Time needed to DIY 420sq ft

[imgn tht]

Next spring, I'm planning to take a week off work and DIY my 420sq ft garage.

I'm in the initial research stages of what specific product I want to use. But have been leaning towards a polyspartic coating.

Existing floor is original slab built in the 50's, with a box store coating on it from 15-ish years ago. Concrete has tons of divots and craters.

Plan is to:
1. Hand grind the borders, and rent a large floor grinder for the rest.
2. Address any cracks I find. Then self leveling concrete for all the divots and imperfections.
3. Add whatever coating I ultimately choose and whatever many steps needed to complete. At minimum it would be a base color coating and thinking full flake.
4. Add UV resistant clear coat.

Obviously a bit of variables here with each step, but is it realistic to think I could accomplish this from start to finish in 9 days or less working myself full days. What I don't know is the dry time between steps.

 

[FJ4FUN]

A typical ~400sf project* utilizing our Chip Floor-full flake System would look like this:
Day 1: a.m. Grind floor and fill any cracks with IntegraFlex 1921
p.m. Apply BondTite 1101 primer
Day 2: a.m. Sand down any bubbles in primer coat, wipe down entire floor w/ denatured alcohol and apply LiquaTile 1184 body coat and flakes.
Day 3: a.m. Scrape flakes, wipe down with denatured alcohol and apply flood coat of either EnduraShield 2254 hybrid-urethane or, DecoFX 1110 clear epoxy.
Day 3 p.m. or Day 4 a.m.: Wipe floor with denatured alcohol and apply final clear coat of EnduraShield 2254 hybrid-urethane with, or without SpheriTex traction additive.

* based on floor in generally good condition with minor cracks, dings and dents......The full flake distribution combined with our high build, self leveling epoxies will handle the majority of damage seen in most residential garages.

 

[larry_g]

Have you allotted time to remove and store all the existing junk in the garage? Do you plan on removing everything from the floor or are you going to work around builtins? Alpha garage is assuming that their crew walks into a floor that is cleared and no interruptions from family and friends. Alpha also doesn't have to read instructions, find the special tools, and other things that a newb has to do. You on the other hand do have to factor all the learning curve into your schedule and time to do plan B if things don't go as planned.

I would get a couple of professional bids to see if you can make more money working than you will give up doing it yourself. Make sure that you factor in the cost of renting the grinders and paying for the stones.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[FJ4FUN]

Have you allotted time to remove and store all the existing junk in the garage? Do you plan on removing everything from the floor or are you going to work around builtins? Alpha garage is assuming that their crew walks into a floor that is cleared and no interruptions from family and friends. Alpha also doesn't have to read instructions, find the special tools, and other things that a newb has to do. You on the other hand do have to factor all the learning curve into your schedule and time to do plan B if things don't go as planned.

I would get a couple of professional bids to see if you can make more money working than you will give up doing it yourself. Make sure that you factor in the cost of renting the grinders and paying for the stones.

lg
no neat sig line

"Alpha" doesn't run a crew, ALL we do is help the DIY community apply best-in-class floor coating products.

I didn't assume anything. I addressed, very specifically, what the OP inquired about.

@imgn tht "Plan is to:
1. Hand grind the borders, and rent a large floor grinder for the rest.
2. Address any cracks I find. Then self leveling concrete for all the divots and imperfections.
3. Add whatever coating I ultimately choose and whatever many steps needed to complete. At minimum it would be a base color coating and thinking full flake.
4. Add UV resistant clear coat."

@larry_g "I would get a couple of professional bids to see if you can make more money working than you will give up doing it yourself." Not everything is about money... The DIY community is full of people who derive a great deal of satisfaction from doing, what many lesser people would consider to be "too difficult" a job, all on their own. And, as an added bonus, they likely achieve a better outcome than what they would have received had they just paid out the big bucks for some franchise, one day in 'n out, hack job. Finding contractors to come in and apply high build multicoat epoxy floors can be challenging, if not almost impossible, in many areas. Many of these contractors often won't even get out of their truck for anything less than 2000sf and residential? Forget it!

 

[imgn tht]

I would expect to clear the garage myself starting on day 1. No built-ins on the floor to be in the way. I do prefer to do the work myself and value my savings account more than my time.

So as I see it, day 1 would be remove everything from the garage, sweep or blow it out and start hand grinding the edges.

Day 1pm or early day 2: I would rent the commercial grinder for the main section of the floor and clean.

Day 3: address any cracks and imperfections in the concrete and primer coat if I'm doing the Alpha product.

By day 4, I would be expecting to start laying down new base coat and flakes.

So that would still give me 5 additional days to add more layers, clear it, dry, and reload my stuff. Seems doable.

I've also laid down box store epoxy twice before in different areas of my house. Far from a pro, but not a complete noob either.

 

[Armorpoxy]

Hi
We have complete ready to install kits for sale making this an easy project, our SPGX one part polyurea kits would allow a one day install. We also sell complete Polyaspartic kits.

We also now carry our amazing No Prep spray on primer which elimitates grinding or etching and we carry a wide variety of crack fillers.

Contact us directly at below for a quote and Garage Journal discount.

 

[FJ4FUN]

I would expect to clear the garage myself starting on day 1. No built-ins on the floor to be in the way. I do prefer to do the work myself and value my savings account more than my time.

So as I see it, day 1 would be remove everything from the garage, sweep or blow it out and start hand grinding the edges.

