Epoxy vs Painted Floor?

Your thoughts? How well does an epoxy floor work? are they slippery?

Andrew

I had one in my old shop and 1/2 my new shop (havent found the time to do the other side yet) They have anitskid agents you can use but I never found them to be terribly slippery. Some kits have paint chips you sprinkle on the epoxy that is supposed to help with anti skid and add interest....if you work in your garage dont do it. You drop a small nut or bolt on that sea of speckles and its a pain to find.

In my last shop I spilled oil, gas, brake fluid etc on it and it always help up and cleaned up well, never had a problem. Did spill some paint stripper once, that did eat into it but I guess that's to be expected.

JThw8 wrote: Some kits have paint chips you sprinkle on the epoxy that is supposed to help with anti skid and add interest....if you work in your garage dont do it. You drop a small nut or bolt on that sea of speckles and its a pain to find.

tr00f

I'd use the speckles for one I just park in.

I've epoxied several garages and porches. The regular anti-skid additive felt like sand to me. Not sure how great that would feel to roll around on.

Whatever you put down, clean the floor really well with TSP beforehand or most anything will cause it to come off.

epoxy rules.

paint sucks.

we have epoxy on our floors at work...gotta prep like crazy, but NOT ONE SPEC of problems. lots of forklift use, heavy pallets, dropped tools, and heavy trucks.

buddy painted a floor at his shop, getting nearly identical use. i saw him pay a kit for 4 days to prep it.

it looks like absolute crap.MASSIVE flakes/chips.

I have epoxy on the floors in my garage.It's not slippery at all. Plenty of flakes too,not to add interest but to make dirt less apparent.

kinda off topic, but a great way to go too on concrete floors is just Thompson's Weatherseal for concrete. We have done this in our garage. Looks wonderful, it is a bit slippery when wet and barefoot, but in shoes its fine--probably doesnt help that its smooth as glass concrete. We have spilled everything on it. everything. you name it. just wipe it and your fine. Re seal every few years and it will look amazing all the time-stuff costs like $50 for a 5 gal bucket and we use almost two. (although we used a similar but different brand product this time...worked great too)

Just my two cents

Don't cheap out on the floor. About ten years ago, I did a garage floor with a two part, water based epoxy from Home Depot. It looked great for about six months, then started to lift any place that water sat, starting where the cars tires came to rest.

After a year, I took a putty knife, scraped some loose stuff into a ziplock bag and brought it to Home Depot with my receipt and they gave me my cash back (about $120 if I recall), but I spent the next TEN YEARS tracking little flakes of the E36 M3 into my house. I cannot stress enough how much of a nightmare this was!

I'd do another epoxy floor (though I haven't yet), but I'd buy the absolute best industrial grade stuff available, regardless of cost.

For the record, Home Depot no longer carries the crap that I used.

I don't think I'd trust a water-based anything on floors.

didn't GRM do a comparison of different floor coatings a few years back? I'll have to dig around back issues and see....

Yes they did. I don't have it handy but they compared all types of coatings with the pros and cons. A good article! I have Rustoleum Garage Epoxy and it's OK for parking on but if you work in the area, get it dirty with rust, dust, dirt, and spilled liquids then it will start to look dull over time. It will also chip but I have been hard on it so for what I spent I got my money's worth. I think I got a gallon on sale for about $50. It covered about 250 sq ft., just over 1/2 of my 2 car garage.

yeah, I'm leaning towards epoxy, but i haven't a clue on what brand to buy. too bad mcmaster doesn't sell epoxy, I would then know it is the best.

Andrew

Someday soon, I will have to get my driveway replaced. I think I will have the floor to the garage done at the same time. That way I can have a really flat, level, smooth surface with integrated floor drains and such. Mmmmmm.

jimbbski wrote: Yes they did. I don't have it handy but they compared all types of coatings with the pros and cons. A good article!

Aww shucks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was the June 2009 issue of GRM, page 111.

For what its worth, I think the brand of epoxy you use is less important than following the instructions VERY carefully. Finding a way to remove all the moisture from a concrete surface before laying down your base coat is critical. Also, the effects of temperature and humidity are a big deal. If you aren't rushing, I think you can have a good result from any epoxy floor kit.

That said, next time I'm doing a floor, I want to try polished concrete. Something about that look really appeals to me.

I used a two part epoxy on my garage floor 9 years ago and it still holds up to all my garage abuse.
Spills clean up easy and I have zero flaking.

I did acid etch the floor before using the epoxy... and my concrete was only about a month old.

did my garage almost 4 years ago with a kit from epoxy-coat. com

concrete was only a few months old, prepped w/ muriatic acid etch & I used the color flakes cause they look so purdy.

there are some scratches where i always wheel my garbage can in and once a breaker bar fell from a fender and made a small chip. other than that it still looks awesome and all spills clean with ease.

my kit came with pumice grit to sprinkle on for traction but i did not use. it's not really slippery when wet but beware of saw dust and other fine dry particulates.

