SPaikmos
Active member
I haven't been on here long, so I dunno if people post about things that go wrong. Everyone else has beautiful, awesome floors, and I don't want to out myself as the less capable one, but someone may benefit from my story. I'll try to keep it short.
NOTE: I do NOT blame my tools or the product in anyway at all. These are MY mistakes so don't take this as a negative review of anything else but me.
About me: I know nothing about flooring, concrete, etc, learned everything from the internetz. I just built a new workshop, and I plan to work on cars, planes, and motorcycles. The workshop build is a whole different story (still writing it up, still in progress). The salient points are:
- 36 x 40 metal building (1440 sf)
- no electricity yet (IOW, no lighting)
My son is 14 and doesn't enjoy this type of work. He'd rather be on the computer than helping his old man.
It started with a simple question about grinding. The workshop had just been erected and I was anxious to DIY the flooring. I studied and researched, did lots of work.
After much deliberation, I chose Legacy Industrials products because a coworker had used them, another coworker (who really understands chemistry) vouched for them, and I got good service from them. My decision was to use the following:
- Aquadike moisture barrier
- Standard epoxy primer in white
- Nohr-S polyurea in white
- Nohr-S clear topcoat w/ silver sparkles
I was going for the aircraft hanger look. Wanted some mineral-y look to the floors, which is why I added the silver glitter.
Concrete Prep
Prep was a long process. I rented three machines:
- single disc 10" grinder from Home Depot
- dual disc EDCO grinder w/ Magnatrap pucks
- 8" shot blaster
Long story short (I'll post a separate thread about this) I spent roughly 60 hours grinding concrete over two weeks to make sure the prep was done right. After grinding, instead of power washing, I decided to vacuum + leaf blower to get as much dust out as possible.
Some folks on here are able to get their garage cleaner than a semiconductor wafer fab, but I am not that OCD. I accept that this being my first time, I'm going to make mistakes, it won't be perfect, so I'm happy to come out with something nicer than the rustoleum kits. Seriously, I plan to use my garage, not eat off it! So I'm ok with defects.
As I use the shot blaster, my concrete starts to show surface cracks. These are somewhat deep, but I was out of Xtreme 100 crack filler and the Aquadike recommends to use that first, and then fill in cracks with a mixture of AD + filler. I figure I'm ok with seeing a few cracks on my garage slab, no big deal, so I didn't bother to really address this. I was also curious to see how much the product can mitigate cracks.
You'll see why this became a problem, but not for the reasons you think!
First Day - Aquadike
My son and I decide to tackle the garage Monday afternoon. He will use a paintbrush to get the edges and around the steel I-beam columns, and I'll use the roller in the field. We apply the AD easily, he finished the trim in 15 min and goes inside, leaving me alone to finish up an hour later.
Towards the end, as I'm rolling out past the garage door, my roller hits the dirt outside and gets dirty. Hence, I'm unable to backroll the last 5' or so near the garage door entrances. I have a notched squeegee so I did the best I could with that. We leave the garage doors open a crack as we leave, and I left some plywood leaned up against the doors to keep the dust out.
The next morning, I see the product cured nicely. There are a couple bugs embedded in the epoxy, a bunch of tiny pin-head sized bubbles in the field, and a two larger bubbles that I cut out with a knife. The area with the squeegee leveled out nicely, in fact there were less bubbles there than the areas that I backrolled. If I were to do it again, I may consider skipping the roller entirely and just using the notched squeegee to spread the product out nicely and let it self level.
A couple of small rocks had gotten embedded at the garage entrance where my roller had picked them up. I used my hand grinder to grind these down and decide I'll just epoxy over them. Not ideal, but it's flat enough after I grinded them.
Second Day - Epoxy Primer
Next up is the epoxy primer, 5 gallons. This is a two part product, 4:1 part A to B. Scotty advised me to split this into two batches. I didn't get the memo to mix part A thoroughly before pouring, so I start to pour out 2 gallons of A. It comes out brown. Halfway through the pour, I decide to shake it and it starts to get creamy. Hmm... I open the bucket, pour my 2 gallons back into it, and use the mixer to throughly premix. Dodged a bullet there!
