DIY versus a crew
Is doing it yourself actually cheaper?
The comparison separates three questions that should not be collapsed: cash outlay, the value you place on your own time, and the cash cost of a failed attempt. The failure threshold below is explicitly cash-only; it is not a prediction of failure or a recommendation. The dollar figures in the form are example inputs, not sourced prices; replace them with your own quote and costs.
Modeled comparison
DIY has the lower modeled cost before failure risk. Compare your own failure estimate with the cash-only threshold below.
$2,450 cash difference, for 27.0 hours of your labour
The arithmetic behind that verdict
- DIY saves $2,450 in cash against the quote entered, before pricing 27.0 hours of your time.
- After pricing your time, the modeled saving is $1,775 before failure risk.
- The cash-only failure threshold is 117 percent: cash saving divided by redo cost. It deliberately excludes the value of your time, which is reported separately above.
What the failure threshold does — and does not — say
The displayed threshold solves one narrow equation: cash saving equals failure probability multiplied by the redo cost. At the default figures it is 117%. The value of your hours is not in that threshold; it appears separately as “Saving after your time.”
Treat the threshold as a comparison point for a failure probability you assess yourself, not as evidence that a particular floor will succeed or fail. If the time-priced saving is already negative, the all-in comparison is negative before any failure risk is added.
A moisture test does not prevent moisture or guarantee adhesion. It supplies evidence that can stop an unsuitable coating plan before material is installed. Check the actual product warranty for its testing, preparation and moisture exclusions rather than assuming one warranty represents the market.
One thing the hours figure deliberately does not contain is waiting. Those are working hours — grinding, mixing, pulling and back-rolling — and they are the only hours this comparison should count, because the room is out of use for the full cure whoever does the work. A crew does not make resin harden faster. What a crew changes is how many of those elapsed days you personally have to spend on the slab, and the elapsed side of it is worked out on the cure schedule.
Price the redo at what a SECOND attempt would cost rather than at what the first one did: the second time there is a bonded coating to take off rather than bare concrete, which in this site's model adds two removal passes.
What a professional is actually selling
Not brushwork. Three things a weekend cannot easily buy:
- The machine and the tooling. A contractor can bring a machine and tooling matched to the floor; a rental counter offers what it has, so ask what tooling comes with it.
- Crew size against pot life. Resin sets on a clock you do not control. Two people can pull and back-roll a bay that one person cannot finish before it gels, and that constraint sets the area a solo attempt can cover; see the batch arithmetic.
- Experience of the failure modes. Recognising a problem while the material is still workable is part of what a quote pays for, and it does not show up as a line item.
Where each answer genuinely wins
| Situation | Our planning view | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Small bare slab, foot traffic, solid colour | Do it yourself | Thin film, one pass of preparation in this model, and pot life is not a race at that area. |
| Two-car garage, flake, bare sound concrete | Either | The saving can be real, and the risk is lower when the moisture test passes clearly. |
| A slab with an existing coating on it | Get a quote | Removal adds two passes in this model, plus the waste to dispose of. |
| A slab that failed or narrowly passed a moisture test | Get a quote | A mitigation layer is a separate product with its own data sheet, cure and primer requirements. |
| A metallic finish | Get a quote | The effect cannot be matched in a local repair, so a first attempt commits the whole floor. |
| Quartz or another troweled build | Get a quote | It is a placed system for a crew, not a coating for a roller. |
Biggest swing factor The redo cost. Leave it out and a thin saving can look better than it is.