Was a written flooring requirement in place before contractors were contacted?
No votes yet. Yours will be the first. · saved on this device
Facility Floor Scope · Planning quiz
Is your facility flooring requirement complete enough to bid?
This eight-question quiz tests the facts a commercial flooring requirement is built on: thermal-shock limits, return-to-service times, slip-resistance standards, ESD acceptance methods, moisture, and what drives cost. Each answer explains the reasoning with a sourced figure. Missed questions point to the sections of the brief that contractors will otherwise fill in for you, usually in their favor.
Start the quiz0 of 8 answered
Facility managers write flooring briefs infrequently and contractors read them constantly, and the gaps in a brief are where a proposal's assumptions live. The questions below are framed as knowledge questions because the facts behind them, cure times, failure mechanisms, standards, and cost curves, are what a complete requirement states. Score yourself, read the explanations, then use the comparisons or the calculator to close the gaps.
What the quiz is testing
Four things. Whether you know which exposures rule out which systems, since Terrapin rates epoxy at about 120°F of thermal shock and describes food plants cycling through a 160°F swing, 2–3x daily. Whether you know what return to service means by activity and temperature. Whether you know that compliance claims need a named standard and a witnessed test, for slip under ANSI/NFSI B101.1, for ESD under S20.20 with STM 97.1 and 97.2. And whether you have a realistic cost model: Craftsman's urethane cement spans $4–$17 per sq ft, from $11 to $14 on small jobs to $4 to $8 on very large ones, so a budget without an area is not a budget.
Common wrong answers, and what they cost
The wrong answers are the assumptions that produce failed floors. Believing an industrial epoxy label covers wash-down produces Craftsman's 12–24 months delamination. Believing return to service is one number produces a floor that took forklifts before it took wash-down. Believing anti-static is a specification produces a floor that cannot be audited. Believing the low bid included preparation produces Jinyu's 10-to-20% surface preparation share as a change order. Each is cheap to learn here and expensive to learn after award; the Liberty Mutual index's $10.26 billion/yr cost of same-level falls, inside the National Safety Council's $176.5 billion total for 2023 work injuries, is what the slip question is protecting against.
How to use your result
If most answers were right, the brief is probably close; go to the service pages for the checklist for your system and the proposal request. If several were wrong in one area, that is the section of the brief to write before a site walk. Missing the thermal and downtime questions means the exposures and shutdown windows need to be stated with numbers; missing the standards questions means the responsible program owner needs to supply limits and test methods before any contractor proposes compliance.
The quiz cannot see the slab. A result that favors a bonded system is conditional on a passed moisture test and a sound surface, both of which come from the site walk and the mockup. Treat it as a way to complete the requirement, not as a specification. The polls show which items other managers left out.
Where the answers come from
Every explanation cites a published source: Craftsman Concrete Floors, Ace Avant, Terrapin Construction Group, and Jinyu on resin systems and costs, with the note that all four sell urethane cement; Stelr, HomeAdvisor, Airtasker, and This Old House on polished concrete; the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index via NFSI, BLS, NIOSH, and OSHA on slips and falls; Floor Covering News on the market; BLS on the workforce, 97,000 jobs across the flooring occupation group; our analysis of the EIA's 2018 CBECS on building stock, 5.9 million commercial buildings; and CDC on healthcare-associated infections. The same figures appear with links on the service pages and in the site's statistics.
Homeowner polls
What other planners are choosing
Was acceptance tested with a witnessed, recorded result?
No votes yet. Yours will be the first. · saved on this device
Quiz questions, answered
Does the quiz tell us which system to specify?
No. It tells you which parts of the requirement are missing or based on a wrong assumption. The system follows from a complete requirement plus a site walk and a mockup; the specifier or program owner makes that call for regulated floors.
We missed the thermal shock question. What should we do?
Write the thermal range into the brief with numbers: wash-down water temperature, rinse temperature, freezer and oven adjacency, and how many cycles a day. Terrapin's 160°F daily swing is what a food plant looks like on paper. Then read the epoxy versus urethane cement comparison.
We missed the ESD acceptance question. Is that serious?
It is the most common gap in ESD procurement. Without a program limit and a named test method, the floor cannot be accepted or audited. Get the limits from the program coordinator or a qualified specifier before any proposal is compared.
Can the quiz be retaken?
Yes, as often as useful. Retaking it after reading the service pages checks that the explanations landed. Nothing is stored beyond your browser session.
Why are the questions about facts rather than preferences?
Because proposals are built on facts and contractors know them. A manager who knows the cure times, the standards, the moisture rule, and the cost curve reads any proposal critically. A preference quiz would return what you already intended.
Does a high score mean we can skip the specifier?
For a warehouse polish or a dry-area coating, an operations-led brief is usually enough. For ESD, healthcare, or food-safety floors, the responsible program owner or a qualified specifier defines the performance limits regardless of how well the facility team scores.
Where can we check the figures the quiz cites?
Each explanation names its source, and the same figures appear on the service pages with links to the original publisher, including which sources are contractor-published. The site keeps every statistic attributed so it can be read at the source.
More free tools
Free toolCommercial and industrial flooring cost calculatorSize, material tier and complexity in, a realistic budget range out.
Free toolCommercial flooring comparisonsSide-by-side tables for the decisions that change the price most.
Free toolFacility flooring polls: how other managers decidedSee what other planners chose and add your vote.
Read the service guides
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.
Ready to price your commercial and industrial flooring?
Tell us the size, the condition of what is there now, and what you want to change. Facility Floor Scope passes your request to independent local professionals, who reply with written, no-obligation estimates. The service is free to use.