Upscale Audio

Yea it was expensive but prices for labor vary greatly. If I had it to do over, I would have done it in a distressed wood look. I just did that in a bathroom and it was bad-*** and slip resistant. This is a stone look, and I used epoxy grout which is the ONLY way to go IMHO. And special adhesive. These are shots that may give you an idea...

Upscale Audio

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Robocop305

I love my racedeck. 15 plus years and counting.

G.I.G.

I did quite a bit of research on this topic over the last several months and decided to go with epoxy for a few different reasons. There is a lengthy thread on the 991 forum on the same subject with quite a few different garage flooring options, pros/cons, associated costs, etc.

One thing to consider is your climate and the condition of the concrete you're starting with. Our garage floors were in rough shape due to years of neglect before we bought our house. We're in Colorado, so winters can be hard on concrete with everything our SUV's drag in during a snow storm and since I wasn't starting with new concrete, our concrete would have needed to be repaired to begin with regardless.

I like the look of the Swisstrax, but I was concerned with snow, mag chloride, salt, etc. still draining through the Swisstrax and creating more problems with the concrete underneath. RaceDeck looked like a good option (looks great, also), but I still would have needed to repair and seal our concrete anyway to prevent more spalling and cracking down the road.

I had to have the front 3 slabs closest to our house mudjacked last Spring due to settling (another issue we have here in Colorado) to ensure water from cars would drain back towards our driveway and not the foundation of our house. I love the look of tile garage floors, but the cost and the movement in our Colorado soil had me concerned about cracking, so I eliminated tile off the list of options.

I have a couple of friends that have had good experiences with epoxy, so I decided to go that route. As others have pointed out, one concern I had regarding epoxy was longevity. I believe many of the people who have issues with epoxy either A) did not prep the floors properly or B) used an outdated or consumer grade product. I specifically asked our installer about this and he said the epoxy products he uses have come a long way, even in the just the last couple of years. The stuff he uses (sorry, I can't recall the name) is not something you can just grab off the shelf at Home Depot.

I had the garage floors done earlier this month after we had new insulated garage doors and side-mount lifters installed. I obviously can't speak to longevity, but I couldn't be happier with the outcome.

Here are the before pics....



Bad spalling in the center stall....



After....






Obligatory pic with my 997.1 C2S....



As a point of reference, our garage is roughly 550 sq ft (rather small for a 3-car garage) and I paid $3k for the floors. That included repair (filling the spalling), prep, caulking, and painting the concrete foundation along the sides as well. It's a multi-stage process that took a couple of days to complete.

If anyone is in the Denver metro area and wants a referral, I can pass along my installer's contact info.

JS

We have been using RaceDeck for over 15 years now and have it in several of our garages. With that said, very happy with the product and transformations.

joejenie

I tiled my detached garage floor when I built the garage 2 years ago. Home was built 8 years ago. Did Epoxy with flecks in it then. Looked like crap (couldn't get tire marks off anymore, so decided to match the detached garage. Tile is expensive because it is worth it.

Upscale Audio

I felt that if I did it right I'd get something back if and when I sell my house. I can't recall now the total investment was. I think my garage is about 1100 sq ft, and it cost maybe $12K ?

Slip sheet on the cement seams, used the best adhesive Keralastic and epoxy grout so I can use chemicals to clean the floor if needed and it should never stain. When we were shopping for houses, you can tell females make up the majority of real estate agents. They never describe the garage or take pictures unless it's REALLY special. Even then they don't realize the garage is sometimes as important to the husband as the kitchen is to the wife.

skafia

SwissTrax here, love em.

BartN (TX)

My original garage floor was builder grade epoxy. Flaked up with hot tires, scratched easily and was stained. Started looking really bad. I had a professionally installed epoxy with 100% flake to give it enough texture to be slip resistant. They did come and diamond cut and treat the floor before applying the new coat. New coat has a very good warranty. I was even able to customize the flake blend to get the colors the way I wanted them.

andrewgt3

Professional Epoxy. Floor was ground, etched and "sealed" before epoxy and flake went down.

G.I.G.

Wow, that looks great with a little bit of red flake in the epoxy to tie in the red cabinets, lift, etc. I'm sure it looks even better in person.

I was curious how those rubber stop blocks are secured to the garage floor. I have visual points of reference out the side of both my 911 and my 4Runner that I use when my side mirror gets to a certain point so I know when to stop. My wife has the good ol' fashioned tennis ball hanging in her spot, however. I've consider those rubber stop blocks but I don't want to permanently damage our new epoxy floors by drilling or using a strong adheisive. I'm also considering a ceiling mounted laser.

BartN (TX)

Thank you. I did all the work myself, except the flooring, and have loved the transformation.

The bump stops stick down with commercial grade 2-sided tape and are pretty permanent. I'm not sure how well they'd come up. That said, it's been the best parking solution we've had and I've done the laser light on the dash gizmos, tape markers on the walls, tennis *****, etc. My wife's car has to pull in just right in order for the refrigerator door to open and still walk behind the car to get around the garage. Until I put the stops down there was a 25% chance of that happening.

Also note they are very low profile. I've not had any tripping issues with them but the flip side is you can't come in at 30mph and hope they'll stop you. You just have to easy up on them.

rbahr

About 22 years ago, when we bought this house, I did a lot of research and ended up for an epoxy paint that was designed and used in Airplane Hangers. This stuff was a 3 part process, a 2 part epoxy and a overcoat on that.

That stuff has survived pretty much anything I could throw at it - chemicals, abrasion, whatever, and it is still doing well. The cost were high, and the prep took me ~ a week, but I am thrilled with the results.

Airplane hangers have some nasty chemicals and requirements, not cheap but the environments are far harsher than the home environment

Ray

Protocav

A question for those with swisstrax/racedeck or anything that sets on the garage floor similarly...can you actually work on a car on these surfaces? Can you use a jack or jack stands properly and safely without damaging this surface? I do a lot of work on my car and metal fabrication work as well so I want something legitimately industrial. I really like the look of these surfaces but get the impression that they are mostly decorative and for storing cars instead of working on them.

Thanks for any insight!

9eight7

I'll be changing the brakes on my Macan this week and I'll report back and let you know. From my discussions with the rep. he said jacks, jack stands, quickjack, it all works on the tiles and doesn't destroy it. I spilled a ton of oil on mine and removed 4 columns of tiles to clean it. I did drag my quickjack across it and noticed some scratches but it doesn't look terrible.