I was told to only wear spike shoes with the AD, so I decided to wear only socks while applying the primer. Again, my son does the edges and I follow with the roller. He finishes way ahead of me and goes inside the house, leaving me to finish up. Things go moderately well, I dripped some primer here and there and stepped in it, getting primer on my socks and tracking it around the floor. Not a big deal.
There was one area where my son had decided to "pour" primer into, in an attempt to fill up a low area. I had read the instructions that said "applying this too thick may cause product to fail" but he didn't know that! I'm using the 18" roller and he already threw away the brush, so I try to rectify it as best I can. It's in a corner of the shop so hard to get to, but I manage to mostly fix it.
The next morning, the primer looks good. There are some spots that are "splotchy" and not quite perfectly smooth, but I'm fine with it.
One thing to note - my son is able to do the trim (sloppily) in about 15 min, while it takes me about 1.5 hours to finish the rest.
Third Day - Polyurea
Today (8/12) is the day we decide to do both the color coat and final coat of polyurea. I've been waiting for this day for a long time!
We start the polyurea at 8am with my son trimming the edges and me doing the roller. I read that polyurea sets up in 15 min or less, so I tell him to slow down and wait for me so that I can hit the edges that he did with the roller and blend it in. If he does all the trim first and then goes inside the house, then the trim will be all dry before I blend it in with the roller.
I put him to work to mix batches of polyurea for me, to keep him busy since anytime he isn't working, he'll ask "Dad, can I go now? Can I go inside?" Eventually, I let him do all the trim and I blend in the perimeter of the building with the roller so he can go, and then I finish the middle of the building.
I had been doing two passes (east-west, then north-south) with the polyurea. Towards the end, I was running low as I got to the garage doors, so I did only one pass on the final row. Not ideal, but with the white primer and white poly urea, I figure it'd be ok. I figure i was about a quart short.
This morning it was low 60's so when I went outside to check on it 3 hours later, it was still tacky and my thumbprint showed up so I decided to wait a bit to do the final coat.
This is where everything went sideways. We start at 4pm and it's overcast outside. It's light enough, but inside the workshop is a bit dim. We mix in the silver glitter with clear polyurea, and start applying. Neither of us can see where the polyurea is. My son is doing the trim, and we had talked about him slowing down so I can blend in the edges with the roller.
Well, he went fast and finished all the perimeter. With nothing to do and nothing to mix, he decides to start filling in cracks. There are some cracks in the middle of the field. In my mindset of trying to blend with the roller, I start following him around to "blend" the gooped up crack areas. At this point, my socks start sticking to the floor because cracks are everywhere and we're both randomly moving around the garage floor!
This was quickly becoming a **** show!
I can't see what's been finished or not. After chasing cracks, my son keeps asking "can I go back inside now"? ARGH! I tell him to get a headlamp to see if it will help me see the cracks, but it doesn't help. i decide to stop worrying about stepping in areas I had already rolled, and just continue in a zig-zag pattern out the garage doors. Sigh.
I'm having a hard time uploading pics, but here's the situation:
1) My son was filling in cracks from his pail, as I'm rolling with an 18" roller. The glitter content changed, and the cracks now have lots of glitter, whereas the field is lightly glittered.
2) I don't know where I got top coat and where I didn't. I'm sure there are polyurea footprints everywhere and lots of bare splotches. We literally did a random walk chasing cracks around the slab.
3) When my son went to get the headlamp, he tracked in some dirt so now there's a couple of splotches of dirt in the middle of my white floor!
4) I added anti-slip compound, but I don't think i needed it. Between the bubbles in the AD, dead insects, and now dirt tracked onto my floor, I'm gonna have plenty of grip!
If you've read this far, I now have a question: I bought 2x material because I'm planning to do my house garage as well. Hence, I have enough polyurea to do 2 more top coats in my workshop. Should I try to fix this by adding more polyurea tomorrow?
The moral of the story: Even the best prep and plans can't save you from yourself and a 14yo!
FTR - I'm not angry or upset about it. It's my workshop, I plan to make a mess in there anyway as I'm not kind to my floors. I told my son we'll see what it looks like tomorrow, and if we see glitter in all the wrong places, at least he and I know why.
I figure even if I didn't get the topcoat perfect, between the color coat and top coat, there should be plenty of polyurea on there. In automobiles, we talk about paint jobs from the distance you can notice an imperfection. I.e. a 1' vs 10' vs 50' paint job. I dunno what the equivalent is for garage flooring, but I imagine this will be a 20 footer.
