Problem With 3 Year Old Epoxy Floor

[GlennSullivan]

Long story short, the garage was built in 2005 and at the time floor was done with 100% solids Epoxy. We did ALOT of work in the garage over 15 years and by 2020 the coating needed to be replaced.

Did the project in 2021. The company chosen to do the work had good references and seemed to do a good job. They spent several days grinding off the old epoxy, cleaning and vacuuming the concrete. They put down and sanded several coats of primer, then color and top coat. The floor is no flake.

Here is the issue: About 6" of my slab, sticks out past the garage doors and is subject to weather and temperature changes throughout the year. The initial coating put down in 2005, never had an issue in this area, but the new floor is cracking and peeling in the areas that are subject to weather and now spreading under and inside the doors.

I'd like to have just these problem areas ground down and refinished. It would be from the beginning of the slab to just inside each door, 12" or so. But I want to understand what happened to this new coating and what I need to have done differently to ensure it will adhere like the original floor did for so many years.

I tried to get the original installer to fix it and although they did come and look when it started peeling a year after the install, they have gone dark on me and the cost of retaining an attorney (in NJ we are in NY) and taking them to court would far exceed the repair.

I understand and accept the fact that I will not have a seamless transition or perfect color match between the current floor and the area that is repaired. Redoing the entire floor again is not an option either financially or from a standpoint of renting storage containers and emptying the entire garage again.

What suggestions do any of you have to get this done in a proper fashion? Thanks in advance. Pics below

Outside of garage showing slab extending beyond insulated doors.


Floor just after completion in August 2021



Door 1: Floor coating coming up - shown looking in from driveway with door open.


Door 2: Floor coating coming up - shown looking in from driveway with door open.


Door 3: Floor coating coming up - shown looking in from driveway with door open.

 

[BillK]

It looks like there is a crack where at least one of the peeling areas is. I am betting moisture is coming up there and causing the issue. I don't know how many spots are affected but if it is just the area shown in your pictures I would probably scrape it off real good and see if you can get a small amount of epoxy that is a good match for the color and just brush it on.

 

[gatewaysysop]

Nice looking shop. Interesting architecture, but it looks good.

It looks like there is a crack where at least one of the peeling areas is. I am betting moisture is coming up there and causing the issue. I don't know how many spots are affected but if it is just the area shown in your pictures I would probably scrape it off real good and see if you can get a small amount of epoxy that is a good match for the color and just brush it on.

I'd probably be tempted to do something along these lines too. No way I'd have grinding and mess going on in that shop again.

 

[GlennSullivan]

Nice looking shop. Interesting architecture, but it looks good.



I'd probably be tempted to do something along these lines too. No way I'd have grinding and mess going on in that shop again.

There are 2 cracks, but the new coating peeled (in the area exposed to weather) even where there were no cracks. The most confusing thing to me is the original epoxy coating, which lasted 15 years, had no lifting / peeling at any of the doors.

I was thinking that I could build a plastic tarp tent at each door, open to the outside and sealed to the inside so the damaged area can be ground while keeping the dust out.

 

[GlennSullivan]

After communicating with Shea quite a bit overt he last week and thinking through the process of this floor getting installed, I believe I figured out what happened to the floor.

In 2021 we had a lot of work done on our property and garage building. I went back and looked at the sequence of the work and found that the garage walls and interior were done first, then the garage floor, then the lawn / sprinklers and finally about a month later the driveway was pulled up and repaved.

I believe that the 300+ degree asphalt put down and rolled out next to the 1 month old coated floor, caused the coating to to become damaged and begin to separate from the substrate when exposed to the extreme heat. When installed, the coating DID waterfall over the face of the slab which would have put it in direct contact with the hot pavement at the time it was put down.

This also explains the thing that was troubling me most; why I did not have an issue with the portion of the floor that was and is exposed to weather (outside of the doors) for the 15 years after the first epoxy floor was installed.

At that time the driveway was put down in the late fall of 2005 and the new epoxy floor installed in the spring of 2006, as I wanted plenty of cure time on the slab.

I want to look into different coatings that will both hold up to exposure to summer sun and winter freezing temperatures but may be a better match to my existing floor? If so, what can / should I be looking at? I've asked Shea this same question and looking forward to what he comes up with.

 

[GlennSullivan]

Followup:
We ended up sanding & grinding 50" deep the width of each door down to bare concrete. Then coating this prepped area with 3 coats of Nohr-S Polyurea Coating. 2 dark tinted coats (could not match the existing grey) and clear top with anti-skid, 3-4 hours apart when the previous coat was dry to the touch. Came out decent. hopefully it holds up much better.

 

[FJ4FUN]

Very well done! My only question is, did you consider doing a continuous strip connecting all three bays or would the garage door rails have complicated everything too much?

 

[GlennSullivan]

We thought about that, but as you said, the rails and base molding between the doors complicated things. Also, if you notice, we created a little "booth" (Pic 1 & 2) that sealed the work area from the garage interior. We moved it from door to door allowing us to grind and sand each bay without the dust getting into the garage. that would not have worked if we did in between the doors.

Looking at it now it prolly would have looked better, but ALOT more work.

 

[Shea]

Looks great! The mobile paint booth was brilliant.

 

[FJ4FUN]

We thought about that, but as you said, the rails and base molding between the doors complicated things. Also, if you notice, we created a little "booth" (Pic 1 & 2) that sealed the work area from the garage interior. We moved it from door to door allowing us to grind and sand each bay without the dust getting into the garage. that would not have worked if we did in between the doors.

Looking at it now it prolly would have looked better, but ALOT more work.

Don't get me wrong, it looks great!

 

[GlennSullivan]

Looks great! The mobile paint booth was brilliant.

Thanks for all your help and advice Shea, couldn't have done it without you.