dwe8922

I'm nearing the end of my garage build, and want to coat the floor with something to keep oils from sinking in, and make it easy to clean. I have been looking at the HS 1000 Armorseal epoxy from Sherwin Williams from their commercial division. I put a Coastal Products hardener on it 28 days after the slab was poured, but its just a hardener. After talking the the SW rep, he thinks I need to go back and grind the surface, and etch, to prep it for the HS 1000.

At Daytona this past weekend, their garages seemed to have a stain that seemed pretty impervious to oil stain. I called the maintenance department, and they said it is not stained, just polished. I'm wondering if something like this might be a better compromise. Has anyone had any experience with this?

Thanks!
David

hinchcliffe

Everything I've researched has its own flws and failpoints. I just did the hard plastic tiles in mine. www.racedeck.com

Drew_K

As much as I love this forum, I would point you to garagejournal.com. They have a forum dedicated to garage flooring that can be a bit overwhelming at first, but there is a wealth of information there. You will find a lot of photos and first hand experiences with various types of flooring.

I went with epoxy in my garage and love it. It's held up well to jacks pulled across, jack stands, etc. The only downsides I have experienced are that race tires will lift the epoxy, which I attribute to not using a better epoxy, and epoxy will not withstand metal working, like welding. To address the tire lifting, I had those areas touched up and I now put carpet squares under the tires. For welding, I either do that just outside the garage or put down a welding blanket.

I don't do a lot of heavy mechanical work in my garage, so epoxy was my choice. If I did a lot of car maintenance and repair, I probably would have gone with stained / sealed concrete.

Some other options to consider are porcelain tile and snap together plastic floor tiles. None of these are wrong choices - it just depends on how you are going to use your garage.

Plavan

I have had epoxy and racedeck flooring. I currently have racedeck flooring. If I would do it over again, I would only go the epoxy route. The tiles are a B%$^# to keep looking nice/clean, where as the epoxy was sooooooo much simpler to keep clean. The epoxy looked better over time too.

My .02 cents

paradisenb

The following products will provide many years of quality service. The floor must have a proper profile prior to applying any coating. To achieve this requires shot blasting. This will eliminate the adhesion and/or air pocket lifting experienced by the other poster.
I will be redoing my floor this year, if I can find the time.
I plan on using a 3 coat system. Two coats of Amorlock 400 and one coat of Amershield for color retention.

Another quality provider of floor coating products is Sika

http://usa.sika.com/en/solutions_pro...04sa99103.html

kurt M

Polished concrete has issues. It is slick unless properly coated, soaks up stuff unless properly coated and is not cheap.

Prep is key to any coating. I used a waterborn 2 part epoxy that was not expensive or hard to apply. It has held up well considering how hard I use my shop. The shop is a working shop, clean but not a showroom with waxed and polished floors. I don't crap myself and run for the floor wax when I drop a wrench or drip some oil.
Where you live and how you use the floor is key to the kind of flooring you need.

as said www.garagejournal.com is a good place to poke around. don't let hardcore polish and shine guys kill your wallet with some $30 a SF pro installed system.

todinlaw

Everyone will have an opinion on this. I did my garage in epoxy. it is relatively inexpensive, it looks good, it lasts a long time and its easy to maintain.

I went with this outfit they have good products, its real epoxy resin. http://www.armorpoxy.com/?gclid=CKjx...FdI7Ogod2mgABQ

I went with a gray coating but I think if i were do do it again I would go with a darker color than what i picked. right after I clean it however it looks sweet.

as far as grinding off the surface of your current concrete, these guys will tell you if its necessary. I was told that the problem is with sealers not hardeners, so you may be OK to just paint over it. I went with an epoxy primer, then base coat and a final top cote. all mixed to the same color. Its as hard as nails.

pmason

Agree with Drew, head over to Garagejournel.com
I put down EpoxyCoat, my space is just under 1700sqf, I just did plain medium grey no flakes, wished I did flakes as it would hide scratches better.