NOTE: I do NOT blame my tools or the product in anyway at all. These are MY mistakes so don't take this as a negative review of anything else but me.
About me: I know nothing about flooring, concrete, etc, learned everything from the internetz. I just built a new workshop, and I plan to work on cars, planes, and motorcycles. The workshop build is a whole different story (still writing it up, still in progress). The salient points are:
- 36 x 40 metal building (1440 sf)
- no electricity yet (IOW, no lighting)
My son is 14 and doesn't enjoy this type of work. He'd rather be on the computer than helping his old man.
It started with a simple question about grinding. The workshop had just been erected and I was anxious to DIY the flooring. I studied and researched, did lots of work.
After much deliberation, I chose Legacy Industrials products because a coworker had used them, another coworker (who really understands chemistry) vouched for them, and I got good service from them. My decision was to use the following:
- Aquadike moisture barrier
- Standard epoxy primer in white
- Nohr-S polyurea in white
- Nohr-S clear topcoat w/ silver sparkles
I was going for the aircraft hanger look. Wanted some mineral-y look to the floors, which is why I added the silver glitter.
Concrete Prep
Prep was a long process. I rented three machines:
- single disc 10" grinder from Home Depot
- dual disc EDCO grinder w/ Magnatrap pucks
- 8" shot blaster
Long story short (I'll post a separate thread about this) I spent roughly 60 hours grinding concrete over two weeks to make sure the prep was done right. After grinding, instead of power washing, I decided to vacuum + leaf blower to get as much dust out as possible.
Some folks on here are able to get their garage cleaner than a semiconductor wafer fab, but I am not that OCD. I accept that this being my first time, I'm going to make mistakes, it won't be perfect, so I'm happy to come out with something nicer than the rustoleum kits. Seriously, I plan to use my garage, not eat off it! So I'm ok with defects.
As I use the shot blaster, my concrete starts to show surface cracks. These are somewhat deep, but I was out of Xtreme 100 crack filler and the Aquadike recommends to use that first, and then fill in cracks with a mixture of AD + filler. I figure I'm ok with seeing a few cracks on my garage slab, no big deal, so I didn't bother to really address this. I was also curious to see how much the product can mitigate cracks.
You'll see why this became a problem, but not for the reasons you think!
First Day - Aquadike
My son and I decide to tackle the garage Monday afternoon. He will use a paintbrush to get the edges and around the steel I-beam columns, and I'll use the roller in the field. We apply the AD easily, he finished the trim in 15 min and goes inside, leaving me alone to finish up an hour later.
Towards the end, as I'm rolling out past the garage door, my roller hits the dirt outside and gets dirty. Hence, I'm unable to backroll the last 5' or so near the garage door entrances. I have a notched squeegee so I did the best I could with that. We leave the garage doors open a crack as we leave, and I left some plywood leaned up against the doors to keep the dust out.
The next morning, I see the product cured nicely. There are a couple bugs embedded in the epoxy, a bunch of tiny pin-head sized bubbles in the field, and a two larger bubbles that I cut out with a knife. The area with the squeegee leveled out nicely, in fact there were less bubbles there than the areas that I backrolled. If I were to do it again, I may consider skipping the roller entirely and just using the notched squeegee to spread the product out nicely and let it self level.
A couple of small rocks had gotten embedded at the garage entrance where my roller had picked them up. I used my hand grinder to grind these down and decide I'll just epoxy over them. Not ideal, but it's flat enough after I grinded them.
Second Day - Epoxy Primer
Next up is the epoxy primer, 5 gallons. This is a two part product, 4:1 part A to B. Scotty advised me to split this into two batches. I didn't get the memo to mix part A thoroughly before pouring, so I start to pour out 2 gallons of A. It comes out brown. Halfway through the pour, I decide to shake it and it starts to get creamy. Hmm... I open the bucket, pour my 2 gallons back into it, and use the mixer to throughly premix. Dodged a bullet there!
I was told to only wear spike shoes with the AD, so I decided to wear only socks while applying the primer. Again, my son does the edges and I follow with the roller. He finishes way ahead of me and goes inside the house, leaving me to finish up. Things go moderately well, I dripped some primer here and there and stepped in it, getting primer on my socks and tracking it around the floor. Not a big deal.
