Tell me about garage floor coatings

I'm finally building my dream garage.

The builder did not seal the concrete because I told him I was going to coat it right away. Originally I was planning on DIY epoxy coating but I'm wondering if that's a good idea or if there are better options?

I used Vinyl Composition Tiles. Like one sees in schools or hospitals. I keep a nice coat of wax on it so it cleans up very easily. I do put down a small piece of plywood under jack stands as the feet might mar the surface. I've been very happy with this.

The Garage Journal forums have an entire forum dedicated just to flooring. Ask over there. Tons of great info on those forums.

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/forums/flooring.20/

DUFFMAN if you do decide to epoxy coat/paint your garage floor yourself or with help order some of these lawn aerators that strap to your shoes. You can then walk on any part of the floor while still wet. We had a large race shop and team (semi-truck/trailer) garage professionally epoxy coated and that's were I saw the crew using them and saw how cool they were. I used a homemade set to epoxy coat my basement shop and my son laughed until he saw me at work and how they worked and helped. I made mine only because I didn't have the time to wait for my local hardware store and Amazon to get a pair shipped. So order now or at the least ahead of when you will need them.

Mike

The DIY kits are junk, I've seen them used and they've turned out terrible. If you epoxy you have to grind as prep, nothing else will get that adhesion. We had ours done by Pittsburgh Garage and I'm always so glad I didn't try to DIY.

I've done 2 myself

First one was a rented space in Texas I had, my next door neighbor did his with a two part Martin Seymour product and had a whole bunch left over , so I quickly ran to store bought some tide clothes detergent scrubbed floor best I could in about an hour, used a big fan and dried the floor and taped off a section about
25 x 30 .. it flowed out nicely and it held up unbelievably well .. I painted the edges with a behr product , it wasn't great to say the least , the stuff he gave me was something like 120 a gallon at the time when mixed

It was pretty slippery when wet


I did my 1st garage in Texas with the rustoleom kits , it turned out ok , I put flakes and grit in it , i learned quickly what not to do with those flakes .. lol


I keep meaning to paint mine , just never get around to it .. I'd do mine myself again , its a garage floor , not going to spend $3000 or $3500 to have it done

I agree. The Rustoleum is not good. You CAN buy the professional stuff You can rent a shot blaster or scarifying machine to prep the floor. I'd recommend the shot blaster. Less mess. The pros use a 24" unit but will only rent you a 12" unit. Its a bunch of work. Ask how I know.

We just had our 2-1/2 car garage quoted. Like $2000. When I figure in the weekend of effort, rental and supplies and the fact that I can count the number of weekends left in my life on my hands, $2000 is cheap

I prefer hard troweled, power troweled or polished concrete. Any paint or coating will eventually fail to some extent and the stuff with the flakes in it makes it almost impossible to find small nuts, washers, snap rings, e-clips etc. when you drop them, especially as our eyes get older.

In my own case I opted not to "coat" or paint the concrete in my small garage, the reason being that the concrete seemed to "weep" some when things got really damp outside. I really didn't think we could get a coating to adhere well to the concrete as a result. This Racedeck flooring has seemed to be a pretty good alternative to paint and I no longer see the dampness on the concrete floor, although I know it probably hasn't magically just gone away.

I expoxyed mine with those little flakes. 24x36. Turned out great and that was in 2007. The flakes give some grip. Enough I have never noticed the floor being slick and haven't noticed any wear and I'm dragging a huge floor jack across it often as well as engine hoist from time to time. Still looks good also.

I'm at the same place as you are. My slab was poured yesterday.

Have you gotten any prices for third party turn-key? I'm getting prices like $6.25 - $6.50/sq.ft. Crazy

Looks nice

my garage floor coating is mostly oil stains and bare concrete. that is, if you can find a spot that doesn't have anything "parked" on it.
i moved in way before floor coatings were available to the average guy.
i really envy you guys with nice orderly shops, that also have a nice floor that greets you every day !

I've got someone coming Monday to do an estimate.

After doing a bit of research I've determined I'd have to spend around $1000 in materials if I do it myself.

Our garages were both done professionally 10 years ago when we bought the house. Not sure who did it, or how much it was, but it’s sure been holding up nicely.

I've just gone through this myself and decided on this product:

https://www.costco.ca/ultralock-black-and-grey-solid-garage-tiles.product.100352733.html

The closest comparison I could find, in the US, to the above was this product:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-1...-Flooring-Tile-6-Pack-HDTRP6DG/312535726

I watched several YouTube videos on professionally done epoxy floor coatings compared to what Rustoleum showed for their kits and I could see why there was a difference.

My cost for the Ultralock tiles to cover a 1,200 sq ft shop was just over $5,000 CDN. Costco Canada offers free shipping so that was the deciding factor for me.

I knew having the epoxy professionally done was going to cost more based on what others told me so I didn't bother asking for a quote.

Let us know how it works out for you.

Mike.

Cool stuff, but it would cost me $2250 for enough to do my garage.

The place I have coming on Monday said they typically do a 1200sq.ft floor for $3500 and my garage is half that, so maybe it won't be so bad?

Too much welding, grinding, rolling of steel wheel engine dollies and floor Jack's in my garage. I would just ruin the coating way to fast to consider. Plus I have way too much in the garage to move out to even consider doing the coating. 3 cars plus all the equipment and storage shelves/cabinet all in a 2 car garage .

https://philadelphiagarage.com/

The quote was $3600 which would take a good chunk of my budget. I'll have to do some more research and decide if it's worth it.

You need to at least seal is somehow or you'll be dealing with dust from the raw concrete and stains that you'll never get rid of. You can find commercial epoxy coatings that are very good and like I said get a couple of sets of those aerator attaching shoes a couple of cases of beer and invite the friends and family over The prep as in painting anything is a key. I did our 160+ year old, old farm house basement with some closeout Lowe's epoxy garage floor coating and never regretted it. Before I did it, it was always dusty and gritty feeling just to walk on it. Bottomline (IMO) you should seal the floor with something.

Mike

Our basement was the same way when we had our house built last year...no matter what you did it was dusty. I finally bought five gallons of Behr porch paint and five gallons of their primer. I vacuumed it best I could, then mopped it three times and let it dry for three days with dehumidifiers wide open. It turned out really good, but I can't see this holding up well in a garage setting. If you're only pulling in and out, no floor jacks, and can get something for under the tires it may be ok. But, if it's really your dream garage, keep in mind you can't take money with you.

I'm thinking about going with the concrete coating from Rust Bullet.

https://www.amazon.com/Rust-Bullet-...cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8&th=1

I ordered Rust Bullet Duragrade. Hopefully it works as well as the reviews say.