DIY Garage Floor - Epoxy or Tiles?

[InjectorService]

Hey guys,
I know this has been asked a bunch of times, please don't hate me for asking again.

My wife suddenly came up with the idea of finishing the garage walls, right now they are just bare drywall. In our typical fashion that meant we had a quote 3 hours later, and booked the contractors for next week.

This means I have to clean out my entire garage, which now means because my garage is clean, I am going to take the opportunity to install a flooring system of some sort.

I know there's lots of options out there. I'm mostly interested in some sort of epoxy, with flake, or some sort of Race Deck tile.

The garage is mainly general duty, parking the cars, bikes etc, but I have been known to have the odd project that is a little tougher on it.

Whats the most cost effective? Obviously tile would be the easiest install. Another consideration is that I have a 4" high concrete curb around the perimeter of my garage, so even if I do the tiles, I will want some sort of paint or coating on this curb part.

We are also in Canada, so cold, salt, snow, mud etc are consideration for clean up. Also cost of exchange, shipping, availability in Canada etc are considerations.

Because this is all happening so fast, I'm ready to pull the trigger in the next couple days.

Thank you in advance for your comments,

 

[InjectorService]

You can disregard the above, I'v just ordered Race Deck Free Flow Tiles.

 

[CSRPenFab]

You can disregard the above, I'v just ordered Race Deck Free Flow Tiles.

Great choice! You won’t be disappointed.

 

[InjectorService]

Great choice! You won’t be disappointed.

I like the diea of epoxy, and I am still going to do some on my "curb" around the garage, but the race deck will just be a lot simpler install I think. I don't want to do all that grinding, etc, just to end up with something that might peel.

 

[CSRPenFab]

I like the diea of epoxy, and I am still going to do some on my "curb" around the garage, but the race deck will just be a lot simpler install I think. I don't want to do all that grinding, etc, just to end up with something that might peel.

Smart move. On my prior RD floors where I had a "curb", I simply bought a gallon of black latex house paint and covered the curbs and about an inch of the floor where the RD expansion gap is. You can see the black here on my prior house, except for an upainted area where I moved a refrigerator and needed to repaint.

Added bonus of RaceDeck is that I installed 1000 square feet in half a day, working at a leisurely pace. Try that with a coating.



Here's my current garage with 1,000 FreeFlow tiles and no curb on this one:

 

[InjectorService]

The paint doesn't peel on you? What was your prep?

Also it's kind of wild, I did almost the identical pattern as your black, red charcoal

 

[CSRPenFab]

The paint doesn't peel on you? What was your prep?

Also it's kind of wild, I did almost the identical pattern as your black, red charcoal

No peeling at all. Prep was minimal and consisted of hitting the area with a shop vac and brush. God call on the pattern!

 

[InjectorService]

I just wanted to give an update on the Race Deck. Melanie was awesome to deal with, and the final results look amazing! Initially when we started putting it down, I wondered "what the heck did I buy?!?!" but we kept going and I'm very glad we did! Super happy with it, we can walk in the garage with socks on, and not track stuff all over, it looks super clean.

I had to wash a portion of the car yesterday, to put paint protection film on, I just washed it in the middle of the garage and it worked great. I would have never done this previously.

I also painted the curb in the garage, as well as about 6" away from the wall. With that, I left the tiles about 3" away from the wall, it looks great, and I didn't have to worry about cutting tons of little "sliver" pieces.

VERY VERY HAPPY!

 

[JessieAMorris]

Looks great!!

 

[CSRPenFab]

I just wanted to give an update on the Race Deck. Melanie was awesome to deal with, and the final results look amazing! Initially when we started putting it down, I wondered "what the heck did I buy?!?!" but we kept going and I'm very glad we did! Super happy with it, we can walk in the garage with socks on, and not track stuff all over, it looks super clean.

I had to wash a portion of the car yesterday, to put paint protection film on, I just washed it in the middle of the garage and it worked great. I would have never done this previously.

I also painted the curb in the garage, as well as about 6" away from the wall. With that, I left the tiles about 3" away from the wall, it looks great, and I didn't have to worry about cutting tons of little "sliver" pieces.

VERY VERY HAPPY!

Nice work! Excellent color choices too!

 

[BarryT82]

I did RaceDeck at my last house and my current house has epoxy. We had the epoxy professionally done and it’s been peeling in spots. I think that I’m going to order RaceDeck and install it over the epoxy.

 

[InjectorService]

I did RaceDeck at my last house and my current house has epoxy. We had the epoxy professionally done and it’s been peeling in spots. I think that I’m going to order RaceDeck and install it over the epoxy.

Its so strange, there are such mixed reviews on epoxy. Thats what pushed me to do the RaceDeck as well.

 

[FJ4FUN]

Its so strange, there are such mixed reviews on epoxy. Thats what pushed me to do the RaceDeck as well.

You know what is so interesting? I can't say definitively (because I haven't done a thorough accounting ) but I would be willing to bet that at least 90% of the negative reports concerning "epoxy" floors relate to "professionally" installed/applied "epoxy" floors. I draw attention to "epoxy" because of that 90% of the problem experiences 100% are not related to epoxy at all but are polyurea, polyaspartic, or polycuramine coatings that result in problems in one way or another. When issues do arise with DIY applied epoxy floors the vast majority of these have to do with the use of cheap big box store off-the-shelf floor coating kits. Very rarely will you see a bad experience with a DIY application involving Wolverine Coatings, ArmorPoxy, or Legacy epoxy kits. The same goes for professionally applied true epoxy floors but, that probably has more to do with the fact that very few professional applicators will do a 600sf2 residential garage as it's just not economically viable for them to do so. The only way for coatings contractors to make a buck in residential applications is to use a poly due to the quick cure and recoat windows that they allow. They can get in and out in 1 - 1.5 days vs 3-5 short days for a proper epoxy system application.