Polymer floor acceptance is not a matter of “checking whether it shines evenly”. It is a set of measurements, each with its own method, instrument and number. If they are not taken, six months later the argument will not be about the engineering but about who remembers what.

Below is the procedure we follow when we accept a floor — one you can apply to any contractor.

Acceptance is lost before it begins

The most common mistake clients make is to accept only the finish. By the time the coating has been laid, the substrate is already covered up and can no longer be checked.

That is why acceptance involves two certificates, not one:

Concealed-works certificate for the substrate — strength, moisture, flatness, pull-off test result, quality of the mechanical preparation. Signed BEFORE priming.
Coating acceptance certificate — everything else.

If the first certificate is missing, then at the final stage you are accepting a pig in a poke: the contractor will put any adhesion defect down to “the quality of the client’s concrete”, and you will have nothing to counter it with.

What is measured on the finished floor

Flatness	A two-metre straightedge, with the gap measured by a wedge gauge. Check not in one spot but on a grid, and always across the direction of laying. Separately — falls to the floor drains: these are checked by pouring water, not by eye. A puddle that does not drain away is a defect, even if the gap under the straightedge is within tolerance.
Thickness	Test cut-outs or drilled cores, with measurement. Take them not in the convenient middle of the floor area but at representative points: at the entrance, in the vehicle traffic lane, in the far corner, by the wall. The number of points is agreed in advance — otherwise haggling over where to drill will start at handover. After measurement, the holes are made good with the same material.
Adhesion	Pull-off test with a steel dolly to ISO 4624, result in MPa. What matters is what exactly came away: if the failure ran through the concrete rather than along the “concrete–coating” interface, that is a GOOD result — the bond proved stronger than the substrate itself. If it came away at the interface, the preparation is in question.
Continuity	Blisters, craters, missed spots, scuffs, foreign inclusions. Inspect in side lighting: surface defects show up in low-angle light and are almost invisible in overhead light. Plus tapping — a hollow sound means delamination that the eye cannot see.
Slip resistance	Compliance is checked zone by zone, not for the site as a whole: where there is water, fat or a slope, the profile must be coarser. A single class for the whole production hall is almost always a sign that nobody worked out the zoning.
Appearance	Assessed under the production hall’s normal working lighting, from a standing person’s eye level, not up close and not under a work floodlight. The inspection conditions are recorded in the certificate — otherwise the same floor is both “accepted” and “not accepted”, depending on who stood where.

For antistatic floors, a separate electrical measurement is added to this — with its own document and its own conditions. This is the topic where the wrong test report is most often presented, and we have covered it in a separate article.

The details where failures really live

The open floor area almost never lets you down. You need to look where the coating ends or changes direction:

Coves — rounded, made of the same material, with no edge and no undercut at the wall.
Floor drains and channels — the coating is taken into the body of the drain, with no joint around the perimeter.
Anchor grooves — around the perimeter and along the floor drains, filled.
Movement joints — carried through the coating, not poured over.
Junctions with equipment, foundations, thresholds and doors — sealed, with no exposed edge.

Why this is critical in wet and hot production areas is explained in detail in the article on food production.

What goes into the certificate

A certificate that will let you prove something a year later contains:

the system type and the design thickness — with a reference to what it is based on;
a plan showing where the thickness and adhesion measurement points are;
the value at each point, not “complies”;
the instruments, their serial numbers and calibration dates;
air temperature and humidity, substrate temperature and dew point on the days of laying;
the conditions of the visual inspection (lighting, distance);
a list of the details accepted: coves, floor drains, anchor grooves, joints, junctions;
an as-built drawing of the zones, if the slip resistance or coating type varies;
the operation and cleaning procedures, handed over to the client against signature;
the warranty period and conditions, with a list of what voids it.

Without this data, the wording “the works have been completed in full, we have no claims” protects neither party.

What is not a defect — the honest part

This part is just as necessary as the previous ones; otherwise acceptance turns into a hunt for things to nitpick.

Variation in shade. Self-levelling floors cure batch by batch; a slight difference in tone between sections is a property of the technology, not faulty work. A sharp boundary in the middle of the floor area, however, does raise a question.
Tool marks along the edges and at junctions. Where the squeegee cannot reach, the material is applied by hand; the texture there is different.
Slight waviness visible only in low-angle light. If the gap under the straightedge is within tolerance, it is not a defect.
A matt finish where one is specified. A slip-resistant coating is never mirror-like. This is agreed before work starts, not at handover.
Isolated pinpoint inclusions within the agreed number per square metre.

It pays to write down the acceptance criteria for appearance in advance — then both parties look at the same floor in the same way.

Warranty: what it covers

Ask directly what the warranty covers: the material, the work or the whole system. These are three different promises, and only the third means that, if the coating delaminates, nobody will explain to you that the material is fine and the installation is to blame, or the other way round.

And just as directly — what voids the warranty. Usually it is a breach of the cleaning procedures (aggressive chemicals, polishes, steam above the permitted temperature), loads beyond the design loads, mechanical damage and changes to the floor structure made by third parties. The list should be in the certificate, not voiced for the first time in the middle of a dispute.

A short checklist

Is there a concealed-works certificate for the substrate?
Flatness with the straightedge — on a grid, not at a single point; falls checked with water?
Thickness from cut-outs at representative points, holes made good?
Adhesion by pull-off, with the failure mode stated?
Tapping for hollow spots over the whole area?
Inspection in side lighting?
Details: coves, floor drains, anchor grooves, joints, junctions?
Slip resistance by zone?
Cleaning procedures handed over against signature?
Figures in the certificate, not the word “complies”?

What next

If acceptance is still ahead of you, take this list and go through it with the contractor BEFORE a date is set. A good contractor does not turn down such a conversation: it is in their interest for the criteria to be named in advance, not invented on the day of signing.

If you have yet to choose the floor, start with thickness for the load and with what makes up the price. And the pages by type will help you choose a system: epoxy, antistatic, polyurethane and polyurethane-cement floors.

Polymer floor acceptance: what to check and what to write in the certificate