Urethane it is!

[rookie1]

After spending countless hours on this board reading about coatings I was convinced that the absolute best coating out there is a polyurea or a polyaspartic top coat. The vendors certainly confirm this every time they pitch their wares.

I received two quotes from large vendors for just over $5/sq ft for my 2000 sq ft garage. One vendor is a public company that does not do residential flooring. They focus on commercial, industrial, automotive etc. I have a friend that builds airplane hangars and as a favor they are doing my garage. The other company is one that polished our concrete floors in 2008 (church converted to a home).

Both are using a urethane as their top coat. They stated the only time they use a polyaspartic is if time is critical. I was told that if I could stay off the floors and wait until March (temps), the urethane is far superior. I would love feedback on this topic.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

We use urethane on metallic floors as they are a little flatter due to the long cure.
Otherwise it's PAP all the way for speedy cure.

The end result leans towards the PAP but the urethane is not far behind, in most cases.

 

[Antoddio]

What type of floor are you doing? That may make a diff in choice.


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[tncatadjuster]

Urethane.

 

[rookie1]

@Antoddio - I am doing a light metallic (Caribbean) with a urethane top coat. Roughly $5/sq ft for 2000 sq ft. That includes grinding.

 

[Antoddio]

@Antoddio - I am doing a light metallic (Caribbean) with a urethane top coat. Roughly $5/sq ft for 2000 sq ft. That includes grinding.

Okay. I'm assuming they are doing at least a primer then the metallic coat. I don't see too many polyaspartics top coats over metallic, but I think it would work as well. Polyurethane is more common for sure, but not considered as strong as the polyaspartic. Since it is a garage I would assume you are going with a matte finish? You'd be cleaning gloss every 5 minutes.

I'm not sure why they are saying wait until warmer temps for a polyurethane. Assuming they are doing an epoxy primer and epoxy metallic coat, that would be the material that presents most of the issue. So I'm not really following that.

 

[rookie1]

They told me that the urethane is what is temperature sensitive. Yes, grind, primer then metallic coat then urethane. I was recommended to go with a satin finish.

 

[Antoddio]

Well, they are referring to a polyurethane I imagine...urethane is kind of a different substance, but some may use the term interchangeably even though it's not. Aside from that, depending on the type(solvent or water based) the polyurethane generally will be a little more tolerant of cold temperatures than the epoxy. What sort of temps are we talking about here? Polyurethane's I've seen are moisture cure, so they are certainly more moisture sensitive.

Polyaspartic is even more cold tolerant, but is a little more expensive.

 

[Shea]

Yep, urethane is actually quite different from polyurethane. The painting and coating industries for some reason or another just adopted urethane for short. This article explains the differences.

http://www.differencebetween.net/object/difference-between-urethane-and-polyurethane/