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Help! What to do with this spalled, pitted floor?

homediyer

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Joined
Sep 8, 2008
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14
I'm new here and I've been enjoying this forum a lot! I'm having trouble trying to figure out what to do with my garage floor so I thought I'd ask the experts.

There are two "catches" to my situation: (1) we have a fridge and a few other big items in the garage that I can't keep outside while I'm doing this, so I'd like to do the floor one half at a time -- which seems reasonable because there's a 1" divider right down the middle, so protecting the other side doesn't seem like it will be difficult. Also, (2) the middle of the floor is full of pits from road salt -- I'm talking like a 14'x12' area -- we're in northern Ohio where the winters are rough and this 1957 cement slab has had nothing done to it in 51 years (aside from one application of vinyl crack filler on some of its larger cracks).

I need to know what I can do to make a nice floor here, and how I can do it. I painted my basement floor two years ago with the Quikrete 2-part epoxy and it came out great, and I'd like to do an epoxy on the garage floor, too. Lowe's had a special on the Rust-Oleum Garage Floor EpoxyShield on Labor Day Weekend (something like $44 a kit) so I went ahead and bought two kits. I also went on mail order and bought two packs of the anti-skid additive, an extra bottle of degreaser, and two EpoxyShield Concrete Patch and Repair kits, because I need to fix the pitted areas before laying down epoxy.
However, the Concrete Patch kits are TINY and they say they only fill a crack 14' long by 1/2" wide and 1/2" deep. Even though most of the pits are much more shallow than that, my area is 14'x12' so a rough estimate tells me I'd need 288 of these kits to fill it!

I've attached some pics to this post to show the condition of the floor. (The white things on top are leaves that blew in from the birch tree outside.) I put the Rust-Oleum box on the ground for scale -- most of the pits are about 1/4 to 1/2" diameter and maybe 1/10"-1/3" deep.

Please help me out! I'd love to post an "after" pic of how this baby looks once its all done, but I have no idea what to do at this point!
 

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Matti

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Nov 16, 2007
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Canada
The fact is that whatever you put on top will only be as good as what is underneath. I have a single garage of the same vintage that was really bad. I mixed up a few bags of patching cement and hand troweled to fill in the low spots. It's not a thing of beauty but at least it doesn't have large holes in it.
 
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homediyer

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Sep 8, 2008
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Over 100 people saw this and nobody knows what can be done?

I'm not "set" on epoxy even though I bought two boxes of the Rust-Oleum product -- so if there's a better solution for me such as tiles, I'm open to it.

But what can I do to fix this floor -- what will work? Please folks, I'm a capable DIYer but what I don't have much experience with is concrete. I don't want to make the mistake of putting down the wrong thing and having it come up. Is there anything I can do to fix this floor?

Thanks...
 

'the epoxy floor guy'

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Aug 30, 2008
Messages
162
Location
Iowa
I have a FAST solution but with it comes a price. We use an Epoxy Crack filler mixed 50/50 with silica sand to fill spalled concrete.

It costs $210 for a TWO gallon kit.

This product will 100% fix your problem. It is harder than concrete and will strengthen the concrete that is left making it suitable for an epoxy coating.

it is SELF PRIMING and does not need prep BEFORE application. Your DIY epoxy will stick directly to it without any special prep.

Let me know if you are interested in purchasing some.

Hope this helps.
 
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homediyer

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Sep 8, 2008
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I have a FAST solution but with it comes a price.

Thanks for replying. I want this floor fixed, and I want to fix it soon.

We use an Epoxy Crack filler mixed 50/50 with silica sand to fill spalled concrete.

It costs $210 for a TWO gallon kit.

Do you have a calculation method so I know how much I'll need?


it is SELF PRIMING and does not need prep BEFORE application. Your DIY epoxy will stick directly to it without any special prep.

Wow, no prep? I've done the floor epoxy in a basement, and it turned out great, but prep was 80%+ of the job. I expected the same for the garage. You don't need to prep either before application or after (before the final epoxy coat)? That almost sounds too good to be true!


Let me know if you are interested in purchasing some.

I'm definitely interested. Has anyone here on the forum used this stuff?
 

AlphaGarage

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Apr 16, 2008
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Location
Every Garage, AnyTown, USA
You could pressure wash the entire floor, and then acid etch it, and pressure wash again to remove salts and other crud. Use a 2,500+ psi washer.

Use Wolverine Coatings BondTite 1101 to coat the divot areas and allow it to tack up.

Then there are two ways to fill the divots, depending on how comfortable/proficient you are with trowel finishing. For both methods use a very clean, fine grain sand as aggregate.

If your skills are up to it, mix some more BondTite 1101 with the sand to a fairly dry mix, probably around 1 part BondTite to 10 parts sand. Then trowel it into divots and smooth it out. This will give you the strongest floor.

