Prep advice, very old garage...

[joony]

So I've been looking to epoxy the garage for some time now and finally really looked into it. The house was built in the 50s, so that makes it almost a 60 year old garage.

After sweeping for dirt, I realized that it was a lot worse than it really was. Here are some issues:

1. Some of the concrete is chipping away in thin flakes
2. There is a 'rocky' concrete under the chipping part (is that normal?)
3. None of the concrete is absorbing water

From what I've been reading, shot blasting might be a good option, but pricey? It's about a 11x22' garage.

Do I need to level off the concrete? I'm not sure if the Rustoleum concrete patch and repair is for giant patches like mine...

 

[nissan_crawler]

Mine was built in 1950. When I bought the house, the garage floor was covered with an inch of grease, oil, and dirt. It's a 20x24 garage, I spent 13 hours pressure washing it, 6 gallons of purple power, 2 boxes of TSP, and the acid. I put the rustoleum epoxy on it, and it's lasted through 5 years of welding/torching/grinding/plasma cuting/gas spills/oil spills/you name it. It still looks fine.

 

[Fuller]

That white salty deposit (if thats what it is) could be evidence of water issues.

 

[timgr]

What part of the country is this? Looks to me like you have salt damage - cause by road salt in the winter. The floor to my garage is in similar condition. Take a look at this thread:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7836
and this one
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11955

 

[joony]

That white stuff is just road salt that I haven't hosed out yet. I'm pretty sure it goes away, I hope...

This is near Chicago.

 

[thegarageguy]

What you have there is heavy detirioration. A thin film epoxy system would not be recommended. If this was a sales call that I went to, I would not offer an epoxy system but rather a resurfacer. A resurfacer would be a resinous cement or a portland-urethane mix. Then epoxy over that for a decorative look.

That would be my recommendation.

 

[SC-Eric]

While we do offer resurfacing products, it doesn't look like you need it fromt he pics to me. The cost would be a bit much as well.

Our BondTite 1101 primer and LiquaTile 1184 is routinely used to fix areas as bad as I see there. You will probably need to do one extra coat to level the concrete.

 

[thegarageguy]

The time and effort to skim coat patch all that detirioration would be much. Maybe if you had a mason on your family or someone in your family married a potuguese. Then that extra coat....would bring the price back up. You'd still be very thin, even with a heavy broadcast. Tops, 3/16 inch thick??

A resurfacer goes down 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick and you can literally take a hammer to it and it will not shatter or crumble. Done in two days!

But hey, different strokes for different folks. There are definately many ways to skin a cat. Professionally done ofcourse.