Garage Floor Epoxy?

[Pookapotamus]

My new Garage will be started this week, once the pad is pored I have been considering an epoxy coating to make it easier to clean and protect the concrete from spills and what not. Does any one have experience with these coatings? what have you used and what failed? will they stand up to welding spatter?

Pook.

[AstraX]

No personal experience.  But from what I have read/heard is just doing screw around with the prep.  There is a machine I think you can rent (if you are doing it yourself) that you run over the surface to pit it.

When I was looking into having a company do it for me I was quoted around $3000 for a 400 sq ft garage floor.

[THE GOLD DIIGGER]

Bead blasting is what it is called and if its a new slab once cured you can go right over it .

[Tagg]

My son put down an epoxy floor in his garage in Edmonyon and is reaally pleased with it.  It looks rally good and has stood up to wear and tear.  Don't know if it will stand up to welding splater though.  If you want, I can contact him to find out what the product name was.

[Knox]

I still like Rafs tiled floor, but an epoxy would be cool

[TL-Iguana]

It works pretty good Dana. PM me if you want to talk to my buddy Tony. he did his, and has been happy with it so far as I know.

[LukeDuke]

Have you looked into burnishing? We are having it done in our rebuild room at the shop and it looks awesome. No coating, just polishing to a mirror finish that is "everything proof"

[yyc_tbird_sc]

Personally I would rather just have a finished, polished, and sealed floor. Over spray from painting basically comes off with a broom, no problems from welding spatter, no problems from chemicals, oil doesn't stain it if cleaned up relatively quickly, and it's cheaper than almost any other floor treatment.

[w squared]

We seal all of the shop floors at our various location at work with some super-duper yellow epoxy. I can get the brand/name/details of the stuff if you like Dana...but I'll be honest - it's going to get damaged in a garage that sees the kida use that your garage sees.

[morerpmfred]

Getting new pad poured. Ask for concrete with a higher psi and tell them you do a lot of welding. There are a lot of different concrete mixes. When they finish the floor do not over work it as it brings all the sand and fine stuff to the surface and then you get a crap for finish that you have to epoxy then.
When they pour and do there final finish there are some coatings that you can apply then. Or even better cover the entire pad with water and keep it completly wet for three weeks or so. Cover with heavy duty poly to keep the moisture from drying up. This works  better to get a hard finish.


Sent from my I junk

[4PLAYZJ]

in my opinion epoxy is not the way to go for a floor you plan to work on.  The cheap stuff (water based) is cr@p.  TYhe good stuff is hard to get(most places only sell to contractors) and last time I checked material is about $1 per square foot.  I am a fan of acid staining.  It is cheap easy to do and gives you a very slick look.  If you go this route use an anti slip additive in your sealer like duragrip.  

Heres my floor:



If you are interested send me a pm and I will tell you where to get materials and give you a crash course on how to do it properly and safe.

The total materials for my job was about $500 for almost 800 square feet of floor space.

[foghorn]

Seems to be an Alberta thing to make yur floor smooth as glass, wait till winter comes and all the snow melts and drops off, grab your skates.

[4PLAYZJ]

Not if you use an anti-slip additive.  That shiny smooth easy to clean floor feels like rubber when it is wet.  I have stamped side walks.  Walking on them in winter was like walking on sheer ice.  Then I resealed with an additive and now they are not slippery even when it is wet.  You are correct about sealer with no additive, my mail man threatened to sue me after he had a super bad bail before I fixed it.