A bit easier is to mix up some LiquaTile 1184 and add sand to the mix. Then pour mix into divots and smooth with squeegee. This mix can be a bit soupier and it will be easier to smooth out.

With both solutions allow patches to tack dry, then prime the entire floor with BondTite 1101 (5mils), body coat with LiquaTile 1184 (12 mils), broadcast DecoFlakes if desired, and top with 5 mil clearcoat of BondTite 1101, and enjoy!
 
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FFPL

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Oct 12, 2007
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Massachusetts
Use Wolverine Coatings BondTite 1101 to coat the divot areas and allow it to tack up.

Then there are two ways to fill the divots, depending on how comfortable/proficient you are with trowel finishing. For both methods use a very clean, fine grain sand as aggregate.

If your skills are up to it, mix some more BondTite 1101 with the sand to a fairly dry mix, probably around 1 part BondTite to 10 parts sand. Then trowel it into divots and smooth it out. This will give you the strongest floor.

With both solutions allow patches to tack dry, then prime the entire floor with BondTite 1101 (5mils), body coat with LiquaTile 1184 (12 mils), broadcast DecoFlakes if desired, and top with 5 mil clearcoat of BondTite 1101, and enjoy!
Exactly what I'm doing this weekend !
 

sufferrar

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Aug 12, 2008
Messages
13
If you are adding sand to a crack filler always add a bonding agent to the mix with some portland cement for strength.
 

SimpleManLance

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Sep 15, 2008
Messages
29
Location
Michigan
vacumn the area very good to remove any loose concrete. mix up some epoxy liquids and pour it into the pitted area. take a dry wall trowel and try to self level it the best you can. if it is a little higher take a grinder and grind it smooth. you can add silica sand but i dont think it is a must. the epoxy is plenty stong enough by itself.
 

AlphaGarage

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True, the epoxy is plenty strong, but with a large amount of voids to be filled one can save some cash by using sand as an aggregate. If there's just a spot or two, it's not worth the effort, but for larger problems a few pounds of sand is much cheaper than an equal volume of epoxy.

Looking at the pics I just noticed that the OP might use Rustoleum epoxy, I believe that some of their floor epoxies are only 45% solids. In that case I really don't know whether or not the sand method will work. I know for certain that it works well with a 100% epoxy, but don't know of anyone who has used an epoxy with water or solvent extenders. Might be worth a try, but I'm not sure how the evaporation of 55% of the binding material will effect the strength. Sorry I didn't see that earlier.
 

SimpleManLance

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Sep 15, 2008
Messages
29
Location
Michigan
True, the epoxy is plenty strong, but with a large amount of voids to be filled one can save some cash by using sand as an aggregate. If there's just a spot or two, it's not worth the effort, but for larger problems a few pounds of sand is much cheaper than an equal volume of epoxy.

Looking at the pics I just noticed that the OP might use Rustoleum epoxy, I believe that some of their floor epoxies are only 45% solids. In that case I really don't know whether or not the sand method will work. I know for certain that it works well with a 100% epoxy, but don't know of anyone who has used an epoxy with water or solvent extenders. Might be worth a try, but I'm not sure how the evaporation of 55% of the binding material will effect the strength. Sorry I didn't see that earlier.

good point. i just always use straight epoxy to fill the pitted areas. i do it while im doing my primer coat. for a DIYer might as well save the money and use some sand.

to be honest i wouldn't spend the time cleaning out the garage and preping the floor only to install a 45% solid epoxy. i would only do 100%. thats just my 2 cents.
 
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homediyer

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Sep 8, 2008
Messages
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You've seen the before pics of the floor ... here's a before of part of the garage and an after pic showing how it looks now.

It's part of a mid-century modern restoration of a 1950s home. Painted the walls green, installed pegboard, street map and vintage cabinets.
 

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logan7ms

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Jan 14, 2010
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Hey everyone, I thought this may be helpful for any future readers.

I had a ton of cracks, pits and divots in my garage that were very similar and worse than the pictures listed in this thread. My solution was to use a 100% solids epoxy that fills in all the cracks/pits, cures harder than concrete and is also self-leveling. I also used an epoxy patching compound for any pits deeper than a 1/2". I ended up using a primer epoxy, a 100% solids color coat, decorative flakes and a 100% solids clear top coat. It looked like a pane of glass and you couldn't see any traces of any crack/pits.

I heard of using sand in the 100% solids but I didn't want to mess with trying that. Epoxy is complicated enough for me with pot lifes, cure times, weather, etc. I was told that is what the contractors do to save money on material. I just bit the bullet and paid for the epoxy which I think I paid $50-60 a gallon. I spent $500-700 for my two car garage but it's been 5 years and it looks brand new.

If anyone is interested, the company I purchased my material from was company Original Color Chips. Good luck future pitted floor owners.
 
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