Steve 96C4S

Hello folks. We close on a 4 year old home today that unfortunately has serious cat urine problems. We have to redo the entire interior of the house (repainting with special antimicrobials and KILZ) and replacing ruined carpets with hardwood floors as well as replacing the basement carpet and padding, etc.

The garage smells pretty bad as they must have let their stray cats in there. It has urine sprayed on the walls in spots so we're having them treated with KILZ to neutralize the smell, we'll have the walls repainted and then the painting quote says:

"Epoxy garage floor".

He's charging $880 to do the 2 car garage which includes painting the whole interior and epoxying the floor. The wood guy is doing the treatment ($422) before it's painted with an antimicrobial and uriex (to neutralize the cat urine) so the painter can get in to seal and paint it. Yes, we'll have to move all this furniture the previous owners left for us.


It'll be nice to have it painted white as most neighbors don't do this. We can't afford anything fancy as we're already at $32k just to fix up the house's issues due to their 5 cats that apparantly didn't know what a litter box was. Our current garage is white and it highlights nicely all my framed Porsche posters.

My question concerns the color of white that looks good. The painter suggested eggshell I think it was. What do you guys like? 2nd and most important question is what type of epoxy should he use? I'm guessing it's some cheap stuff considering his price. He said that he acid washes the floor first, applies the epoxy, and then it should last many, many years. Is there anything special I tell him or just trust that for the price, anything will be better than the cement floor as it stands now? All we have now is a cement floor in our current home, with fading 17 year old paint that looks awful.

I like that when it's bitter cold, I can run the hose a bit in the garage over my car to clean my car. Will this ruin the epoxy finish if I do this on the new floor? Is it harder to keep clean that a simple cement floor? He suggested a color with flecks of other color (I can't remember offhand but I think he said gold and brown flecks). Is it better to just do a simple medium colored grey? That's what we told him for now. We can change our minds up till about 2 days from now.

We appreciate any suggestions, as long they don't entail expensive garage options more than what we're spending! We are literally spent OUT. It has to be as cheap as possible an option. They didn't even use the garage for anything but their cats it seems. No electric garage opener, so we're having to buy a Liftmaster today as well. They apparently parked on the street. Aaaargh. BTW - Epoxy... IS it the way to go? It's a great house, so in the end, it'll be "all good."

Thanks in advance. Door to detached garage












Yes, it's basically a townhouse! Yes, they're very close together. Yes, I will have to clean my car in ... an alley. Yes, this is what we want. Yes, we're crazy, I know.



The alley where I'll clean the car... it would have to parked parallel to the garage to do it.


All this has to be resanded due to cat issues




Door to the patio to the detached garage


The apt above the Porsche sanctuary


The Porsche sanctuary view from the kitchen

chris walrod

Wow! Steve, didnt you know about the Cat urine problem before buying this house? I hope this issue is taken care of shortly. Sounds as though you are doing it right.

I really like the house -- its different than typical.

I dont have much experience in what to use on your garage floor -- all I know is prep is everything! Is there any warranty offered by the floor painter?

America

If you think your house are close together and have no room, you better come to the SF Bay Area. That looks like a $1.5-$2 million house in my neck of the woods.

Steve 96C4S

We knew there were cat smells, but thought that all that needed to occur was that the carpets were to be cleaned. It wasn't till after the home inspection that our wood floor guy lifted up the carpets, tested the walls and found out that it wasn't just the carpets, it was the whole house was soaked in the stuff! Arghhhh. This guy vacuumed up 8 bags of baking soda from 1 room alone, completely masking and covering up the smell. Once the baking soda was vacuumed up, it stunk to high hell. We have a lawyer for settlement today. Don't really want to get into that drama though, it's too depressing...

The garage floor is my topic. I have to focus on something good rather than the disgusting interior of the home, which will be nice and fresh soon. We're not risking getting a nice soft carpet back upstairs as we have 4 cats ourselves (which don't spray and they all use their freakin' litter boxes!). Instead, we'll have to do hardwood so they don't latently smell the urine and pee again in the carpets. It'll be nice.

So... epoxy garage floor colors? Should I tell him to use any specific brand?

Steve R

BobbyT

Hi Steve,

I love my epoxy garage floor. It is much easier to keep clean than bare concrete, and it keeps the rest of the house cleaner, because there is no concrete dust. You won't damage it by hosing off your car or by washing the floor off with the hose.