I did my floor with Behr stain 15 years ago. Hot tires lifted it in places, but otherwise it has held up pretty well.
I really think the key is prep though. This was done on a fresh floor after 3 weeks to cure. I did all the prep exactly by the book and put down 2 coats of the stain.

+eleventybillion on prep. I've done three garages with the 2-part Rustoleum epoxy, and the absolute key to a good result is to budget and spend the time on prepping the surface correctly. It doesn't matter how good the epoxy product is if you don't prep adequately. You can't do this in a single day. Even for a 1-car garage you really need to allow at least 2-3 days to do it right.

Also, by all means skip the no-slip additives. I used the stuff on the first garage I did, and it was abysmal. It looked horrible and made the floor nearly impossible to sweep. I've not had any slipperiness issues with just plain epoxy.

pinchvalve wrote: Someday soon, I will have to get my driveway replaced. I think I will have the floor to the garage done at the same time. That way I can have a really flat, level, smooth surface with integrated floor drains and such. Mmmmmm.

I wish I had to replace the driveway, I'm beyond envious. If I had that to do I would run pex for in driveway/ garage slab heating. that coupled with my garage woodstove with water jacket would go a long way towards removing snow from my driveway in the dead of winter. ofcourse, the water jacket would become something more of an antifreeze jacket, but you get my drift. And I do dream of a heated garage floor, that would be great to work on, lol... Simple pleasures I guess!

Andrew

Another vote for epoxy here.........

I'm using Rustoleum 9100 series epoxy. It is from their industrial line.

I applied it to a new floor in our new garage in our new home 10 years ago. Although we have a concrete apron in front of the garage we have a 100 foot gravel driveway leading up to the house. The epoxy has held up well to the occasional gravel that the tires bring in, hasn't peeled up from hot tires at all, has had welding happen on top of it, brake fluid, exploding car batteries, etc.

After 10 years it is starting to show its age a bit, and the missus confessed that she has never liked the shade of blue. After looking at all my options for re-doing the floor (including vinyl tile, porcelain tile, and rhino floor) I decided to ask the Rustoleum people what would be needed to re-coat with another color in the same line of epoxy. Their response was just to scuff with a sander and re-coat. To better protect it, they offer a clear polyurethane that will also add a gloss finish. This will be a cheaper option than any of the other options I looked into -- all other options practially require removing the old epoxy, even though there is nothing wrong with it -- it just looks a little scuffed and water marked in spots (water marked from A/C condensors dripping when the cars are parked).

BTW -- all of the other options were from $2k ~ $4k. Epoxy will be about $400 for an 850 SF garage.

And it has NEVER been slippery in there....ever

-jeff d

The key points are as follows:

A. Use a 100% solids epoxy. That means no water and no solvents.

B. Prep, prep, prep. Like everything else make it clean or new before coating.

C. Make sure you don't have a moisture issue. Tape a 3 foot square of clear plastic to the floor during the wet season. If droplets appear under the plastic, do not use epoxy, it will likely lift somewhere. Hydroscopic pressure (water coming up through the slab) is stronger than the epoxy to concrete bond, if it's coming up through the floor, it will lift the epoxy by breadking the very top layer of concrete off the main slab.

D. The epoxy adhers mechanically to the concrete surface. Grind the entire floor to open up the pores in the concrete. Shot-blasting is the best. Grind stones on floor polishers work too. Muriatic Acid will work too, but the fumes which come off it will corrode anthing metal in the shop.

I used to sell epoxy flooring to industry for www.stonehard.com.

Jack

Jack wrote: C. Make sure you don't have a moisture issue. Tape a 3 foot square of clear plastic to the floor during the wet season. If droplets appear under the plastic, do not use epoxy, it will likely lift somewhere. Hydroscopic pressure (water coming up through the slab) is stronger than the epoxy to concrete bond, if it's coming up through the floor, it will lift the epoxy by breadking the very top layer of concrete off the main slab.

+1. From everything I've been reading for years about epoxy floors, this is the main reason for epoxy failures.

I've read you can deep-seal the slab first to prevent the moisture from coming through and then using epoxy as a top-coat, but I would talk to a pro before attempting it.

Ian,

I've been out of that business for a while, so I don’t know about deep sealing a slab. I like the thought though. Kind of like the injection systems for crack sealing of water retaining walls.

Jack

I'm gonna go with the rustoleum, they seem like both the easiest to use and easiest to find.

Andrew

Jack wrote: www.stonehard.com.

proper floors are made by stonehard.... Everyone else is an impostor.

I had stonhard put a floor in a packaging room when I was a plant engineer a while back. It was 1/8" to 3/16" thick and solid.

Just make sure that you have a proper vapor barrier in the concrete before you start putting down your floor. We had issues at some of our plants (refrigerated rooms), because of osmotic pressure. That was not a fun or cheap issue to fix.