Anybody have any experience doing this? How hard is it really? How good are the results? A local firm quoted my sweetie $10 per square foot to epoxy coat her basement floor. I thought that was crazy money, we could do it for much less. But really? I painted a garage floor some years ago and it did not work out so well. Any advice is welcome, thanks!
There was a guy here that was redoing his garage completely, floor to ceiling, and he did a lot of research and found not so positive stuff on the epoxy side of things. He found a (I think) two part urethane coating that he went with and it turned out pretty nice I'll try and dig up the thread.
Try the garagejournal flooring forum. There are several product reps that frequent that forum that will answer any question you have. There seems to be lots of options, and opinions on this in that forum, that may be helpful or not helpful, info overload.
A couple things - the home install epoxy kit you buy at the big box store probably isn't as good as the professional stuff. Also, (hopefully) the professional installer crew will have the experience required to do it correctly. They'll also probably have a crew doing the work, as opposed to you trying to get it done by yourself before the epoxy starts curing.
This is not to say you couldn't do a good job, but sometimes there are jobs where it's worth paying the pros.
Just like painting a vehicle or anything else, it's all about the prep and choosing the product that fits the usage.
Power trowled concrete is usually too smooth for proper adhesion of any coating. You need to do something to rough up the surface or make it more porous while cleaning off anything that might've gotten on the floor.. Mechanical grinding is probably the preferred option for this, but you can achieve something similar with an acid etching process. Either process makes a giant mess and takes time.
Once it's prepped, you apply the chosen coating per instructions. Epoxies usually come out pretty thick, which is good for abrasion resistance, but will all yellow over time and they're not usually super resistant to various common chemicals (that may be more of an issue in a garage than a basement). Traditional two part epoxies have a short "pot life", so you have to work quickly.
Urethanes and Polyureas are other nice products with different attributes for different applications.
I did my shop floor in a polyurea after grinding. With grinder rental it ended up a bit over $3/sqft, but it took 1 weekend to grind, another to clean up, and 2 more to coat my 1500sqft (1 coat of 2 part epoxy primer, 2 coats of color and 2 coats of clear). An 18" wide roller really helps save time if you have large, open spaces.
Some LVP flooring or VCT tiles might be cheaper and faster than a quality coating job with a quality product.
$10/sqft is not bad. I paid $7/sqft for a 12k sqft warehouse. 10 years later it looks as good as it did on day 1.
You will never get as good as the pros. I did my ~700 sqft garage myself and its no where near as good a job and did not last as long. I used epoxy-coat.com in my garage.
If I had to do it over again I would order at least 50% more than the recommended amount of paint. I would also get spiked shoes.
So this guy does epoxy floors (he does counters too) and they come out super fancy and nice.
My question is how sustainable are epoxy floors? What stains them or ruins them?
I've looked into doing this and wanted to do this in our utility room but found out the prep work was so much that you really needed to do it on a much larger area or multiple rooms at one time.
The pics posted dont' look like he does it, but everyone I've seen basically uses golf shoes to give a little texture and interest to the colors.
I was thinking of doing it in my next home, but that home will be in a sandy area so I've been worried the sand would dull the shine and develop a wear path
Once you have the floors diamond sanded the actual installation isn't all that hard nor all that expensive. Just go to an industrial supply house or a masonry supply house for the product. It comes in a world of different colors
Mr_Asa said:There was a guy here that was redoing his garage completely, floor to ceiling, and he did a lot of research and found not so positive stuff on the epoxy side of things. He found a (I think) two part urethane coating that he went with and it turned out pretty nice I'll try and dig up the thread.
Wow, so much info. Thanks all!
I read Girth's saga, very well done, thank you!
And there is a whole garage journal forum... who knew? :-)
ekauppi7 said:Wow, so much info. Thanks all!
I read Girth's saga, very well done, thank you!
And there is a whole garage journal forum... who knew? :-)
Heh, thanks! The saga ain't done yet, my hospital is full and I've been pulling 12s. I've also been filling the damn thing and I need to stop.
Don't buy boxmart epoxy. You need to research terms like "low solids" and "water based", but basically that stuff is made to sell and thus, doesn't have much of the actual crap that makes it an epoxy so it's rather weak. Epoxy also doesn't actually adhere well to concrete and atomically isn't very dense, so oil and gasoline go straight though it into the concrete and any water vapor that can go "through" the slab will lift it off and eventually strip it. This isn't to say it's bad- it's just that for a garage, it's major use is to make it look good in my view. There's far better options in epoxies alone including whatever the holy hell the air force uses, so do your research to not get sour grapes.
After that, make a choice and figure out what you have to do for prep work. Acid etching is easy, you might work up a little sweat- but grinding your concrete is awful work and should be hired out. Sadly acid is simply not enough unless that concrete is fresh and lacks damage. Seems like you should always do a quick wash just prior to your coat however, as it removes more gack from the surface you don't need. Just neutralize it with Ammonia and not baking soda, the latter makes a mineal salt.
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