Best Epoxy for garage floor

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Hi All,

What kind of epoxy have you used for your garage floorA? I see Behr has one as well as Rustoleum. Any special advise for applying? Thanks.

[Chris Padilla]

www.ucoatit.com (http://www.ucoatit.com)

Alan,

This may be out of your price range but I can personally vouch for it. It works and it works very, very well. If I ever move, I will do my next garage floor with this product.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Hi Chris, That looks interesting but why do you like it? Have you seen the results? Thanks Alan

[Chris Padilla]

Read the site, everything claimed there is true. No tire marks was a big one for me because I recently layed down a system that claimed no tire marks but sure enough, it wasn't true.

[Cecil Arnold]

Alan, the product Chris referred to is very similar to what I have on my shop floor. If it is the same it is a two part, latex epoxy that seems to bond to the floor. I used it on the garage floor in our our old house and was pleased enough to put it in the shop this time. I did get it to come up in one spot where I had a glob of epoxy resin that had cured on the floor, but some concrete came up also.

[Doug Shepard]

I went to Sherwin Williams yesterday and ordered a 2 part water-base epoxy kit call Shield-Crete. I plan on doing the patching and heavier cleanup this weekend then the normal cleaning/prep and painting over the holiday weekend. I wanted something white (ended up with ivory) which the Rustoleum didn't have. In my week long search I've come to the conclusion (right or wrong) that the 2 part WB epoxys are the better types. Ken Garlock had recommended the Sherwin Williams Tile-Clad II (solvent based) which is what I asked about at SW. But the guys at the SW store said the new Shield-Crete was actually a bit better in terms of being more forgiving in terms of surface prep - No acid etching req'd plus no dead musk ox smell (see http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=36426 ) and the drying time was a bit faster. My dad picked up the Behr 1-part info for me at HD but it looks to me to need all the same prep as the Solvent-based 2 part epoxies, although their color choices sure looked appealing and I think they win out on the cost side too.
It will be a week and a half before I can tell you how well the Sheild-Crete goes on though.

[Allen Bookout]

ANOTHER VOTE FOR UCoatIt.

Have had mine down for a good six months now and really like it. Sticks good, dries hard, and looks great. If you decide to go that route see if you can get their video first. If I had done that I would have got their product to fill some imperfections before I coated it. Even with the imperfections it came out looking like a showroom floor.

Like Chris said, no tire tracks. I did not use the addative for non skid as I wanted it to be easy sweep up and glad that I did it that way.

Allen

[Alan Tolchinsky]

O.K. thanks a lot guys. I'm going to see where I can get this stuff. I put in two zip codes but they said none was available there. I'll try again... Thanks again to all.

[Forrest Price]

I went with the rustoleum product from the Borg. Went down great and has been resistant to everything I've spilled on it from gasoline, MEK, acetone, thinner tranny fluid, brake fluid etc. Very happy with it. it even survived the fire that burned down my shop! There are a couple spots where it did burn off, but overall the paint is still down. Extremely tough stuff.

[Ken Garlock]

Alan, the only name you need to know is Sherwin Williams Tile Clad II. It is a two part epoxy. We have it on our 3-car garage, 2-car garage, and the shop. You can get it in over 50 colors because it is color mixed for you when you buy it. I comes in 2 one gallon paint cans, and you mix it in equal parts. I know from experience that the cement will chip before the paint will come off. It costs a little over $80 for the 2-gallon package, that is around $40 a gallon, the price of good paint. Swing by an Sherwin Williams store and pick up a color pallet.:cool:

Nobody does gray and red anymore.:mad:

[John Keane]

Home Depot has the kit to do it right and inexpensively. I have the Ucoatit VHS tape, and HD has the same stuff cheaper. I did my garage and it came out great. Hardest part is finding some place to put all the stuff on the garage floor. Get the prep stuff, read the instructions and then paint it. You will have a great looking floor for under $100.

[Roger Barga]

Does anyone know why it wouldn't be possible to do a garage in two parts? We have a two car garage - one half is dedicated to my shop space and the other is for the wife's car. I can't store my tools outside but I could imagine moving the car out and doing one half of the garage, and after that is cured I'd move my tools to the finished side and do it again.

Last year I contacted a local company that does garage floors to get a bid and told them I'd need them to do it in two parts, but wouldn't hear of it and insisted I get a storage unit for my tools.

Any thoughts or experience with this? thanks...

[Allen Bookout]

Roger,

Last year when I did mine I ask UCoatIt the same question and they said "Sure-no problem. Do one half at a time". I had a few good days where there was no possibility of rain so I was able to move everything out and do it all at once so I did not give it a try.

Could be that the the garage floor company just did not want to deal with it.

Allen

[Roger Barga]

Thanks for the response. I suspected the company simply did not wish to make two trips for one job but wondered if the seam (area where the two applications met) would be a possible point of failure.

roger

[Greg Narozniak]

I recently ordered from http://www.epoxy-coat.com/index.html it's 10mil thick and looks promising. I will post pics of the entire process once I start it.

Greg

[CJ Conrad]

The biggest concerns I have seen to an epoxy floor are adhesion concerns from hot tire areas and on slabs that do not have a vapor barrier. I was told the lack of a vapor barrier can result in moisture trying to rise through the concrete, and (simplisticly) de-laminating the epoxy layer from the concrete. This appears to be a particular concern in northern climates. I have held off on my garage as a result. Just have not had time to investigate whether this is true or a myth, but would be interested in what others may have found. Sorry for any thread hijack.

[John Hemenway]

I second CJ's concern. My garage floor gets quite damp in the winter (the only time it rains here!) and I wonder if coatings would help stop the moisture or be destroyed by it.

Anyone care to venture an opinion? :)

[Tom Seaman]

Thanks for the response. I suspected the company simply did not wish to make two trips for one job but wondered if the seam (area where the two applications met) would be a possible point of failure.

roger

Roger, I did my workshop floor with the Rustoleum from HD one side at a time. I have an expansion seam right down the middle, so overlapping wasn't a problem. However, I did run out near the end of the second side, and had to come back later and coat the bare spot. There are visible lap marks where I overlapped the cured epoxy when covering the bare spot, but it in no way appears to be a likely spot for failure. Its been on 3 years with no problems so far.

Tom

[Bill Lewis]

CJ,
If I'm not mistaken, "u coat it (http://www.ucoatit.com)" guarantees againts hot tire lift. As for slabs with moisture problems, they recomend that you check the floor for moisture before application. Even the Rustoleum product suggests that you check for moisture by leaving a sheet of plastic over the floor for 24 hours to see if moisture will get "trapped".

The ucoatit product can lift if there is too much moisture. However, if there is this much moisture, the slab will ultimately deteriorate eventually anyway, coating or painting the floor should be the least concern. There's a bigger problem that lies within.

[Larry Fox]

I agree with Ken on the Tile-Clad product from Sherwin Williams. I used it on the garage floor in my old house and the stuff gripped like nothing I have ever seen. When rolling it on it would pull up chunks of the concrete where it was loose. One word of warning on it though - it IS an industrail product and some of the ingredients are probably not too good for you. I wore a good quality resparator when putting it down as the fumes are really strong.

[Chip Charnley]

The best site I have found on all kinds of epoxy coatings and sealers is http://www.epoxyproducts.com/
Yes, they are a commercial site that sells but they do a damn good job of explaining as well.

For those concerned about water seepage lifting the floor, this is definitely an issue. These guys have a sealant that I have personally used to great results at this page.
http://www.epoxyproducts.com/vee4u.html