Markmanuel
Member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2016
- Messages
- 22
After a lot of research I decided on going with Racedeck flooring in my 3 car garage. The quality and thickness was a perfect combination for me. I also like the fact that I could work certain areas of my garage at a time, and have cabinets and other items on the other side unlike epoxy floors. I ordered 600+ sq ft from Erin, my Southern California Rep. I received a generous garage journal discount and free shipping. This was Monday late afternoon. Imagine my shock when the truck arrived on Friday at noon. I wasn’t expecting such quick delivery and wasn’t quite ready for install, but I dug in anyway.
Everything came on a pallet in well marked boxes for 3 different colors (alloy, black and royal blue) I purchased. First thing I did was clear out my large garage door side and put everything in the one car door side of garage. I decided to lay down 4 sections of 4 tiles and tested to see if they clacked while walking on them. They did in fact clack when walking on certain areas. I checked the flatness of my garage slab and as all concrete is placed, there were low and high areas. This is what causes the clacking, not the racedeck itself. I had a full roll of plastic landscape fabric that I put under the test area. It was significantly quieter with the fabric below.
This is the first underpayment product I used. As. You will see further down, the second martial I ended up using was better.
After sweeping, scrapping, sweeping again and blowing I first snapped a chaulk line across the very inside of the garage door track, where it hits the concrete. I knew this was where my first tile would go And would put transition strip perfectly in front and slightly under the garage door. I then snapped a line 2’-1/2” off the right side wall. I snapped 2’-1/2” because I Still had tall large cabinets installed along the side wall where I was starting my install. The 1/2” was for expansion And 2’ was I figured I would leave them and move them onto finished floor later. This turned out to be a bit of a hassle but still would do it this way again. The hassle is installing the tiles backwards was a bit tricky but not the end of the world. After snapping the side wall I squared my two snapped lines using 3 4 5 method or in my case 6 8 10. I got very lucky as it was perfectly square. I rolled out a few rows of fabric just short of both lines so I could see the lines and started installing tiles.
One nice thing about this floor is it comes with 4 tiles attached to each other in the boxes which makes install a lot faster. I used my foot to lock the tabs together in most cases. Other cases I used a mallet (mainly in tight areas) There are times I had to push the male tabs in a bit with a screwdriver to make sure they went in properly. If you’re misaligned the tab will go the wrong way and want to break. I came close a few times to break a tab, but did not actually break any during the install.
I ran out of the landscape fabric about half way through install. I discovered I had a full roll of green frost protection fabric in my shed. I decided to use this as underpayment for the remainder of the install. This fabric was much easier to use. It was thicker so wasn’t effected by any wind coming into the garage. It also turned out to be even quieter then the plastic fabric.
i made cuts around the perimeter with a 12” sliding chop saw with 40 tooth blade. I had to make a circle cut around the bollard by my water heater with a cordless jigsaw.
the final product exceeded my expectations. The circle track is very comfortable with or without shoes and isn’t bad on the bare knees either. I have drug some of the heavy cabinets a few feet into place and not a scuff was present after. Very durable, comfortable, easy to install and nice looking product.
I may change these blue below out to orange Harley emblem tiles in the future
transition at garage door
Thanks for reading my install thread. I would be more than happy to answer questions or provide further pictures.
Everything came on a pallet in well marked boxes for 3 different colors (alloy, black and royal blue) I purchased. First thing I did was clear out my large garage door side and put everything in the one car door side of garage. I decided to lay down 4 sections of 4 tiles and tested to see if they clacked while walking on them. They did in fact clack when walking on certain areas. I checked the flatness of my garage slab and as all concrete is placed, there were low and high areas. This is what causes the clacking, not the racedeck itself. I had a full roll of plastic landscape fabric that I put under the test area. It was significantly quieter with the fabric below.
This is the first underpayment product I used. As. You will see further down, the second martial I ended up using was better.
After sweeping, scrapping, sweeping again and blowing I first snapped a chaulk line across the very inside of the garage door track, where it hits the concrete. I knew this was where my first tile would go And would put transition strip perfectly in front and slightly under the garage door. I then snapped a line 2’-1/2” off the right side wall. I snapped 2’-1/2” because I Still had tall large cabinets installed along the side wall where I was starting my install. The 1/2” was for expansion And 2’ was I figured I would leave them and move them onto finished floor later. This turned out to be a bit of a hassle but still would do it this way again. The hassle is installing the tiles backwards was a bit tricky but not the end of the world. After snapping the side wall I squared my two snapped lines using 3 4 5 method or in my case 6 8 10. I got very lucky as it was perfectly square. I rolled out a few rows of fabric just short of both lines so I could see the lines and started installing tiles.
One nice thing about this floor is it comes with 4 tiles attached to each other in the boxes which makes install a lot faster. I used my foot to lock the tabs together in most cases. Other cases I used a mallet (mainly in tight areas) There are times I had to push the male tabs in a bit with a screwdriver to make sure they went in properly. If you’re misaligned the tab will go the wrong way and want to break. I came close a few times to break a tab, but did not actually break any during the install.
I ran out of the landscape fabric about half way through install. I discovered I had a full roll of green frost protection fabric in my shed. I decided to use this as underpayment for the remainder of the install. This fabric was much easier to use. It was thicker so wasn’t effected by any wind coming into the garage. It also turned out to be even quieter then the plastic fabric.
i made cuts around the perimeter with a 12” sliding chop saw with 40 tooth blade. I had to make a circle cut around the bollard by my water heater with a cordless jigsaw.
the final product exceeded my expectations. The circle track is very comfortable with or without shoes and isn’t bad on the bare knees either. I have drug some of the heavy cabinets a few feet into place and not a scuff was present after. Very durable, comfortable, easy to install and nice looking product.
I may change these blue below out to orange Harley emblem tiles in the future
transition at garage door
Thanks for reading my install thread. I would be more than happy to answer questions or provide further pictures.
