Read the marketing for floor coatings in Birmingham and you will find lifetime warranties everywhere. It sounds like the risk has been removed.
Then read the document. Warranties in this trade are usually narrower than the headline suggests, and understanding where the edges are tells you a great deal about the company offering it.
What "lifetime" usually means
Not your lifetime. Typically the lifetime of the original purchaser at that property, which ends when you sell the house. Some are transferable once, often for a fee.
Some are lifetime on materials and considerably shorter on labour, which matters, because on a coating failure the labour to remove and reinstall is most of the cost.
Neither of those is dishonest. They are simply narrower than the word implies, and worth knowing before you weigh one quote against another.
The exclusion that matters most
Moisture from the substrate is almost always excluded.
This is the important one, because vapour drive through the slab is one of the three main reasons coatings fail, and in Birmingham it is common. A great deal of housing here predates routine vapour barrier use.
So the warranty covers the coating, and the coating fails because of the concrete, and the concrete is not covered.
That exclusion is standard across the industry and it is not unreasonable in itself. Nobody can warrant conditions inside a slab they did not pour.
What matters is whether the contractor tested for it before quoting. A company that runs a calcium chloride test on a slab that warrants one, and then either mitigates it or tells you the risk, is behaving properly. A company that skips the test, excludes moisture in the warranty and hands you a floor is transferring a known risk to you without mentioning it.
Ask, before you sign: did you test my slab for moisture, and what did it say?
The other usual exclusions
Hot tyre pickup appears in a surprising number of documents. If it is excluded, ask why, because it means they are installing a system prone to it in a climate where cars come home hot.
Impact and mechanical damage. Reasonable. A dropped engine block is not a coating defect.
Chemical damage from things outside normal use. Also reasonable, though "normal use" is worth defining if you run a workshop.
Movement of the substrate. Cracks that appear because the slab moved are excluded almost universally, and correctly so.
UV discolouration is sometimes excluded. If it is, and your garage door faces the sun, that is a real gap rather than a technicality.
Improper maintenance. The catch-all. Usually reasonable, occasionally used broadly.
What is left
Strip the exclusions away and most lifetime warranties in this trade cover delamination caused by defective materials or defective workmanship, where the substrate was sound and dry.
That is worth something. Workmanship failures do happen and a company standing behind them matters. It is just considerably narrower than "lifetime warranty" implies.
The question behind the question
A warranty is only as good as the company still being in business when you need it.
Floor coating has a low barrier to entry. A grinder, a van and a website is enough to start, and the trade sees a steady stream of businesses that appear and disappear within a few years.
A twenty-year warranty from a company that is four years old is a statement of intent rather than a guarantee. That does not make it worthless, and plenty of good contractors are young businesses. It does mean the warranty should not be the reason you choose one over another.
What to ask
Can I see the actual warranty document before I commit? A company that will not produce it until after you have paid is telling you something.
Is moisture excluded, and did you test my slab?
Is hot tyre pickup covered?
Does it cover labour as well as materials?
Is it transferable if I sell?
What is the process if something goes wrong, and who do I call?
What matters more than the warranty
The preparation. A properly ground, tested, correctly specified floor does not need a warranty, because it does not fail.
If you are choosing between two quotes, the preparation method tells you more about the next ten years than the warranty document does. Diamond grinding versus acid etching is the difference between a floor that lasts and one that does not, and no warranty is worth the disruption of having a garage floor removed and redone.
Our own position: we would rather tell you before we start that a slab needs testing, or that the concrete has a problem a coating will not solve, than write a confident warranty and hope. See garage floor coating for the process and repair and recoating for what happens when it goes wrong.
Warranty versus insurance
Two different things that get conflated, and only one of them protects you if something goes badly wrong.
A warranty is a promise from the contractor about their own work. If they close, it closes with them.
Liability insurance is a third-party policy that covers damage caused during the work: a grinder that damages your garage door, dust that gets into the house, a spill on the driveway. That is a different risk and it is worth asking about separately.
Any established contractor will produce a certificate of insurance without hesitation. It is a reasonable request and the reaction to it is informative.
Workers' compensation coverage is worth asking about too, for the straightforward reason that an uninsured injury on your property can become your problem.
Common questions
Is a lifetime warranty a good sign?
It is a normal sign. Nearly everyone offers one, so it does not differentiate. What differentiates is what the document excludes and whether the slab was tested.
Does it transfer if I sell the house?
Sometimes, often for a fee, and frequently only once. Worth checking if you expect to move, since a transferable warranty is a small selling point.
My floor failed and they say it is moisture. Is that fair?
It may well be accurate. The fairer question is whether they tested before quoting. Excluding a risk you were never told about is different from excluding one you declined to mitigate.
Should I pay more for a longer warranty?
No. Pay more for better preparation. A ground slab with a moisture test behind it is worth more than any document.
What if the company closes?
The warranty goes with it. That is worth weighing when a young business offers a very long one, though it is not a reason on its own to avoid them.
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