There was one area where my son had decided to "pour" primer into, in an attempt to fill up a low area. I had read the instructions that said "applying this too thick may cause product to fail" but he didn't know that! I'm using the 18" roller and he already threw away the brush, so I try to rectify it as best I can. It's in a corner of the shop so hard to get to, but I manage to mostly fix it.
The next morning, the primer looks good. There are some spots that are "splotchy" and not quite perfectly smooth, but I'm fine with it.
One thing to note - my son is able to do the trim (sloppily) in about 15 min, while it takes me about 1.5 hours to finish the rest.
Third Day - Polyurea
Today (8/12) is the day we decide to do both the color coat and final coat of polyurea. I've been waiting for this day for a long time!
We start the polyurea at 8am with my son trimming the edges and me doing the roller. I read that polyurea sets up in 15 min or less, so I tell him to slow down and wait for me so that I can hit the edges that he did with the roller and blend it in. If he does all the trim first and then goes inside the house, then the trim will be all dry before I blend it in with the roller.
I put him to work to mix batches of polyurea for me, to keep him busy since anytime he isn't working, he'll ask "Dad, can I go now? Can I go inside?" Eventually, I let him do all the trim and I blend in the perimeter of the building with the roller so he can go, and then I finish the middle of the building.
I had been doing two passes (east-west, then north-south) with the polyurea. Towards the end, I was running low as I got to the garage doors, so I did only one pass on the final row. Not ideal, but with the white primer and white poly urea, I figure it'd be ok. I figure i was about a quart short.
This morning it was low 60's so when I went outside to check on it 3 hours later, it was still tacky and my thumbprint showed up so I decided to wait a bit to do the final coat.
This is where everything went sideways. We start at 4pm and it's overcast outside. It's light enough, but inside the workshop is a bit dim. We mix in the silver glitter with clear polyurea, and start applying. Neither of us can see where the polyurea is. My son is doing the trim, and we had talked about him slowing down so I can blend in the edges with the roller.
Well, he went fast and finished all the perimeter. With nothing to do and nothing to mix, he decides to start filling in cracks. There are some cracks in the middle of the field. In my mindset of trying to blend with the roller, I start following him around to "blend" the gooped up crack areas. At this point, my socks start sticking to the floor because cracks are everywhere and we're both randomly moving around the garage floor!
This was quickly becoming a **** show!
I can't see what's been finished or not. After chasing cracks, my son keeps asking "can I go back inside now"? ARGH! I tell him to get a headlamp to see if it will help me see the cracks, but it doesn't help. i decide to stop worrying about stepping in areas I had already rolled, and just continue in a zig-zag pattern out the garage doors. Sigh.
I'm having a hard time uploading pics, but here's the situation:
1) My son was filling in cracks from his pail, as I'm rolling with an 18" roller. The glitter content changed, and the cracks now have lots of glitter, whereas the field is lightly glittered.
2) I don't know where I got top coat and where I didn't. I'm sure there are polyurea footprints everywhere and lots of bare splotches. We literally did a random walk chasing cracks around the slab.
3) When my son went to get the headlamp, he tracked in some dirt so now there's a couple of splotches of dirt in the middle of my white floor!
4) I added anti-slip compound, but I don't think i needed it. Between the bubbles in the AD, dead insects, and now dirt tracked onto my floor, I'm gonna have plenty of grip!
If you've read this far, I now have a question: I bought 2x material because I'm planning to do my house garage as well. Hence, I have enough polyurea to do 2 more top coats in my workshop. Should I try to fix this by adding more polyurea tomorrow?
The moral of the story: Even the best prep and plans can't save you from yourself and a 14yo!
FTR - I'm not angry or upset about it. It's my workshop, I plan to make a mess in there anyway as I'm not kind to my floors. I told my son we'll see what it looks like tomorrow, and if we see glitter in all the wrong places, at least he and I know why.
I figure even if I didn't get the topcoat perfect, between the color coat and top coat, there should be plenty of polyurea on there. In automobiles, we talk about paint jobs from the distance you can notice an imperfection. I.e. a 1' vs 10' vs 50' paint job. I dunno what the equivalent is for garage flooring, but I imagine this will be a 20 footer.
