Garage coating?

[Buz]

Anyone know of a good garage floor coating that is not too expensive?

[qball]

Oil and radiator fluid?

How big and what's your budget?

How old is the concrete?

I know there are stains and epoxys you can buy. The secret is in the prep... degrease... acid etch, etc.

[Buz]

16 year old 3 car about 650sf, not many stains. Need to be under 1000.

[spider]

I've been thinking doing the same, but not sure how much it'd cost with this:

http://www.rustoleum.com/Product.asp...56&SBL=1&dds=5

[andykeck]

You should check out the flooring forums at garagejournal.com. They discuss this stuff endlessly. IIRC, epoxy flooring ought to end up somwhere between fifty cents and a buck per square foot. Self-installed, of course.

[Brian 111]

Be sure to check your floor for moisture. Griot's website has a guide to this; basically duct tape a sheet of plastic to the floor for a couple of days and wait for condensation. If you have moisture bleeding through it's a waste of time. Several friends who used epoxy (from DIY to paying a pro over $1500) had their floors fail within a year, and now all use Racedeck or those huge vinyl mats.

[mikelr]

I think this stuff is water based so moisture in the cement won't hurt anything.

http://www.ucoatit.com

I've also heard that unless you have a very rough finish on the cement just about any epoxy/paint coating you use will not last forever. It will eventually lift.
If you have a polished (smooth) cement finish you would be better off with a sealer product like they use in warehouses like Lowes and Home Depot.

[kyohan03]

the two stage stuff you can get at Home Depot has worked very well for me. The key is the prep. You must degrease and clean specific spots, then you acid etch the concrete first. It's important to take your time with this to get the surface as clean as you possibly can.

[dwkoski]

I built a 1500+ square foot gargage/shop with the help of a buddy who owns a masonry business. He obtained the materials for me but I did all the installation. The process I used, which is made for the meat packing industry, uses a water based epoxy which actually penetrates the surface of the concrete. Before this has completely cured, a second pigmented epoxy is applied over this. It can only be used on cured concrete so we let the floor sit for two months after the concrete was poured. It hAS Been down for five years with no lifting and only a few damaged spots where heavy metal objects have been dropped. I have repaired a couple of these without difficulty. I did not seal mine with polyurethane which was a mistake as it has been stained in a few spots. Gas, oil, and brake fluid don't bother it but lacquer based paint and PVC pipe cement will stain it. Cost of materials was $1800 for a 1/8" thick coating.....Dave

[SweetDaddyD]

We had U-Coat-it done in the large garage of my old work. It got a lot of traffic including from cars, forklifts, pallet trucks, etc and going on 2 years when I left was holding up fine.

[tmr]

We've tried many different types of floor coatings at the ~9 million square foot plant where I work. The age of the concrete here ranges from 1940's vintage to brand new, with some of it covered with years of oil, grime, etc. The only line of products that we've had any success with is Tennant:

http://www.tennantfloorcoatingspec.com/index.asp

As others have stated here, prep has a great deal to do with it. Our authorized Tennant installer goes through a multi-stage process on existing concrete that involves grit-blasting/vacuuming the floor, applying a ~1/8" thick grout-like base material, then finishing up with several stages of material that make up the top coat. The results have been great, with very little (if any) lifting noted. We've had some damage due to heavy materials being dropped or other abuse, but the contractor comes in and patches it. The secret is the base coat material, which adheres to the concrete then gives the coating something to adhere to. Cost is about $5/square foot last time I checked, but remember that we're usually installing large quantities. It's a little to pricey for my 1,000 SF basement shop, so I'm considering a DYI or Home Depot-applied system some day. Problem is once you've had steak, it's hard to settle for hamburger...

[anxiety]

I bought 2 rolls of very thick vinyl flooring made for garages/ shops from Sams club. Cost was about a hundred a roll. I think they are 9'x25'. They came in multiple colors and you could order from even more colors from a brochure they had. I personally love them! And I can take them with me if I move. My only complaint would be that they are hard to sweep if you need to sweep across the ridges. You can pull them completely out should you want to do a major garage cleaning. Cheap and easy and not bad looking at all!
~anxiety

[xcusemi]

i would definitely try RACEDECK or Motofloor (Currently onsale at Costco -$1.80 per tile) It is a black and white tile and very good looking. Do the search and you will wee what I am talking about. You can also chk it out at 6speeds.com website in the garage section.

[qball]

There is also flooring (similar to racedeck) available at Sears and Costco.

[KryptonGreen]

Originally Posted by Buz

Anyone know of a good garage floor coating that is not too expensive?

Cheap: If the floor is clean and still porous, coat the surface with floor wax to seal the surface.

[mephisto]

Originally Posted by xcusemi

i would definitely try RACEDECK or Motofloor (Currently onsale at Costco -$1.80 per tile) It is a black and white tile and very good looking. Do the search and you will wee what I am talking about. You can also chk it out at 6speeds.com website in the garage section.

Where on CostCo's site do you see a $1.80 price per tile? All I can find is $99.99 for 48 tiles + $13.20 s/h which is $2.08/tile or $2.36/tile shipped.