Planning Garage Floor Project

[Diclonus]

Hi all,

New home owner here, hoping to gain some insight on doing a DIY garage floor system. I have a ~650 SQFT 3 car garage with relatively small stem walls that I'd also like to coat.

A little bit about what I have planned: I would like a full-flake system in a neutral color (gray or tan) with a polyurea or polyaspartic clear coat with some aggregate for slippage.

I am trying to price this for less than $1500, all inclusive. I have a new construction home and the concrete has been cured, is older than 3 months, and has not seen any vehicle traffic yet. I plan on renting a diamond grinder and using a finer grit as I don't need to remove any stains, just open up the concrete a little to make it more porous.

The system I thought I wanted to install was a colored base coat epoxy with full flake coverage, but realizing if I wanted a full flake system, the color of whats underneath probably wouldn't matter a whole lot.

The insight I'm looking to gain is:

• What is a "good" base material to use for a coating between the concrete and the flakes? I don't believe it would need a superior abrasion rating, but from my understanding it just needs to act as a good chemical and water barrier.
• Is there a specific material and size of chip/flake/broadcast that I should avoid or move towards? From my albeit limited research, I have only seen vinyl chips/flakes. Does the material even matter? I plan on using at least 1/8" chips and leaning towards 1/4".
• What is a reputable polyurea/polyaspartic formula to use for the topcoat? I have researched and so far selected GhostShield Polyaspartic 745, NOHR-S Polyurea (Apparently very friendly to DIY with Pot Life) and Armorpoxy SPGX (One Component, like NOHR-S is alluring for a first-time DIYer)

And lastly, does anyone see any issue with the proposed system? I feel this setup would be pretty basic, but from what I understand, would be a decent system.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

 

[Shea]

You have a couple of choices. If you want to go with a partial flake floor that will be very durable, a single-part polyurea color coat, flakes, and clear coat is a great way to go and will fit easily within your budget.

If you want a full flake floor, an epoxy primer, high solids epoxy color coat, full flakes and a couple coats of a single-part polyurea would be extremely tough and long lasting. The high solids epoxy makes for a good base coat for a full flake floor. The most popular flake size is 1/4". The color of the epoxy actually does make a difference depending on what blend of chips you decide on. This would be more expensive, but it should still fit within your budget.

 

[Diclonus]

Hi Shea, thank you for your reply!

I'm definitely leaning towards going with a full-flake floor. Is there a specific reason why the high solids epoxy makes for a good base coat? Is it from thickness of the coat?

This would kind of go into my next question is there a good range of thicknesses to shoot for in terms of mils for the coating system? I imagine the flakes will add a good bit of the thickness, so is there a certain mil threshold I should try to hit for the base and top coats?

I think that I can do a primer, high solids base, flakes to rejection and a couple parts of polyurea, but the question would then be how thick of a coating can I get within budget, and how far out of budget (if at all) would be a target thickness.

- Diclonus

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Hi all,

New home owner here, hoping to gain some insight on doing a DIY garage floor system. I have a ~650 SQFT 3 car garage with relatively small stem walls that I'd also like to coat.

A little bit about what I have planned: I would like a full-flake system in a neutral color (gray or tan) with a polyurea or polyaspartic clear coat with some aggregate for slippage.

I am trying to price this for less than $1500, all inclusive. I have a new construction home and the concrete has been cured, is older than 3 months, and has not seen any vehicle traffic yet. I plan on renting a diamond grinder and using a finer grit as I don't need to remove any stains, just open up the concrete a little to make it more porous.

The system I thought I wanted to install was a colored base coat epoxy with full flake coverage, but realizing if I wanted a full flake system, the color of whats underneath probably wouldn't matter a whole lot.

The insight I'm looking to gain is:

• What is a "good" base material to use for a coating between the concrete and the flakes? I don't believe it would need a superior abrasion rating, but from my understanding it just needs to act as a good chemical and water barrier.
• Is there a specific material and size of chip/flake/broadcast that I should avoid or move towards? From my albeit limited research, I have only seen vinyl chips/flakes. Does the material even matter? I plan on using at least 1/8" chips and leaning towards 1/4".
• What is a reputable polyurea/polyaspartic formula to use for the topcoat? I have researched and so far selected GhostShield Polyaspartic 745, NOHR-S Polyurea (Apparently very friendly to DIY with Pot Life) and Armorpoxy SPGX (One Component, like NOHR-S is alluring for a first-time DIYer)

And lastly, does anyone see any issue with the proposed system? I feel this setup would be pretty basic, but from what I understand, would be a decent system.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

We have a kit specific to full-flake. http://www.legacyindustrial.net/pro...ing-kits/legacy-sd-full-flake-garage-kit.html

It uses (2) topcoats of Nohr-S.

