epoxy flooring decisions

[bjo]

Well, l really wanted to get a racedeck and lift for my new 3 car garage (522 sq ft), but then the cost reality sank in. Now I have to work with an epoxy floor and jackstands I painted my current 2 car garage 3 years ago with Griots Garage epoxy. It has held up well, except for the spots that lifted due to oil residue that wasn't cleaned off properly. I have been researching this forum as well as corner-carvers.com forums regarding flooring. The concensus is prep the floor right and get a 100% solids epoxy, preferably solvent based. My garage does get worked in. 3 cars, jacks, griots jackstands, brake fluid, ATF, antifreeze do get on the surface.

The ones I am looking at are:
1. Griots Garage- $60 gal. Good results and familiar with the product.
2. Rustoleum Industrial Epoxysheild: $120 for 2 gal. solvent based
3. Ucoatit-$250.
4. Muscle gloss-$$
5. National Paint Epoxy Protect- Waterbased, but supposed to be breathable.
6. VSeal- cheap. but only seals. doesn't make the floor look good
7. Epoxysheild- $$

Which one should I go with? Thanks

 

[Hardcore]

No real experience with any of those but I'll complicate your decision by throwing in another option

Supercoat www.supercoat.us

 

[04 Navi]

You know I also used the Griots garage paint and had similair results as you did. It held up very well for over three years and then we sold the house. I wouldn't be suprised if the Griots stuff is a Sherwin Williams product or possibly a 3M product. Griots is fairly good at rebadging things and making them sound like he made them. Other than that I do like his products for the most part.

 

[bmwpower]

No real experience with any of those but I'll complicate your decision by throwing in another option

Supercoat www.supercoat.us

Have you used SuperCoat?

 

[dboat]

Griots is fairly good at rebadging things and making them sound like he made them. Other than that I do like his products for the most part.

+1

 

[Hammerdown]

I have used a few different epoxy systems in the past including Shewin Williams, Rustoleum, and UCoat It, in that order. I have found the UCoat It to work the best. Its costs are more than the other products, but I have found this translates into better performance of the coating. They offer a wide range of products- water based epoxy, 100% solids epoxy and the Urethane top coats, so it fits my needs. Garage refinishing has become a good business as of late, and I'm glad to see so many products offered by a variety of companies.

 

[69lkmno]

http://www.epoxy-coat.com/

 

[river1]

see my new thread about my 12 year old groits garage floor.

preparation is KEY tho.

later jim

 

[bjo]

Well it looks like I've narrowed it down to
1. supercoat- 3 slate gray kits + 3 gal of 2 part urethane glaze
2. ucoatit - std kit + extender pack. non-clearcoat. medium gray.

Both will be around the same price for my 600sq ft garage. @ $400+ shipped.

I called the supercoat number and talked to the VP of the company. He gave me some good info on the product and it was nice to know that they answer questions. The supercoat does need the clearcoat glaze, and he recommended 2 coats if budget allows. Also, he stated that I do not have to acid etch the floor, but he still does it since he is old school. I will still do the prep work though.

 

[noslocg]

For my new garage of almost 2K sq ft 2 yrs ago I did a LOT of research, since that's a bunch of sqft and gets expensive in a hurry. Especically with most of the epoxy paints advertised for car nuts. Our local Porter Paint (FL) field sales guy suggested a two coat system using PPG Pitt-Guard Rapid Coat #95-245 (a two part epoxy) as the base coat, and then topcoating with PPG Pitthane Ultra-Gloss two part urethane enamel # 95-812. Most of the car dealerships down here use this combination in their service areas according to him. I believe cost me about $600 or so for the materials and after > 1 year I am exceptionally pleased. These are both industrial coatings so the average paint store may not stock them, but this stuff doesn't flake or chip even when dragging heavy iron over it (OK, a couple of scratches,, maybe but just on the surface).
Downside... it is potent in the odor department till it dries. But based on price estimates of some of the advertised products in the car magazines, I saved about a grand using these products, and would recommend them to anyone. Here's a link to the website for their high performance coatings...
http://corporate.ppg.com/ppg/paf/hpc/default.htm

 

[Hardcore]

Have you used SuperCoat?

Yep, about to put on the glaze coat. Stuff looks great and went on really well. Although, my sprinkling skills weren't too good for the paint chips to make the Terazzon finish.

I bought 3 kits. 1 regular kit and 2 "super" kits (include the clearcoat Glaze)

My Garage is ~650 sq ft
1 kit (gallon) covered about 80%-90% of the floor with the first coat. Used the 2 other kits for the remaining portion of 1st coat and to put a second coat. I'll be posting a review ofit soon with pictures

 

[Hardcore]

BTW, Sam's club has the super kit on their site for $69 which is cheaper than the regular kit costs on supercoats site. 3 kits with shipping from Sam's club online is $250. Much cheaper than the quote I got from U-coat-it

 

[bjo]

********, thanks for the Sam's tip. I purchased 3 kits of the stone gray for $243 after tax and shipping. I look forward to installing it!

 

[roger55]

Here's a photo of my garage floor:

I used UCoat-it and am not happy with it.

The product goes on very,very thin and any defects in the concrete show up badly.
I had some small cracks and some small chips in the concrete that are pretty normal for a garage floor that was 18 years old. So, I bought a can of U-Coatit's epoxy patch to fix these areas. Well, their paint is so thin, that you can easily see these patched areas underneath.

