What a quote has to say before a price means anything

First: does it name a surface profile and a method?

Profile is a number the coatings trade uses for how aggressively the concrete surface was opened, and a quote worth comparing states it, or at minimum states the method used to reach it. "We'll grind it" is not the same commitment as "diamond ground to profile 3," because the surface preparation calculator treats grinding as reaching about profile 4 — a planning figure built into that calculator, not a sourced one — while this site's own mapping of film thickness to profile (an assumption, listed on the methodology page) puts a deep broadcast build at profile 5, which that calculator assigns to blasting.

The surface preparation page derives the profile a film thickness needs and which of grinding, shot blasting, acid etching or scarifying can actually reach it on a given slab. If a quote's method cannot reach the profile the coating needs, the quote is not a cheaper way to the same floor — it is a different, thinner job.

Second: does it name a film thickness and a coat count, in mils?

"Two coats" is not a thickness; a thin wash coat and a heavy build coat are both "one coat." A quote that states dry film thickness in mils, per coat, can be checked against the material delivered: the takeoff page works the arithmetic in the other direction, so a contractor's material allowance can be sanity-checked against the area and thickness they quoted.

Ask specifically whether the stated thickness is dry film or wet film. The two are the same number only at 100 percent volume solids; below that, the wet film laid down has to be thicker than the dry film it leaves, and a quote that conflates the two either overstates what the floor will end up with or understates what has to be bought.

Third: is there a quantified moisture reading, with a number, against the product limit?

The federal painting specification, UFGS 09 90 00 (paragraph 3.6.1 d), judges a concrete floor by a quantified emission test (ASTM F1869) and keeps the taped-plastic-sheet method (ASTM D4263) for walls. A quote should say which test was run, what it read, and what limit it was compared against.

"We checked for moisture" with no reading attached is not a test; a dry taped-plastic sheet is a cheap screen that can still pass while a quantified test fails. The moisture verdict page compares a real calcium-chloride or in-situ-probe reading against the product's own published limit.

Fourth: what does the warranty actually exclude?

If your product's warranty excludes delamination caused by slab moisture, proceeding without a passing quantified reading leaves that risk with whoever owns the floor — a contractor who skips the test has not removed it. Ask for the exclusions list, not just the headline warranty length. A five-year warranty that excludes the failure mode likeliest on a given slab is a shorter warranty than it sounds.

The short version, in the order to raise it

1. What surface profile will the preparation reach, and by which method — and does that method reach the profile this coating needs?
2. How many coats, at what dry film thickness per coat, in mils?
3. What was the quantified moisture reading, by which test, against what limit?
4. Is there a written exclusions list, and does it name slab moisture specifically?
5. Are cracks, joints, spalls and edge work priced as a known quantity or left as "we will assess on site"?
6. How long does the schedule say the space is out of service, start to full cure?

Each of these questions also appears, generated for a given slab's actual conditions, on the quote check tool, which turns "cracks present" or "existing coating present" into the specific line items a quote should contain and flags which are observably missing.

How a quote gets cheap without anyone lying

None of this requires dishonesty on the contractor's side. A profile-2 etch instead of a profile-4 grind, one pass instead of two over a sealed slab, hand-edging skipped at the perimeter, or a thinner film than discussed are all real ways to lower a bid, and each one is a scope decision rather than a different price for the identical job. The reason to ask about profile, thickness, moisture reading and warranty exclusions before comparing totals is that two quotes naming different numbers for those four things are pricing different floors, and the cheaper total does not say which floor is being bought.

Get the four facts in writing, not in the pitch

A verbal answer on profile, thickness, moisture reading or warranty exclusions is worth asking for, and worth getting written down before signing anything. Those four facts are what a dispute will eventually turn on if the floor fails, and a contractor confident in their own scope will not mind putting a number in the contract rather than leaving it to memory. Treat hesitation to write down any one of the four as information in itself.

When comparing more than one bid, lay the four facts out side by side before looking at the total at all. A gap between two bids that agree on profile, thickness, moisture result and warranty is a genuine price difference worth negotiating. The same gap between two bids that disagree on two or three of those four is not comparable at all, and no amount of negotiating closes that kind of gap honestly.