Epoxy vs Interlocking tile with a scissor lift

[Wolfy356]

I am in the home stretch of my small barn to car barn conversion and I am looking for recommendations on a flooring to be used. The original barn was built in the 1970’s and I expanded the concrete slab 4‘ wider and 6’ deeper with a perimeter footing and doweled in rebar to the existing slab. There are joints and some uneven concrete at the old edges.
I plan to do a light restoration of my old Porsche 356 and I have bought a scissor lift to facilitate engine removal and other undercarriage work. As I look at flooring I know that my old cars leak oil and trans fluids. I currently use a large rubber mat and wipe it up, after taking my car out of its bay in my main garage. So I am ok with cleaning up small spills/ leaks but with the lift and possibly extended durations when the car will not move during restoration work what are my best option for this setup.
I do most of my own work on the construction and car mechanicals so a DYI project to put in flooring is what I am leaning towards.

 

[txvwnut]

If it was me doing it I'd go with epoxy.

 

[FJ4FUN]

We offer Wolverine Coatings' solid color, two layer full ceramic CFLC System for these types of working environments. Comprised of their 100% solids BondTite 1101 primer and their LiquaTile 1143 ceramic body coat, this system is easy to apply and can be returned back to full service in as little as 2.5 days. Best-in-class abrasion, impact, chemical resistance, and twice the ADA recommended slip resistance to boot!

 

[NDJ]

Are you planning on doing any welding or plasma cutting that generates lotsa sparks ?

 

[Imatk]

I'd go with Epoxy or Polyurea, but I'm biased because I have that. I do all of my own work on my cars and it's great, especially if you have to lay on your back... I would imagine the tiles would be rougher (I don't know since I don't have them, but they look rougher.)

The only thing that will eat into your floor are really caustic spills like brake fluid. BUT that's only if you leave it overnight or something. I had a brake caliper leak overnight and the next day it had eaten into the floor, but I'm going to just scuff it and re-do it with the leftover poly that I have.
I would recommend keeping at least some of the flake for your floor and whatever you have leftover for such things.

If you are welding I think it's probably not the best choice, since slag will burn into the floor. BUT I think slag would burn into tiles as well so in that case I'd just leave it as concrete.

 

[Shea]

There are pros and cons for each system. Speaking from much experience, tiles are not hard like concrete and are much easier on the back when laying under a car. Also, if one is damaged, they are easily replaced. However, fluid spills are not always the easiest to clean up. It all depends on the volume. Sometimes it may require pulling up a few tiles.

 

[FJ4FUN]

... a good welding blanket is the call.

 

[Wolfy356]

I will have some cutting out sheet metal, but I use a cutoff wheel. And any welding may be done but I would use a welding blanket for each of these activities to protect either floor syste.
I am curious to hear about using a tile system and how the rollers of the scissor lift move over the tiles. Do they gouge them or slow down/effect the travel of the wheels during lifting or lowering?
I will be working below the car under the lift on my back at times so the tiles would be a nicer surface to lay on. I also see that the installation time and effort is a plus for the tiles.

 

[RaceDeck1]

if it were me, I would do RaceDeck garage flooring - Our FreeFlow XLC is a really popular choice for commercial and applications as you have outlined. It is the beefiest modular flooring system in the industry and utilizes our multi-patented features

About FreeFlow XLC

 

[Jsf721]

I am in the home stretch of my small barn to car barn conversion and I am looking for recommendations on a flooring to be used. The original barn was built in the 1970’s and I expanded the concrete slab 4‘ wider and 6’ deeper with a perimeter footing and doweled in rebar to the existing slab. There are joints and some uneven concrete at the old edges.
I plan to do a light restoration of my old Porsche 356 and I have bought a scissor lift to facilitate engine removal and other undercarriage work. As I look at flooring I know that my old cars leak oil and trans fluids. I currently use a large rubber mat and wipe it up, after taking my car out of its bay in my main garage. So I am ok with cleaning up small spills/ leaks but with the lift and possibly extended durations when the car will not move during restoration work what are my best option for this setup.
I do most of my own work on the construction and car mechanicals so a DYI project to put in flooring is what I am leaning towards.

I have had bad experience with epoxy and its left me jaded.

I did a self install and followed the manufacturers instructions. Looked pretty good over the 7 plus years it was down and I should have left it !

Decided I wanted a glossy floor and paid a pro to grind and apply Epoxy and clear Pollyaspartic on top with full flakes and shark grip. After4 and a half years it started delaminating and the installers garantee for 5 years did nothing. They made me send pictures and promised to come back and never did, in that time I think he changed the corporate name and it was not worth the trouble.

My floor is peeling around the edges and in random spots. I'm done with epoxy and will do interlocking tiles from race deck or Swiss trax or garage floor dot com in the future.

 

[witckraft]

I'm a RaceDeck Free-Flow XLC owner and likely biased, but I can tell you this: I've made more than a few mistakes with very hot things from welding or plasma cutting. I damaged 2 tiles, but in a few minutes I swapped in 2 replacement tiles I had and kept things moving. My older epoxy floor, if I abused it/severely damaged it, I would have needed to put in real work to fix it.

Yes, don't abuse either floor system and the issue goes away.

Stuff rolls rather well on the XLC with the exception of smaller wheels (like 1 inch mini-wheels). They kind of jump and chatter across it. Big, adult caster type wheels are no issue.

 

[mikeyr]

A welding blanket on top of Racedeck works quite well, I have a few, not many, damaged tiles from welding and plasma cutting but my Racedecks are ancient (near 20 years old). I have a area I am thinking of replacing with new because I sprayed a car without proper protection and got overspray on the floor, that will be a good time to replace the few damaged from welding tiles.

 

[nolimits76]

I’d encourage you to get some samples of the free flow tiles. I got some of the normal 12x12’s and the beefier 18x18 XLC. Both are quality products but I really prefer the XLC. They are thicker, have a little better texture and IMO looks aesthetically better (larger tile on a large floor looks better to my eye).

Edit:
I should clarify that I have gotten samples so far. Don’t actually have it installed. Trying to finalize my decisions on type and color/layout.