Testing to figure out what I have on my floor

[Toyman321]

My garage just kind of happened, we moved in and the garage was completely empty. No shelves, no work bench, nothing. The only thing that had been done was that the floor had been coated. Over the years I've built in shelves, a workbench storage cabinets etc etc but never gave the flooring any thought.

I've been lurking here for a bit looking for ideas. The garage is functional but now I'm wanting to "nice up" the garage and also make it easier to keep clean. I have no idea is the coating on my floor is a paint or epoxy coating (Im assuming it's paint). Is there any way to test the coating to figure out what it is?

I'm assuming it is paint, if it turns out it is I've read varying opinions on if it needs to be 100% stripped if I wanted to go with an epoxy coating or if a good cleaning and scuffing is enough. Any opinions or help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pauloman]

don't need to strip if it is well bonded.

Try soaking some strong solvent on it - like acetone, xylene etc. his will not hurt cured epoxy but should lift/damage other coatings.

 

[milner351]

I have the same question - just bought a place with a mystery coated floor - Thanks Paul - I'll try the strong solvent in a corner to see if it will lift.

I need to re-coat with some shark grip or similar anti slip coating
(not sure I want the grittiness of a full quartz broadcast floor)

 

[pauloman]

you can control the grittiness of a full broadcast quartz floor by how you apply the epoxy topcoat. Generally you thin solvent free epoxy floor paints 25% when rolling it over a sand broadcast floor. Less thinning will bury more of the texture.

paul