 

[wmblanken]

You could get a two car and a one car kit of Roll on Rock for about $1500 that would cover 1500 sq ft. I believe others on the site have used it and you can probably find reviews.

http://www.garagecoatings.com/product/roll-on-rock-epoxy-polyaspartic-garage-flooring-system-kit.asp

 

[Shea]

Hi Shea, thank you for your reply!

I'm definitely leaning towards going with a full-flake floor. Is there a specific reason why the high solids epoxy makes for a good base coat? Is it from thickness of the coat?

- Diclonus

A full flake floor requires quite a bit of flakes. The high solids to 100% solids epoxy base coat will be 8-12 mils thick DFT on average. This will allow for more of the flakes to sink in and take hold than a thinner coating will allow. Even after scraping the excess flakes, there will be nooks and crannies that the top coat flows into. This is why 2 coats of a polyurea clear should be used.

A primer will generally be 2-3 mils DFT depending on how much the concrete absorbs. Add the epoxy color coat, full flakes at an average of 5 mils thick plus the clear coats, you can easily have a flooring system that is 20 mils thick or more. This makes for an extremely durable system. The full flakes make for better impact resistance as well.

Most people don't need to do much more than this for a residential garage floor unless it's being used for commercial purposes.

 

[Armorpoxy]

Hi, please contact us directly (not via GJ please) as we can definitely get you a kit together in your budget for a full broadcast with SPGX or epoxy. For full broadcasts Epoxy may be a better choice since epoxy is thicker than SPGX so it holds the flecks better.

 

[Garage Flooring]

Hi all,

New home owner here, hoping to gain some insight on doing a DIY garage floor system. I have a ~650 SQFT 3 car garage with relatively small stem walls that I'd also like to coat.

A little bit about what I have planned: I would like a full-flake system in a neutral color (gray or tan) with a polyurea or polyaspartic clear coat with some aggregate for slippage.

I am trying to price this for less than $1500, all inclusive. I have a new construction home and the concrete has been cured, is older than 3 months, and has not seen any vehicle traffic yet. I plan on renting a diamond grinder and using a finer grit as I don't need to remove any stains, just open up the concrete a little to make it more porous.

The system I thought I wanted to install was a colored base coat epoxy with full flake coverage, but realizing if I wanted a full flake system, the color of whats underneath probably wouldn't matter a whole lot.

The insight I'm looking to gain is:

• What is a "good" base material to use for a coating between the concrete and the flakes? I don't believe it would need a superior abrasion rating, but from my understanding it just needs to act as a good chemical and water barrier.
• Is there a specific material and size of chip/flake/broadcast that I should avoid or move towards? From my albeit limited research, I have only seen vinyl chips/flakes. Does the material even matter? I plan on using at least 1/8" chips and leaning towards 1/4".
• What is a reputable polyurea/polyaspartic formula to use for the topcoat? I have researched and so far selected GhostShield Polyaspartic 745, NOHR-S Polyurea (Apparently very friendly to DIY with Pot Life) and Armorpoxy SPGX (One Component, like NOHR-S is alluring for a first-time DIYer)

And lastly, does anyone see any issue with the proposed system? I feel this setup would be pretty basic, but from what I understand, would be a decent system.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

Our new full broadcast system for up to 750 Sq. Ft would run you $2000.79. The sale is going to save you a couple hundred dollars. You'll get the base coating, flake, two coats of top coat, anti wear additive (also serves as anti skid) and roller covers that we know work well with this product.

We are quickly moving towards 1/16" flake on full broadcast. But we can do whatever you like

 

[Kaizen]

One thing about the stem wall. I ordered extra as I wanted to roll on some to get the same base coat color. My wall was so pourus that it looked like **** and stopped. Decided to just get paint color matched and hand brush it on at a later time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Armorpoxy]

Regarding stem wall painting we always recommend that you do that last. When you start the floor paint some epoxy on a piece of cardboard and save it.

When the floor is complete if you have enough left over, great coat the wall, but the stem walls are usually rough and really **** up the epoxy so take the cardboard to a local paint store and have them match an enamel and just use that. The walls see no traffic so this method usually works out fine and eliminates the need to buy more expensive epoxy unnecessarily.

 

[Wileel]

I did a similar size last year in my shop with epoxy, flake to rejection and clear poly top coat. I used the legacy system recommended here and it went smooth as could be. There are picts in my profile and I have more as I was doing it if you want to see.

I can say looking back I would do it again, and actually will be laying the same stuff on my covered back patio in a few weeks. Clean-up is amazing and I have yet to find anything that wont wipe up off of it while wet. I did get some bright red rustoleum drips on it and cure but that came up easy with my fingernail in full drip circles for the most part. There were some stubborn areas that the paint had gotten kinda stuck in the chip edges but some acetone on a rag and ****...all gone and zero damage to the clear.