I’m not sure if this is a breaktime type question… i couldn’t find anything by searching the archives… but here goes!
our garage floor is a mess! the previous owners had somekind of concrete paint which has failed, and peeled all over the place (not just hot lifting from tires). anyway, i got a quote from one of those garage coating companies… they waynted $2,900 (650sq ft), which is was too steep for painted on coatings IMHO. so, i wanted to see if anyone has had any experience with the DIY kits? there is a huge range of products out there from Quikrete & Rust-Oleum to $1k “commercial grade” products. My biggest thing is, I want to be able to do it, and I want it to be able to get it done in 2 days. (i’m renting a Uhaul truck to load all of the stuff in my garage in to complete this project.) i don’t park cars in the garage right now, so they can continue to stay outside…
any ideas on brands or other suggestions would be appreciated.
thanks!
-mike.
Replies
Mike,
The biggest problem with doing this job, and the most time consuming, will be removing as much of the failed paint and properly preparing the floor for whichever new coating you decide to use. A friend of mine recently did his 24x30 garage with the U-coat it system and it is beautiful, but he spent close to a week of evenings getting the floor prepared. Realistically, I dont see this being a 2 day job except for on a brand new floor. The materials cost him around $900. U-coat it's web site has some prety decent instructions etc, might be worth looking at. I am getting ready to do my 24x24 garage with thier product.
I have seen the Rustoleum products are being pretty heavily advertised but have not had much time to get a good history on them yet. I think that Lowe's is even offering "installation" on them.
Bill Koustenis
Advanced Automotive Machine
Waldorf Md
Instead of the U-haul look at a "Store ALL".
Not sure what the name is, but there are several trade marked names. They will drop off a storage pod. Then you fill it and optionally they will take it away and store it. You don't need the 2nd part.
But I suspect that the pod rental for a couple of weeks might be about the same as a U-haul.
I would just build another garage to put the stuff in and make the old one a shop!
wow, here in southern california... thats a pipe dream. :-)
Used the Rustoleum epoxy with the flecks on one. The prep took two days, of scraping, sanding, grinding, using their acid wash twice. Be ready with 3 people, one to cut in the edges, one to roll, one to sprinkle. Use a jar with holes punched in the lid, much better coverage of the sprinkles than throwing with your hand. Also, the edge cutter needs to be doing the mixing so that the whole floor can be done in one continuous motion. The one the HO's and I did together came out great! One little lift of about 3/4" square under one tire a couple of days latter. Figure I didn't get one little grease spot up. It touched up real nice. Buy one more gallon than is called for, take it back if you do not use it. You cannot stop in the middle of the application! Lots of fun applying, mixing, sprinkling, and staying out of each others way, only took about 1 hour.
How am I gonna get that in there!
You have not stated what you do in your garage. Do you change oil, do any work, or is it just a "party annex' where the beer is stored and possibly dancing, etc.?
If just a 'party annex', then the fancy stuff is probably the way you want to go, if only an occasional 'working DIY garage' and for car parking, then do what I do, and simply broom on a coat of cheap latex paint (usually left overs free at garage sales or $3 gal at HD) every few years, has worked for me for 40 years.
The simple latex coat sweeps up well, wears surplisingly well for what one would expect, and oil stains pressusre wash off well enough for the follow-on coat to adhere.
one garage bay is my DIY section.... the rest is for exercise equipment, airhockey etc... i don't do oil changes and the like... but i do want it to look nice.
I agree that the longets part of the project is going to be prepping the floor. You have to pull up all of that old chipping paint before you put anything fresh on the floor (if you want it to last any length of time). It sounds like the old paint may have been (but not necessarily) laid without proper prep (degreasing, etching, bonding primer) and you may be able to pull almost if not all of it off with a good high pressure washer.
The Rustoleum product I believe is pretty good. Also look at the Behr 1 Part Epoxy Garage Paint. It's a four step process of degreasing, etching the concrete, applying a bonding primer and then your epoxy paint, but it should last for several years and it won't cost you an arm and a leg (plan maybe $100 - $150 depending on the size of your garage). One of the most important details is to give the epoxy paint time to fully cure before you run a vehicle or heavy traffic over the new coat of paint. I generally recommend at least six days before you park your car on the paint. It may seem like a lot, but it will help ensure that you don't get spots of paint that pull up prematurely.
Almost didn't respond, but I think there's something that hasn't been said about the prep. It is very difficult to get an epoxy to stick properly to a floor that isn't new. Traces of oil or whatever you spill on it, dirt, etc. Some of it comes off with cleaning, but some doesn't. Antifreeze and oil can penetrate. So when someone comes to bid doing it, I don't think the cost you got is out of the ballpark IF they're doing the correct prep, which would (in my mind) entail shotblasting the surface and then applying a surfacer - think new thin layer of concrete) before the epoxy.
If properly done, though, epoxies are great. I like Tile-Clad, but that's just being a Sherwin fan. If you get to the point where you are going to do it yourself, you can probably rent the shotblaster. If you use muriatic acid to clean, build yourself a dam at the door to keep it from running down the drive. Even when it's done doing its thing, neutralise it with a box of baking soda in water. Then wet vac everything you can, rinse a couple of times, and vac that too. You can build a dam pretty easy out of a pice of 3/4 pvc and duct tape. The muriatic doesn't seem to bother the tape.
Two part epoxies you typically have to mix, let them sit ten minutes or so, mix again, then apply. Disposable brushes for the edges. Roller for the field. If you have kerf cuts hit them with a brush as well. Two, perhaps three coats. And the final coat load it up with shark-grip or similar product so you have a sanded coat on top. That stuff is slick, cured, and the potential is there for the car coming in from the rain and smacking the wall.
The last one I did has to have been about two years ago now but I've been over there recently and even after winters with road salt and de-icers dripping on it, it just hoses off and looks new to me still. I'm sold on the idea that 90% of your time doing the prep is 100% worth it.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
One cause of failure when coating concrete surfaces is inadequate film thickness. If a vapor barrier is not achieved, then moisture in the concrete will evaporate from the surface. As the moisture moves to the surface, it carries salts with it. These salts are deposited at the surface as the evaporation occurs. A chemical gradient occurs that causes more moisture to move toward the surface through osmosis. This is the cause of efflourescence and this layer builds under the surface until the coating fails. This failure is often blamed on vapor pressure, but is actually osmotic pressure, which is much more powerful.
On a side note, this same mechanism is responsible for freeze thaw damage. Expansion of water as it freezes to ice is not the mechanism at work here. The problem is one of subsurface efflorescence working together with ice fracturing. Ice fracturing alone would not cause the damage that we experience from freeze thaw.