My Epoxy Floor Installation

[argulator]

I've been lurking for months and thought I would post on my in-progress floor.

I'm using Tnemec products and a full broadcast of chips:
201 Primer
237 Power Tread Basecoat
284 Epoxy Clearcoat
295 Polyurethane


To date I have done stemwalls and tornado shelter doors.

So far, so good. Floor will be done in the next month or so and I'll update it then. If you're interested, see the link for all of the gory details (It's very long.....) and everything I know about epoxy.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/onfpkrbw8bsqlmb/Epoxy Preparation Post.pdf?dl=0

Ralph

 

[Wuaname]

Love the color

 

[argulator]

Finished up the floor over the weekend. After reading every epoxy post on here over the last 7-8 months, I didn't run into any real surprises or problems. Used a notched squeegee (sort of...) and 18" rollers to apply to 600 Square Feet. Cut in with chip brushes and smaller rollers when needed. Had a friend except for the topcoat, which I applied by myself.

Application is much less work and less time consuming than the getting organized for mixing etc. and the clean up afterward.

Primer: 3.5 Gallons - Went on thicker than I expected. I had bought an extra 3/4 gallon since the vendor rep said 3 gallons might cut it close. There didn't seem to be allot of absorption into the concrete. It didn't look so hot....there were lots of tiny bubbles or trash in this coat, but I didn't worry about it, since more was to follow.

Basecoat 3 Gallons - Only lesson learned-don't assume dried epoxy will break off your squeegee like it will a plastic bucket. It doesn't. Clean up your squeegee after you finish a coat. This basecoat actually didn't seem to cover as well as the primer, seemed to be spreading pretty thin. No problems though, plenty of chip to cover it up. No pics prior to chipping. Spent a couple of hours sweeping, blowing, and vacuuming chips. I probably put down around 135 lbs and picked up at least 35 lbs afterward. More went into the shop-vac and weren't usable. Those are 1/8 inch chips.

Clearcoat - 6 gallons. This coat went on great. Most areas of the floor were completely smoothed out, but a few still had some texture from the chips. This would have bugged me, but the anti-skid in the topcoat pretty much dulls the gloss anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics of it super shiny.

Topcoat 1.5 Gallons. This is really the most challenging part. Believe it when everyone says it's hard to discern what you've covered or haven't. I would have used a friend here, but he didn't have a respirator, which was definitely needed with closed garage doors. As far as anti-skid, I used Sharkgrip-around 3/4 of the 3.2 Oz container for the gallon and a half and it was plenty.

All in all, it looks great. If you catch some light at the right angle, you can see roller marks from the topcoat. Not sure how you prevent that when working with the anti-skid.

 

[bdamico]

Very professional. Well done.

 

[wagzilla]

Looks good

 

[autolex]

Looks BEAUTIFUL, you mind sharing $/ft^2 all said and done?

 

[OJ Bartley]

Great looking floor, argulator, very nicely done. That's the kind of installation that makes epoxy look so good!

 

[Shea]

Beautiful floor! You did great work really paying attention to detail.

Rolling polyurethane with SharkGrip can be challenging sometimes when it's hard to see. The key is to remix the SharkGrip as you go so that it doesn't settle and get applied in mass as you get towards the bottom of the pan. Applying it too thick or with too much back rolling can produce roller marks sometimes. You can't see it in the pics though.

Again, good job!

 

[argulator]

Thanks all. As far as cost, coating materials were right at $2/fto and chips $1.16/ft. In hindsight, I could've got by with around 3/4 of the chip I had, but could only get it in 55 lb boxes. I could have saved around 300.00 if Torginol would have sold chips to me, they wouldn't sell to DIYer.

 

[TAMPAGT07]

Nice... Can you post some pics of the inside of your tornanado shelter?

 

[NitroShark]

Looks great, ......

I used the same system with a bit more DFT and used the 247 Polyurethane and 215 surface primmer on the divots and rough spots.

Your floor will last a very long time.


Shawn

 

[argulator]

Tampa-here's a pic of the shelter. They all look pretty much the same.

 

[amberjack1234]

Looks great to me. I hope that my floor looks half that good. I am still working on the electrical part right now. Cut the bejesus out of my thumb today too. Didn't have an electricians knife. Should have known better as I use to do electrical work. Maybe I'll finish that up tomorrow and then I can start on the FLOOR.

Larry

 

[spectrum1c]

Impressive job! Could you give a long-term follow-up on how is held up?