Also, their product didn't cover the square footage that they say it does. I had to buy more product half way through the job. I've seen other posts to the contrary, but even on my clearcoat, I had to stretch it as thin as possible to have enough to finish. Maybe on a perfectly smooth concrete floor, the kind that's kind-of shiny to begin with, it would be better. But any little imperfection in your floor will be seen. When I acid etched my floor in preparation, a few areas lost that shiny look and aren't as smooth as other areas. These areas can be seen in the photo.

Also, do you see those tire marks in the photo? They will not come off. I used that foam stuff that makes tires look good and it yellowed the clear coat.

The positives about it is that the paint is tough and it doesn't lift or come off. But, all epoxies should do that if properly applied. You can scratch it by dragging heavy metal objects across it. But metal wheels from a floor jack or engine hoist don't hurt it at all.

With the extra product I had to buy, this job cost me $1000 for the 625 sq-ft. Way, way too expensive.

My brother recently did his garage floor with the Griots Garage epoxy. This stuff covers 130 sq-ft a gallon and is $58.99/gal. He was pleased with the stuff and this is the way I will probably go in the future. Here is a link to some photos of how his turned out: http://hotrodders.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/3295

Explore other options. Don't get the U-Coatit.

Roger

 

[zman]

I used the Valspar kits they sell at Lowe's, it's a two part epoxy and is about $60 each kit... Works good and held up great for about 3 or 4 years... It's getting a little rough now since I have abused it. I'll use it again... And prep is key, probably more important than which coating you use...

 

[dboat]

Roger,
I have yet to hear a disappointed person that has used the GG epoxy paint. In fact, I buy a lot of their stuff and have yet to be disappointed.. although there was one wax I wasnt too keen on.
Dana

 

[Diehonda]

For my new garage of almost 2K sq ft 2 yrs ago I did a LOT of research, since that's a bunch of sqft and gets expensive in a hurry. Especically with most of the epoxy paints advertised for car nuts. Our local Porter Paint (FL) field sales guy suggested a two coat system using PPG Pitt-Guard Rapid Coat #95-245 (a two part epoxy) as the base coat, and then topcoating with PPG Pitthane Ultra-Gloss two part urethane enamel # 95-812. Most of the car dealerships down here use this combination in their service areas according to him. I believe cost me about $600 or so for the materials and after > 1 year I am exceptionally pleased. These are both industrial coatings so the average paint store may not stock them, but this stuff doesn't flake or chip even when dragging heavy iron over it (OK, a couple of scratches,, maybe but just on the surface).
Downside... it is potent in the odor department till it dries. But based on price estimates of some of the advertised products in the car magazines, I saved about a grand using these products, and would recommend them to anyone. Here's a link to the website for their high performance coatings...
http://corporate.ppg.com/ppg/paf/hpc/default.htm

It's too bad you don't post on here anymore. I would've liked to see pictures.

I called my local Porter Paints and they quoted $85 for the kit of Rapid Coat 95-245 and $130 for the kit of Ultra Gloss 95-812. I would need two Rapid Coat kits to cover mine. They said that they will tint it any color I want.

I have sent an email to a friend that gets 40% off wholesale at Porter to see what it will actually run.



Sorry to resurrect a thread from the grav but it is the only reference to Port Paints on this site.

 

[Hammerdown]

Roger, that floor looks like a white base coat. I know from experience that white is hard to use on concrete. It absorbs a lot of product, and white pigments have nearly no masking ability. I always use the low number of the coverage rate of white for factoring how much product I need.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[Hardcore]

Yep, about to put on the glaze coat. Stuff looks great and went on really well. Although, my sprinkling skills weren't too good for the paint chips to make the Terazzon finish.

I bought 3 kits. 1 regular kit and 2 "super" kits (include the clearcoat Glaze)

My Garage is ~650 sq ft
1 kit (gallon) covered about 80%-90% of the floor with the first coat. Used the 2 other kits for the remaining portion of 1st coat and to put a second coat. I'll be posting a review ofit soon with pictures

Just an update since I installed it.
It has held up great. The only spot where I had a prolem is where I spilled some brake fluid and didn't wipe it up right away. It sort of mixed with the epoxy and made it come off in that one spot. I'm very pleased with it. I drag axles and jackstands across it and it has held up well. When I sweep and mop the floor it looks like new.

For the money its hard to beat.

 

[WinFred]

Rexthane frome SW is one tuff item...

http://www.paintdocs.com/webmsds/webPDF.jsp?SITEID=STORECAT&prodno=640328597&doctype=PDS&lang=E

http://www.paintdocs.com/webmsds/webPDF.jsp?SITEID=STORECAT&prodno=640383790&doctype=PDS&lang=E

 

[SUPERCOAT]

Glad to hear the kind words about SUPERCOAT, guys.

We feel that we make a great product that sells at a very competitive price. We'd love to get you on board, too, bjo!

http://www.SUPERCOAT.us

 

[gatchel]

Go to the top where is says welcome gugginc09. Click on your name.
Go to statistics and click on find all posts by...

 

[nate379]

I'm happy with the QuickCrete stuff from Lowe's. Cost me around $250 for my 625sq ft garage. 3 coats of color and 3 coats of clear.