If two are far apart, the itemized lines show why; a third settles which is the outlier.
Should our specifier or engineer be involved before proposals?
For ESD, healthcare, food-safety, or any floor tied to a regulatory program, yes; the performance limits and acceptance tests should be defined before bids so contractors respond to a requirement rather than proposing one. For a warehouse polish or a dry-area coating, an operations-led brief is usually sufficient.
Can we request proposals for more than one system?
Yes. Describe each zone and say which systems you want considered. Some contractors install several and will propose per zone; others specialize and will respond to the zones they handle. Comparing a polish proposal from one contractor with a resin proposal from another is normal when the zones differ.
Will we receive sales calls?
Contractors who receive the brief contact you to arrange a site walk and follow up on their proposal; that is the purpose of the form. Facility Floor Scope does not call you and does not share the brief with unrelated services. A contractor who persists after a clear decline should be told so; there is no obligation.
What if our facility has no shutdown window at all?
Say so. Phased work with barriers, negative air, and off-hours shifts is routine in warehouses and retail, and fast-cure systems such as MMA and rapid-set urethane exist for overnight turnarounds. Contractors will propose a sequence; the brief should state what must keep running and how close to it work can occur.
Do we need exact square footage?
Zone-level estimates are enough for the brief; contractors measure on the site walk. Drawings help. Because unit prices fall sharply with size, grouping zones into one mobilization can change the economics, so list every area you might include even if some are optional.
Can proposals be requested for a leased building?
Yes, but state who owns the building, who will authorize the work, and whether the lease restricts flooring changes or requires restoration. Removable systems such as ESD tile or resilient sheet may suit a short lease better than a bonded resin floor.
Not sure which service? Start with a guide
Service guideIndustrial Epoxy FlooringIndustrial resin flooring is a family of seamless systems, epoxy, urethane cement, MMA, and hybrids, bonded to a prepared concrete slab and built to resist the chemicals, loads, temperatures, and cleaning a facility subjects it to.
Service guidePolished Concrete FloorsCommercial concrete polishing grinds and densifies the existing slab through progressively finer diamonds until it becomes a hard, dust-free wear surface.
Service guideESD & Anti-Static FlooringESD flooring is a conductive or static-dissipative floor system, epoxy, urethane, vinyl tile, or rubber, bonded to a grounded conductive layer so that charge on people and carts drains safely.
Service guideAntimicrobial & Healthcare FlooringHealthcare flooring covers seamless resin, welded sheet vinyl and rubber, and coved, drained systems chosen so that a facility's cleaning and infection-control program can be carried out on them.