Had an interesting conversation at Sherwin Williams

[Nomadness]

Still trying to make up my mind on my show car garage flooring. I had a few guys come out that put on hard surface flooring prices ranged from $5-$14 a sq ft. So i went over to SW commercial store a few miles from my house. There were 3 countermen 2 older guys helping out painting pro's (at least the way they were dressed) and a younger man who asked if he could help me. I explained that i would be hiring the work performed for me.
I told him i hoped so and i continued on to explain my project that i didn't want to do the cheapo expoxy $75 kits like you get at the big box store. He then said they had different grades of product that was meant from showroom floors that look like marble to airplane hangers and everything in between . He started pricing out the products i would need for my project after further explaination. Then one of the older gentleman came over and said he had overheard our conversation and said i could not buy those materials that they were for professional use only not DIY. So guess i am back to RD or similar tiles.

 

[Dirtydan69]

Really? What the hell is that. I'll give you my account info. Pay cash and get a discount

 

[Nomadness]

The main thing i was trying to figure out what the price of the materials would be. I went to HD and got a price on renting the concrete floor sander and a industrial vacuum will be.

 

[James-W]

Exactly what type of floor do you want? Do you want an epoxy floor, or do you want a porcelain/ceramic tile floor? If you want epoxy you can buy what you need from one of the vendors on this site. They have professional grade products at a reasonable price and they would be more than happy to sell you what you need.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

The old guy was trying to stop the uninformed from screwing up. He has probably seen many nightmares occur due to inexperience.

The fact is...with a little bit of knowledge in hand and the ability to follow directions you can do this successfully.

Many of the vendors on this forum have products as good and better than the store you referenced has.

So don’t give up, you can have it your way, defying all the odds.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[Nomadness]

Said everything they sold should be installed by professionals and he gave ne the names of three local companies to check with says best he ca do? So i got estimates from them

 

[Armorpoxy]

We, along with other vendors here, sell truly professional grade products that are packaged for diy use. Hogwash they are telling you at SW.

Feel free to contact us at below for a quote. You can get a superb, 3-layer high build epoxy system kit complete with decorative flecks and non skid for less than $1.50/sq ft. and it could ship out in a day.

 

[southalabama]

Never had a paint store (including s/w) refuse to sell me anything. We have a business account but they don't even know what that business is.

The operative word is "should".

Well hell I probably "should" have hired a professional for a lot of things but after careful study I was able to complete the job. Sometimes you f' up. If you do it's not the products fault. If you do that's when you admit you should have hired a professional.

 

[jonshonda]

No offense OP but I'm sure the older gentleman (if he has good experience) has seen a lot of DIY people royally f#ck sh!t up and has had to deal with the aftermath. Not saying what he did was right, but maybe he got the impression that you might not be able to handle the project and was doing you a favor.

Or....he was like many of the other employed individuals who have no f#cking clue how to actually use the product, just know what they are told and pass that advice on. I hate those people.

There is a guy on youtube (the idaho painter) who lays down SW on a garage floor, and lots of other projects for that matter. Maybe watch his videos and see if he is doing something special.

 

[Duker]

I will add to the comments above that a good job can be done with any of the vendors above... however, like any paint type job the key is in the quality of the prep job. I did my first house garage floor in epoxy and it turned out great but I had close to 30 hours of work into it because it was a 50 year old concrete floor with that many years of oil leaks, hazing and other spots. I also had to fix the drainage as I had condensation coming from water soaking the slab after every rain. If I hadn’t fixed these issues it wouldn’t matter how good the product was it would have failed. My next house.... I hired a contractor whose work I saw when they had done one of my neighbor’s garage. Sure I could have saved some money but once was enough for me knowing what it took to do the job right.

If you ready to become (pardon the puns) very dirty and intimate with your floor then it’s a project you can certainly do yourself.