Can my floor be saved?

[Larrymer]

Hey guys, little bit of history with my garage floor to start off. We moved in a couple years back and it appeared we had a nice epoxy coating on the floor. Fast forward a year or two and I noticed that it was cracking into 9x9 inch squares, so I realize the PO put epoxy over tile before he sold the house. Asbestos tile most likely from the original floor since the house was built in the 60's and he didn't want to pay to remove it. Why they put tile in a garage in the first place is anybody's guess. Anyway, I've been trying to get it fixed and had it removed today finally, not really knowing what I would find underneath.


Once Imgur wants to load the pics (seems fine when I try to open them in a new window/tab and reload but not all the inline pics are showing up here...), you'll see that after removing the tile and mastic, there's uneven places where it appears they patched low areas with concrete. None of it appears to be a more than 1/8" or so higher than the existing floor, and there looks like a bit of spalling my untrained eyes.

I'd like to do epoxy on the floor again but I'm not sure how bad it is at this point. My thought is grind it down smooth and patch areas but I'm concerned with the longevity of it. What do you guys think? What products and general suggestions do you have?

The plan is to paint the walls and fix some of the drywall on the one side that I tore off, should I do that after doing the floor?

 

[Larrymer]

Attached a couple pics since they wouldn't link.

 

[James-W]

I am not a floor guy so I may be wrong, but I would think the best way to handle this is to remove all the tile and then grind the floor. Once that is done, you will be able to see just how good the concrete is, or how bad it is, and you will know what you can and what you can't do. That would be my recommendation.

 

[Armorpoxy]

We encounter these types of floors a lot.

Some comments. First if these were asbestos the mastic may have asbestos too so if you grind it a lot of precautions are required best left to pros.

We usually suggest just covering it with garage tiles like our solid Supratiles or similar. They will
conform to minor floor undulations or you can use skim coat to do some leveling. Put Tyvek wrap down to act as asbestos barrier (schools do this).


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[Larrymer]

I am not a floor guy so I may be wrong, but I would think the best way to handle this is to remove all the tile and then grind the floor. Once that is done, you will be able to see just how good the concrete is, or how bad it is, and you will know what you can and what you can't do. That would be my recommendation.

In the pictures, all of the tile has been removed and what you're looking at is the concrete that was underneath. What's left are the patches of concrete that are slightly higher and still coated in epoxy. I don't believe there's any tile underneath those sections since the guys were just chipping away concrete near those edges.

We encounter these types of floors a lot.

Some comments. First if these were asbestos the mastic may have asbestos too so if you grind it a lot of precautions are required best left to pros.

We usually suggest just covering it with garage tiles like our solid Supratiles or similar. They will
conform to minor floor undulations or you can use skim coat to do some leveling. Put Tyvek wrap down to act as asbestos barrier (schools do this).

I had the mastic lab tested and it did not contain asbestos, so that's good at least. Is the best course of action (if I still want epoxy vs tiles) to grind, skim coat, then epoxy? Any other steps that would be needed?

 

[Larrymer]

Alright, found a company to do the epoxy and the grinding but I have to fix the low spots by the door. I bought a diamond wheel for my grinder and dust shroud, and some skim type filler from Legacy to give it a shot. I don't expect it to look perfect afterwards but it should be good enough for me and the type of work I do in there.