Day 1pm or early day 2: I would rent the commercial grinder for the main section of the floor and clean.

Day 3: address any cracks and imperfections in the concrete and primer coat if I'm doing the Alpha product.

By day 4, I would be expecting to start laying down new base coat and flakes.

So that would still give me 5 additional days to add more layers, clear it, dry, and reload my stuff. Seems doable.

I've also laid down box store epoxy twice before in different areas of my house. Far from a pro, but not a complete noob either.

This would make for a very orderly install for a one man show. If you wanted, you could knock out day 2 and 3 in one (long) day. Grind the main section, address cracks and imperfections and prime the same day.

 

[Dakotadadv8]

Yes it can be done weather helps DIY great project buy the best quality tools and product your labor and learn. Good luck.

 

[mike93lx]

Always hits me as a ton of work for a non permanent product that isn't super durable (depending on your use case). I'd be hard pressed to spend all that time and effort on a garage floor and not do porcelain tile, or something that is easily removed like racedeck.

Besides all of the posts talking about curing issues or off gassing from coatings. Having a project like this spill out past a week that will already be a ton of work? No thanks

 

[Armorpoxy]

This can definitely we an easy one day job with the proper materials selected. Have a beer on day 2!

 

[FJ4FUN]

Always hits me as a ton of work for a non permanent product that isn't super durable (depending on your use case). I'd be hard pressed to spend all that time and effort on a garage floor and not do porcelain tile, or something that is easily removed like racedeck.

Besides all of the posts talking about curing issues or off gassing from coatings. Having a project like this spill out past a week that will already be a ton of work? No thanks

To be fair, usually the worst part is actually emptying the garage and finding a place to safely store all the junk (if the space is currently occupied). Grinding, prepping, and applying the primer coat in an average two car garage with well sorted rental EQ is a solid days worth of work with two people, the OP is a one man show so a more casual approach works for him. The actual application of product will take about three hours per coat including clean up. Yes, for the first timer there's no avoiding the fact that your heart rate goes up a bit the moment Parts A&B come together and the clock starts ticking but, if they've read and understood the rather basic instructions, have the necessary basic tools at hand and ready, they'll be fine.

As far as curing issues go, let me just put it this way, if an individual struggled with successfully putting together a plastic model airplane kit as a kid then, maybe, they should stick to Legos. There are a few steps needed to assess current concrete condition and making any needed repairs but the biggest culprit in a 2K system is always incomplete/improper mixing. The double bucket mix instructions that we promote are basically fool proof IF followed and will eliminate this concern. The only other skill required will be the ability to monitor time and temperature.

If you want to completely avoid the potential off gassing/fumes issue simply stick to a 100% solids product like the ones that we offer.

With regards to durability, AlphaGarage has been representing Wolverine Coatings for 15 years now and we're just starting to get calls from past customers who are considering a fresh coat of our hybrid-urethane top coat and get plenty of calls from past customers who are now on their 3rd or 4th home, shop, hangar and have applied one of our coating systems in each one. They LOVE their Wolverine Coatings' floors!

 

[mike93lx]

To be fair, usually the worst part is actually emptying the garage and finding a place to safely store all the junk (if the space is currently occupied). Grinding, prepping, and applying the primer coat in an average two car garage with well sorted rental EQ is a solid days worth of work with two people, the OP is a one man show so a more casual approach works for him. The actual application of product will take about three hours per coat including clean up. Yes, for the first timer there's no avoiding the fact that your heart rate goes up a bit the moment Parts A&B come together and the clock starts ticking but, if they've read and understood the rather basic instructions, have the necessary basic tools at hand and ready, they'll be fine.

As far as curing issues go, let me just put it this way, if an individual struggled with successfully putting together a plastic model airplane kit as a kid then, maybe, they should stick to Legos. There are a few steps needed to assess current concrete condition and making any needed repairs but the biggest culprit in a 2K system is always incomplete/improper mixing. The double bucket mix instructions that we promote are basically fool proof IF followed and will eliminate this concern. The only other skill required will be the ability to monitor time and temperature.

If you want to completely avoid the potential off gassing issues simply stick to a 100% solids product like the ones that we offer.

With regards to durability, AlphaGarage has been representing Wolverine Coatings for 15 years now and we're just starting to get calls from past customers who are considering a fresh coat of our hybrid-urethane top coat and get plenty of calls from past customers who are now on their 3rd or 4th home, shop, hangar and have applied one of our coating systems in each one. They LOVE their Wolverine Coatings' floors!

I know there are lots of people that love their epoxy floor and as a seller, I'd expect nothing less than a strong defense of the system and process

 

[imgn tht]

I've considered porcelain, but just not sold on its ability to be slip resistant. Also hate doing grout and imagine it would need to be a dark color to keep it from getting dirty. We get snow and water from the cars so I'm also concerned with mold growing in the grout.

Racedeck style flooring is still an option I am considering. I got some samples this past summer and I find many pros to using it over epoxy. There's just something about a nice glossy deep finish that keeps drawing me back to epoxy.

And again, I don't mind the labor. I actually enjoy manual labor and keeping myself occupied.

 

[mike93lx]

Porcelain is used around pools... There are lots of slip resistant options, plus with epoxy grouts, you can get really stain resistant options. Either war, whatever makes you happy

 

[FJ4FUN]

@imgn tht "There's just something about a nice glossy deep finish that keeps drawing me back to epoxy."
You'd like a "glossy deep finish"?...... How about this? [LOL]