Garage Tile Questions..

[behjjeh]

I am new to this forum.
recently I bought a house and looking to install garage tiles.
but i have few questions about garage tiles..

1. do i need to prep the floor before installing the tiles?
2. for freeflow tiles, do i need to install anything blow the tiles?
3. how's water and debris handle on freeflow tiles.
4. how sells racedeck for lowest cost?
5. please look over my design and any feedback would be appreciated.

Garage.


Design 1


Design 2

 

[CJDave]

I used the RaceDeck Free Flow tiles about 7 years ago. Love them. No complaints.

My prep consisted of washing the concrete floor first. Depends upon the condition of the floor.
I did not lay anything on the concrete first. No regrets.
The water and dirt travel as the tiles are designed to allow. No regrets.
I bought mine from RaceDeck directly. Mention that you are a Garage Journal member for a discount. I an not familiar with other pricing.
I like your patterns. I considered lettering "Mach 1" across my floor but considering the letters would be covered much more than not I did not do that. Good luck. CJDave.

 

[frankd]

I went with the solid tiles from bigfloors.com. Personally I didnt see the point of the free flow as i'm kind of **** about keeping the floor clean. walls are drywall so I wasnt planning on washing the car in the garage or anything like that.
For the free flow tiles I'm fairly certain that you do not put anything underneath them. For solid tiles, you can put down some landscape fabric to keep the noise level down. Free flow are designed for water/fluid to drain through so I'd imagine any underlayment would be a problem.
I wouldnt bother cleaning the concrete. Especially if going with free flow as dirt is just going to pass right through the tile onto the concrete anyway.
As far as design. I'd personally go with something thats not too busy and I'd also shy away from lighter colors as they'll show the dirt more

 

[CJDave]

My logic in using Free Flow was for washing my classic Mustang in the shade of the garage. A better wash job and easier on me also. My walls are painted drywall but by placing the Mustang in the center of the garage I have plenty of room for washing/detailing and not splashing water on the walls. The dirt seems to be carried by the water as the water flows under the tiles and towards the overhead door. The RaceDeck tiles have the tabs on the bottom of the tiles to allow the tiles to not lay flat against the concrete. The right tile depends upon the use it will see. CJDave.

 

[bucolic]

Your floor looks great so just a good cleaning before placing down the tiles. Mine was a mess and I had to use 6 or 7 bags of top and bond to fill in worn concrete and get it a bit more level. I then cleaned it best I could, rolled down the landscape fabric as I went, and then placed the tile down.

I went with solid tile as I wanted to be able to blow the floor off regularly to keep it clean and cut down on the dust tracking into the house. My concrete was dusty so free flow tile was out of the question. I went with solid Nitro tile from Garageflooringinc.com but in hindsight, I would have rather spent a little bit extra on Race Deck. I think it has a better fastening system and is slightly thicker. I'll know after this NY winter if the solid causes issues for me with all the melting snow and junk.

Your patterns all look great!

Here are a few shots of my install:

The floor was a mess so this is before and after some top and bond put down. I scraped off the peaks with a scaper the next morning before it was fully set and smoothed it out a bit:





In process of installing. I rolled down the landscape fabric as I went:



Finished install. Have at it and you'll love it when it is done! Mine is so nice to be the first thing to see when you get back home after a day of work. It changed the space drastically.

 

[RaceDeck1]

Your floor looks great so just a good cleaning before placing down the tiles. Mine was a mess and I had to use 6 or 7 bags of top and bond to fill in worn concrete and get it a bit more level. I then cleaned it best I could, rolled down the landscape fabric as I went, and then placed the tile down.

I went with solid tile as I wanted to be able to blow the floor off regularly to keep it clean and cut down on the dust tracking into the house. My concrete was dusty so free flow tile was out of the question. I went with solid Nitro tile from Garageflooringinc.com but in hindsight, I would have rather spent a little bit extra on Race Deck. I think it has a better fastening system and is slightly thicker. I'll know after this NY winter if the solid causes issues for me with all the melting snow and junk.

Your patterns all look great!

Here are a few shots of my install:

The floor was a mess so this is before and after some top and bond put down. I scraped off the peaks with a scaper the next morning before it was fully set and smoothed it out a bit:





In process of installing. I rolled down the landscape fabric as I went:



Finished install. Have at it and you'll love it when it is done! Mine is so nice to be the first thing to see when you get back home after a day of work. It changed the space drastically.

 

[RaceDeck1]

Wow.. now that is a garage transformation! thanks for sharing .. your garage came out awesome!