Pros & Cons of Various Floor Types

[Garage Flooring]

Products like Swisstrax, TrueLock Plus, RaceDeck and Sport Court use quality raw materials that yield great results. There is a ton of information out there about Chemical Resistance etc. Those of us in the industry like to make things sound fancier and more complex than they are. If there are specific chemicals that your floor will be exposed to on a regular basis, get a couple of samples in the color you intend to use and test them out. In over a decade in this business I have seen some incredible things, but the irony is in the end its a plastic tile designed for the garage floor. It won't cure cancer, won't span floor joists on 12" centers and if you stick a blow torch to it its going to melt The key to any flooring product is to decide what you want it to do and test is for that particular application.

You also have to keep in mind that industry testing standards are not necessarily done with the consumer in mind. I used to be a regional manager for a metal roofing manufacturer. We sold products with Class 4 hail ratings. It was published on every brochure and bragged about by many of the salespeople. The problem with that test is your roof can look like it got beat to death with a hammer, and if noting penetrated the rating stood -- and in some cases insurance would not pay because the roof was in tact. Polypropylene tiles, within each 12"x12" square are very resistant to a lot of things. BUT if the goal is truly to protect the substrate, they are not the right product.

All of us in this industry are salespeople. Most of us love what we do and what we sell and most of us do an honest job selling it. BUT be realistic about what is being purchased and run some tests of your own.

I was thinking more about the chemical resistance of the different tile floors. I found the following PDF from Race Deck stating their tiles are 100% polypropylene.

http://www.joewilde.com/files/products/garage-screens/RaceDeck-FAQ.pdf



Being in the environmental business for awhile, I understand that different materials such as polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), etc all have different chemical resistances. Truthfully I understand HDPE the best as that is 99% of what we sold and installed. When speaking about those type of liners or custom fabricated structures (sumps, manholes, etc) the real concern for contaminate leakage is at seams. For the most part, these liners are considered "leak proof". However, leak proof is typically defined by a small acceptable amount of leakage after a certain period of time.

I suspect PP is the same. Therefore, I found a chemical resistance chart to give me an idea how resistant to chemicals the RD tiles should be. Below is a link to the data I found:

http://www.gilsoneng.com/reference/ChemRes.pdf

Using my previous "spilled oil example", I decided to check on petroleum since that is the major content of motor oil and probably the most likely to be dropped on a garage floor. Look on page 20 of the attached link, and we can quickly see that PP has a good chemical resistance of petroleum up to 68 degrees. At 104 and 140 F the grade goes down to a 2 (limited resistance). There is no rating at 141+ F.

Other chemicals can be cross referenced. This is the one I chose to analyze.

So to me it looks like the solid tiles should offer some protection to the floors underneath, with the mindset each joint would be your weak point. While I mention Race Deck in this analysis, this would be true with any tile manufacturer of PP material. It's the properties of PP we are comparing.

Anyhow, not sure if this will benefit others, but I found it interesting.

 

[devenh]

How do four post lifts do on RaceDeck type floors? Can the posts rest on the tile?

Deven

 

[pauls_workshop]

All of us in this industry are salespeople. Most of us love what we do and what we sell and most of us do an honest job selling it. BUT be realistic about what is being purchased and run some tests of your own.

+ 12 for an honest and sincere manufacturer response and info! Excellent! - Paul

 

[RaceDeck1]

How do four post lifts do on RaceDeck type floors? Can the posts rest on the tile?

Deven

On "RaceDeck®" floors, you should really have no issue at all with all of the 4-post lifts that I am aware of on the market today. The load of the lift and car ( or cars) will be a non-issue. Of the other type floors, not sure?

 

[Cruisinthe34]

I installed my floor around my lift posts. Just left about 1/2" float space when I cut the tiles. I believe you could set the lift on top of the tiles, but in my case I had already lagged my lift to the floor and didn't want to undo it.

 

[Andrew LB]

This is a great graphic we recently did on the subject. I am working on finding a way to post it better here. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/484277766152008501/ courtesy of http://www.americangaragefloor.com

What people are looking for when coming to an internet forum to research a product is personal experience that's objective and honest. While I appreciate the effort, I don't really find much of a use for a marketing chart specifically made to steer people away a competitors product in favor of your own. And I do realize you offer epoxy, but 95% of what you offer is modular floor systems

One thing I learned from my Father who spent the past 40 years doing product advertising (along with two Cleo awards) is that if you have to mention your competitor in an unfair way, you'll push away more business than you'll bring in.

btw... I really like your logo and I know I sound like a d*ck but whoever did it for you should learn how to Kern the type. Having properly spaced letters in anything that's not a newspaper article is important and much more appealing to the eye.

If I didn't care, I wouldn't have spent the past 10 minutes with this example. Notice the letter spacing on "flooring" now. It's much easier to do this when it's an indesign or illustrator document and original resolution, so the change i did is by no means perfect.

http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums.../KernTheTypeNextTime_zpse43c515e.jpg~original

 

[Garage Flooring]

All of us in this industry are salespeople. Most of us love what we do and what we sell and most of us do an honest job selling it. BUT be realistic about what is being purchased and run some tests of your own.

+ 12 for an honest and sincere manufacturer response and info! Excellent! - Paul

Thanks!

 

[AmericanGarageFloor]

What people are looking for when coming to an internet forum to research a product is personal experience that's objective and honest. While I appreciate the effort, I don't really find much of a use for a marketing chart specifically made to steer people away a competitors product in favor of your own. And I do realize you offer epoxy, but 95% of what you offer is modular floor systems

One thing I learned from my Father who spent the past 40 years doing product advertising (along with two Cleo awards) is that if you have to mention your competitor in an unfair way, you'll push away more business than you'll bring in.

btw... I really like your logo and I know I sound like a d*ck but whoever did it for you should learn how to Kern the type. Having properly spaced letters in anything that's not a newspaper article is important and much more appealing to the eye.

If I didn't care, I wouldn't have spent the past 10 minutes with this example. Notice the letter spacing on "flooring" now. It's much easier to do this when it's an indesign or illustrator document and original resolution, so the change i did is by no means perfect.

http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums.../KernTheTypeNextTime_zpse43c515e.jpg~original

First of all, thanks for the comments about our logo. I am going to send them to a designer along with the PSD and see what she comes up with.

As to the chart that talks about the different types of garage flooring. I understand where you are coming from, but I can assure you the opposite was our intent. I can almost guarantee you that any of the epoxy vendors here would agree that we get a lot of people going into floor coatings and garage floor epoxy blind. They think they are going to run down to home depot, grab a roller and cover and bucket of $99 miracles and be done.

In our business, the happiest customers are those whose expectations have been properly set. Modular flooring is NOT the majority of what I sell. In fact I try not to SELL anything. We don't pay our customer service people any bonus or any commission. Their job is to LISTEN to the customer and what they need and then make a professional recommendation on what product best fits their needs.

Our previous ownership was very much opposed to DIY epoxy. We are not. We are in favor of it so long as the customer knows. A high quality full broadcast system for example is one of the nicest garage floors you will ever come across. It is incredibly durable. But all of that is contingent on doing it properly. If people are looking for quick and easy epoxy is NOT the right choice. If someone is looking for a permanent, professional grade garage floor and they are willing to buy the correct products from us, Legacy or any of the other reputable people AND do the work to put it down properly they will have an amazing floor. IT WILL TAKE LONGER, THEY WILL USE HARSH CHEMICALS OR ACID, and THEY SHOULD STAY OFF THE FLOOR for a bit. Those are not statements meant to sell or dissuade but to educate.