I would ask the painter what product he plans to use, and then research it online. There are some inexpensive epoxy paints being sold now by Lowe's and Home Depot, but I don't know about the quality of finish or longevity. On the other end of the price range is Griot's.

Mine was done by a company that specializes in epoxy floors. Rather than the typical acid wash (which it sounds like you need due to the cat urine problem), they scuffed the floor with what looked like a floor sander. After applying the base coat, they scattered colored acrylic chips onto the still-wet surface, which makes a nice textured look. Next day they came back and applied the clear topcoat.

A little silver lining to the cat urine problem--if the previous owners never parked cars in the garage, you won't have any oil residue in the concrete to interfere with paint adhesion.

All in all, one of the best home improvement projects I've made. I'm still trying to break my wife from turning the steering wheel while the her car is sitting still, which is very hard on any applied surface, but that is another story...

doberdog

Steve,
I live in the city and have a very small garage off the back lane and washing the car is no problem at all, just leave enough room for a vehicle to get by and there is plenty of room. Once youhave done it a few times it is no problem. In Vancouver we might be passing a by-law that allows coach houses to be built over the garage, so when it goes throught, i'm putting one it. Looks cool.

JasonF

I feel your pain. We bought our house from a couple who had 9 KIDS, dogs, cats and god knows what else living there. We also thought a simple carpet cleaning would suffice, until we discovered that cat urine had soaked through everything. We had to go from room to room replacing everything before we were done. I never want to go through that again.

The quote for your entire garage is pretty low. My painter (who is expensive, but does amazing work), quoted me $1,200 for an acid-washed epoxy coating on our 2-car garage. From what I understand, you definitely want someone with experience laying this stuff down, or else it could flake off. Like all paintwork, proper prep is 90% of the a job well done. Stick with something neutral (like a gray as you noted with black and blue flecks)...

Franklin229

I've used Sherwin Williams epoxy coatings before-they are pretty good-FYI.

Chuck A.

If you are talking about the Rustoleum product, don't use it. It won't last long due to hot tire pickup.
------------------
Hmm I used Rustoleum and it has stood up well for three years and that includes parking cars with R compound tires fresh from the track on it. The secret to all coatings is preparation. If there is any trace of sealer or oil etc. it will lift. On fresh concrete, vacuum (carefully), wash it, acid wash it, let dry and wash again. Let it dry thoroughly! Then and only then apply the epoxy. If there was paint or sealer, rent a floor grinder and take off the top layer then proceed as above.

RutgersU

The quote for the epoxy is very low. Mine was $1500 for a 2 car from Premier Garage in Dallas. Check the warranty terms & the time the company has been in business.

Good luck!

AOW162435

I agree - the floor coating quote seems low. It's all in the prep though. If the guy just sloshes some acid on the floor and then rolls on an 'epoxy' floor paint, my guess is that it will not last long.

I've had three estimates done for my garage since we purchased this home a few months back. The prices range from $2,500 to nearly $4,000. That includes grinding the floor, filing any imperfections, applying an epoxy primer, applying the epoxy, scattering the chips or other substance, and finally a clear top coat. The companies I've spoken with will warranty these applications for up to 10 years. The end result is a floor coating of at least 1/8" in thickness.

Andreas

Luftd993

Nice house Steve, shame about the smell.
There are some interesting comments in the link below.

https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...=garage+floors

Marc Shaw

Lots of info about flooring options from garage fanatics here.

Marc

groovzilla

i own an apartment building and several rental houses in seattle and have dealt with cat urine and other animal odors.

for the walls/baseboards best to use an alchohol based stainkilling primer/sealer like "kilz" which is also sold in an oil base i think but the alcohol base is best.

for the garage floor epoxy should cover and prevent any odors from comming thru.

***make sure you remove both carpet and padding...coat the subfloor with the "kilz" primer before covering

matt777

I checked out some coatings a few weeks back. The PPG coating was cheap but has a loooong cure time and requires a clear coat. They say that the clear coat will eventually need to be sanded and reapplied. The other coating, Flexmar, was supposed to be much more durable and has a short cure time but it was $6/sq ft installed! Not cheap. Home Depot has an inexpensive product as well but I don't know anything about it.