93 FireHawk 968

www.garagejournal.com is a great source for all things garage related.

arrivederci

Agreed. Have swisstrax on my shop floor now. It is a pain to keep clean and doesn't stand up to the abuse in a working shop when compared to the rustoleum solvent-based stuff I put into my prior garage. I've read that adhesion for epoxy is all in the prep. I etched the concrete with muriatic acid (used to be available at pool supply stores) and rinsed it thoroughly.

JackOlsen

Garage Journal is great and will lay out a lot of options. And here's what I can tell you after having followed it for a while. When epoxy works, it's awesome. And pretty much everybody will guarantee their epoxy. And when you get hot tires lifting up pieces of it, pretty much everybody will say the problem was with your slab, not their product. But like I say, a lot of the time it works great and it's awesome.

I have ceramic tile -- I've had it for four and a half years, now. As pretty as it might look when it's cleaned up, my shop sees a lot of work -- automotive and also metal fabrication. Welding spatter is the only thing that leaves a mark on the tiles. Oil and solvents wipe up with a paper towel.

And it was .59/sf. On a floor with no vapor barrier and all sorts of heaving and other problems. I'd never set tile before I tried it here.

The belly of the car is sitting right on top of tiles in this picture, since I tiled the top of my lift to match the rest of the floor.

dwe8922

I did more research yesterday, and I think I've found my answer, or atleast where I stand. I applied this product, Euclid Diamond Hard

http://www.euclidchemical.com/filesh...amond_hard.pdf

which is a silicate concrete hardener that resists tire marks and liquid spills. It's a commercial product used to seal concrete floors in wharehouse stores. The company said it will be resistant to oil spills, and just to clean them up as soon as you can with a citrus degreaser. The surface can be polished to create shine and possibly easier cleanup, but polishing won't make it more stain resistant.

They also said that epoxy will not bond to the concrete as long as Diamond Hard is there. I would have to grind the top layer to remove the product to get to any open pores where the epoxy could bond. So, to do all that, my floor coating would be very close to the cost of my slab. At this point, I'm going to try what I have, and see how it works. I might rent a polisher and give that a try too. If I don't like it, I can always grind and epoxy down the road. I'll report back in a year or so after I've gotten some use with it. If it works well, it may be a good option to the epoxies, as it was easy to apply, and relatively inexpensive. The big box stores wouldn't use it if it weren't good, I guess.

Good call on GarageJournal. You could spend hours on there!

Leigh2

I am in the process of building a new garage as well and after extensive navel gazing have decided on ceramic tile as well. I am going with a 24" X 24" tile as I have a lot (1880 sq/ft) to cover. I have tried epoxy in the past and it looks great and is easy to clean, but has peeled off every time. Each time I have painted an old slab and even having it prepared properly by "professional" installers, still peels within a year. I think it would work much better on a new floor and I live in a harsh climate with lots of mushy salty snow and very cold temps.
There is a BMW dealership here that did their entire shop with ceramic tile it still looks spectacular 10 years later. Expensive alternative to plastic and epoxy but the ultimate solution IMO.

JackOlsen

Please do report in as it ages. Flooring is one of those frustrating things where everyone thinks about it once, and it either goes well or goes poorly, but most guys never think about it again. There really isn't much of a knowledge base in the general population.

Keep in mind that many commercial concrete treatments look so good because there's a maintenance crew on a regular cleaning/re-polishing/re-sealing schedule.

I've got nothing to sell. But I'll mention tile again, only because I can hit it with a sledgehammer --


-- or let overspray/stripper/solvents sit on it for weeks and not leave a mark. (My total flooring cost was about $400 for a 20'x21' garage.)

Edit: Leigh2, you aren't going to save all that much time with larger tiles, and they are going to be more vulnerable to bridging/cracking problems than 12x12s would be. If your floor is perfectly flat, that won't be a problem at all.

Leigh2

The tile place I am working with has a membrane that goes between the concrete and the tile. It allows the concrete expansion joints to work without cracking the tile...we'll see. They are recommending the larger tiles and I like the look, I expect some will crack I'll have some spares just in case. It is a garage floor but I know I'm going to be completely **** about it for a year or two....I'm hoping to have enough cars in it to cover any flaws