Question about Epoxying the garage floor. :)

[schi]

Hi All, my first post. I tried researching this topic but there is no definite answer. So maybe someone can assist me with this. I am planning to epoxy my garage floor. I bought the house 1 year ago. It is a 6 year old house. The garage floor has the salt/mineral spots when it gets wet. I did the test of taping the plastic bags on the floor for a day and it appears to have condensation, it was not very wet but it did darken the covered cement.

I live in Sacramento/Elk Grove in California. The weather when i conducted the moisture test was High 66F and Low 45F. Garage was did not have any water for over three weeks.

How can I correct this? I can buy a sealer to seal the cement before epoxying? will the waterproofing the cement with silane or siloxane help? What can i do to epoxy the cement in the garage? please HELP.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Hi All, my first post. I tried researching this topic but there is no definite answer. So maybe someone can assist me with this. I am planning to epoxy my garage floor. I bought the house 1 year ago. It is a 6 year old house. The garage floor has the salt/mineral spots when it gets wet. I did the test of taping the plastic bags on the floor for a day and it appears to have condensation, it was not very wet but it did darken the covered cement.

I live in Sacramento/Elk Grove in California. The weather when i conducted the moisture test was High 66F and Low 45F. Garage was did not have any water for over three weeks.

How can I correct this? I can buy a sealer to seal the cement before epoxying? will the waterproofing the cement with silane or siloxane help? What can i do to epoxy the cement in the garage? please HELP.

You have found evidence of water under your slab. You should not epoxy your floor. It is likely your floor will shed the coating or create some issues that you will likely be unhappy with.

Some choices are:
Stain and Polish
RaceDeck- Call Jaime at Roark Industrial, 757-287-5149, best price and help
Seal with a water based acrylic sealer.

At the very least you could densifiy it, this would help stop the efflorescence you are experiencing.

 

[schi]

Hi Legacy, thanks for the reply. What if i was to apply the ACRYLIC SEALER before the epoxy? Do you think I can epoxy over that and it will be fine? Can you provide some links to some DIY staining and polishing? Is it harder than epoxying? Thanks again.

 

[AlphaGarage]

There are also topical treatments that will fix the problem. Check out Barrier-1.

 

[tool whore]

I did not use the plastic bag test, but rather the aluminum foil test. I think I got it off the box of rust oleum epoxy from lowes. As I recall, I used about a square foot piece in four different spots. Taped down with masking tape. I also recall something about which side had to face up (shiny, I think) and there were specific instructions about the temps. I believe it was around 70 degrees with no rain for a week or so. HTH. Give the foil a try before you do something costly.

 

[vrog]

There are also topical treatments that will fix the problem. Check out Barrier-1.

I have seen nothing but problems with Barrier 1. What has been your experience with this product?

I have seen rug, VCT and Marble all have issues with Barrier 1. The Barrier 1 does not allow anything to penetrate into the concrete and trades are having problems sticking to it. Koster and Stonfil OP2 is a good choice aswell but will need some type of decorative overlayment over it.

Another option is a flooring system that can mitigate a certain amount of moisture such as a 1/4" troweled mortar system. However, these are very pricey for the average home owners garage.

 

[AlphaGarage]

I'm not very familiar with Barrier-1. I know that they are very successful at backing up their claim - no moisture penetration, period. Their rock solid guarantee is for 10 years (read the guarantee at their site, it's simple and easy - no wiggle room for them) that's a bold promise and considering the projects they're used in one failure, one claim could bankrupt them. Consider when they're used in a below grad structure several stories deep. If that starts to leak, there is no easy remediation. Fortunately their technology flat out works. It's not cheap - but it sure does the trick.

I also understand that one of their problems, and a reason they weren't aggressively marketing their topical treatment, was that trades were, in fact, having difficulty with any coating, epoxy, polyurethane, polyaspartics, liquid nail, paints, specialty adhesives, anything, stick to their treated concrete - that is until they tried Wolverine BondTite Epoxy - it's the only coating they've found that bonds to their products.

That's why if you look at their site Wolverine BondTite is featured as the product they recommend if you need to apply any coating over concrete treated with their moisture barrier. They're staking their hard earned reputation, their whole company, on it.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Hi Legacy, thanks for the reply. What if i was to apply the ACRYLIC SEALER before the epoxy? Do you think I can epoxy over that and it will be fine? Can you provide some links to some DIY staining and polishing? Is it harder than epoxying? Thanks again.

Think of it like this:
Concrete is the engine, water is the fuel.
As soon as the water is introduced under the slab, the concrete goes into drive, it ***** up all that water and immediately passes it to the top, leaving as a gas. That is why you see the minerals left behind, better known as efflorescence. You never see anything actually wet, just the evidence left behind.

The acrylic sealer by itself, has a poor cross-link, allowing the moisture to pass through. Add epoxy to it (great cross-link) and you are now capping the moisture below, eventually the moisture wins and blows the epoxy off.

I have seen the concrete get blown off with the epoxy still stuck to it!!

It is not worth the effort. Mother nature always wins in the end. Besides, some of the alternatives are pretty nifty anyways.

Lastly, the sealer is easily removed later if you want to try something like the barrier product.

 

[schi]

thanks for all the input...i tried the fold test. same thing. there is quite a bit of moisture. I think I will not do anything to the garage floor since there seems to be too much hassle.