Help With New Garage Floor Decision

[maximus01can]

Howdy,

New to the forum here but have been lurking around for a while trying to get some grasp on ideas for our new garage floor but just can't seem to make a decision since there's soooooo many options. We added a 24 x 28W garage and filled in the area between the house and garage with an exposed aggregate patio/fire table completed at the same time. We think the look of the metallic pearl we saw on the Epoxy Master site is just awesome and it would tie in nice with the garage being a good chunk just man cave with some real light duty mechanical/oil changes and woodworking etc. I'm just a little concerned about how the main area where driving the vehicles in/out will hold up and that type of finish and how it will look as the years move on. I'm also possibly open to the idea of putting something with a much higher toughness factor where the vehicle tires would be landing and then the rest of the area in the metallic pearl to keep the scrateches from tire rocks etc to a minimum. Any suggestions and insight would be appreciated. I've included a few pics so you can get a feel of the build. We would like to make a decision ASAP since this decision making seems to be dragging on way to long and cutting into my finished man cave time

Cheers,
Max

 

[Garage Flooring]

Howdy,

New to the forum here but have been lurking around for a while trying to get some grasp on ideas for our new garage floor but just can't seem to make a decision since there's soooooo many options. We added a 24 x 28W garage and filled in the area between the house and garage with an exposed aggregate patio/fire table completed at the same time. We think the look of the metallic pearl we saw on the Epoxy Master site is just awesome and it would tie in nice with the garage being a good chunk just man cave with some real light duty mechanical/oil changes and woodworking etc. I'm just a little concerned about how the main area where driving the vehicles in/out will hold up and that type of finish and how it will look as the years move on. I'm also possibly open to the idea of putting something with a much higher toughness factor where the vehicle tires would be landing and then the rest of the area in the metallic pearl to keep the scrateches from tire rocks etc to a minimum. Any suggestions and insight would be appreciated. I've included a few pics so you can get a feel of the build. We would like to make a decision ASAP since this decision making seems to be dragging on way to long and cutting into my finished man cave time

Cheers,
Max

If you order and install your system properly, the metallic epoxy will never come in contact with any of the traffic etc. Make sure you order the top coat. Perhaps even consider doing two coats of top coat. Also make sure you use a primer and an anti-wear additive in the top coat. I do not see the additive but I am sure they have it

 

[maximus01can]

Could it be as simple as just painting? I've thought about it but didn't think it would stand up worth a darn....but would be pretty simple to fix...

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Primers, two top coats, hardener anti-wear additive....

Paint requires an easy touch up on occasion.
How many hospitals or box stores have epoxy floors, and why not?

With all of the horror stories posted here about epoxy floor installations, you couldn't give me one for free if I had to install it.
And since you mentioned dragging, skip a sharp table leg across that epoxy and see what happens.

I bought the 26 gallons of epoxy to do my floor.
It's for sale cheap.

Horror stories come here for good reason, we tell people how to fix them. Success stories rarely do as people move on.
Epoxy floors have been used in industry and still are since the 50's.
Excellent garage floor coating and in many cases is actually over-kill.

 

[Armorpoxy]

Hi, we carry metallic floors and they are beautiful and offer a variety of colors to match any manucaturers offerings.

Some comments...

Metallic floor installation is much less forgiving as to technique vs an epoxy floor. HOW you apply it directly affects the outcome, sort of like faux painting. A fleck type floor is more forgiving.

Metallic floors are very shiny and glossy usually and normally don't use non skids as they de gloss a lot and kill the finish, so yes your floor will over time show scratches from tire traffic due to the tires carrying in grit, rocks, etc. so using two different systems could be a possibility, but we have rarely seen this and it may not look great except if you use black for the tire lanes.

Perhaps doing the entire floor and then putting down a garage mat under the cars could be a solution.

 

[maximus01can]

Epoxy Garage Floor Completed and 7 Month Review

Howdy,

Well we finished the floor and managed to stay married It turned out well and even after a winters worth of wear/tear with the small rocks grinding into the floor etc. it seems to be holding up just fine. Any of the dirt just sweeps nicely away. Brought out the pressure washer and it cleaned up just like new. The biggest problem and what took the longest being a newbie at this was deciding on what to use and how to go about doing it. After that it was quick and relatively easy.

Our process was:

Purchased:
- 2 kits of epoxymaster from Costco ($780)
- 4 bags Metallic Cobalt Blue and 2 bags Metallic Silver fleck from Epoxymaster ($232 USD)
- 2 kits ($189) of 2 part epoxy clear coat from Ron at Elite Coatings here in calgary.
- 18" rollers, trays and handles (Approx. $100)
- Large jug of miratic acid (What came with costco package was not enough)
- Spiked shoes for myself and made a pair for the wife out of her flip's. I jigsawed out template of her flips from 3/4" plywood and then drywall screws through the flip and plywood sole. Worked awesome and much nicer for her to work from than those hard plastic units I bought.
-Swept and cleaned the floor even thought it was brand new concrete and never driven on.
- Mixed and applied the Muriatic acid with weed sprayer. This worked really well, much better than pouring out and sweeping around
- Let dry until the next day.
- Mixed up the 2 part apoxy on batch at a time and poured out over the 1st half of the garage. I didn't bother cutting anything in, just moved it to the edge with the squeegee and then back away.
-Started at the one side and started squeeging the epoxy across the floor. It was much thicker than I expected so I had to push down pretty on the squeegee as I was grading it across the floor at an angle to get the proper coverage.
- Mixed up the second batch and repeated the process above across the second portion.
- Started at one end and rolled the entire area and then cross rolled it.

We both rolled as it's quite a bit of arm work for one person. I left the section outside the garage door as it was cold out and it wouldn't have set up. I may do the rest at a later date or just leave it as is....don't know yet.

Waited around 24 hrs with the heat set to 20C until the surface was not tacky anywhere. It was a super high gloss finish and we were very happy with it. Without any grit it would have been a skating rink I suppose in the winter though....

-Mixed the 2 part epoxy clear coat and mixed in about 2/3 bag of the aluminum oxide for traction and spread it out with the 18" rollers and throw away roller containers. Every once in a while we'd stir up the grit. In the end there was quite a bit of grit left with the remaining epoxy clear coat in the bottom of the roller troughs so I just used that where I wanted the most grit, in front of the access door and the main walking area in front of the bench area. This added plenty of traction, but you don't want too much or it would get a little hard to sweep over etc.

All in all it turned out great and after a month of searching for what the hell to exactly do, the job itself took only a weekend but we didn't have to do much with the floor other than the acid etching and I did that the weekend before so it had lots of time to dry. The next part was installing the cabinets, big screen and messing around with populating all the drawers. Deciding on what to do for cabinets and bench was another painful process as there's just too many choices. In the end I went with Ikea cabinets as it allowed me all kinds of options drawers etc. and the 24" depth of the drawers kicks most of the competition's A**es and with the heavy duty handles looks pretty good. The soft close drawers are also really nice and you can get lot's of different colors but I chose white just because of the cost. Cabinets worked out to around $1800 and I built the work bench myself out of Malamine and 3/4" plywood which ended up being plenty sturdy. Now we just have to get on with the garage warming party ...oh wait, I've got an attic access ladder to install....**** something else to investigate...lol.

Cheers,
Max