New floor, what to do?

[MongoTom]

I've got this gorgeous, new, absolutely flawless 26X26 floor poured with PEX tubing to be heated next winter. Now it's time to protect it. I've been looking at various coatings and at products like RaceDeck. There are pro's and con's to each. This is the mid-west, land of road salt and although the decking products look amazing, I fear all that salt water will run through and destroy the surface of the concrete. If I had enough cash, the best idea would seem to be to protect the surface with a coating of some kind and then cover it with a decking product.
Please throw ideas my way. High end coating or a minimal, protective coating followed by decking?

In the end, it will be a work area, complete with a 4 post lift for storing another vehicle and perhaps a 2 post for more serious work.

 

[Ultimate Floors by Rhino]

If its as flawless as you say I have always been keen on shot blasting the floor and clear coating with anti-slip material. I install so many different color floors just plain cement cleared looks different and is a change of pace.

 

[dcs Inc]

If you shot blast you will need to do a light spiral grind to rid yourself of "corn rolls". This happens when you overlap the previous blast row. That area gets hit twice and leaves a deeper cut. This is especially true when just clear coating.

It's difficult to do a perfect blast on concrete. This IS the best practice for prepping concrete but for clear coatings and thin mil applications you need to rid yourself of the pattern cut of a shot blast application. gene

www.elitecrete.com

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Excellent application for a densifer/waterproofer. Prep is minimal.

 

[Garage Flooring]

Very similar to the thread http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143229 . You have a world of options. If you are looking to do both a coating and a tile product I would follow Legacy Industrial's advice and then you'll have a bunch of us chime in on which tile to use over top.

 

[MongoTom]

You're right, it is!
I put a lot of vapor protection in this slab and the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards a good coating. Maybe down the road I'll spice it up with tiles.