Winter Grit & Freeflow Tiles

[cfbenoit]

Hi, everyone: I'm new to this forum and doing my homeworks before I purchase anything... Here's my (long) first post:

I live in a snowy area and I park the car in the garage every day, all year long. I have to drive forward into the garage, so the tires nicely compress into a packed crust all the salt & grit coming from the snow that accumulated against the mud guards and inside the wheel wells.

About twice every winter, I am using a steel scraper to dislodge a thick crust salt & grit & dirt from my concrete floor. (Yes, I could clean up more often, but I am not necessarily looking for a large increase in maintenance)


I have a few questions for current owners of RaceDeck, Motofloor & other raised tiles:


I saw many posts recommending "free flow" style for snowy areas to allow the snow to melt without a mess. How do you then remove that dirt that comes with the snow ? Do you have to remove some tiles to clean with a high pressure jet ? If you don't clean underneath, won't it trap humidity and prevent water drainage ?

If I use regular tiles instead of "FreeFlow", will they get scratched up and ugly due to the abrasion from that grit? Are abrasion traces more noticeable on some colors ?

Any insight or recommendations are welcome...

...Ben...
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[NinjaSr.]

Hi Ben,

I live in NE Pennsylvania. Same issue re snow, ice, salt, grime ****....... I used to seal my concrete floor every few years but after 20 years it is a pitted, cracked mess. I have garagetrac on order. I have a center drain (unfortunately, not to perfect lowest point for the entire floor). I decided to go with a center (2x) row of Free Flow for the water into drain in to and make an honest attempt to mop up the grime and grit every few weeks on the GarageTrac solid tiles. I will be entering my car parked on the right over the Free Flow center row (so it will always be dry) and the car on the left is on a high section re water flow. I was not real crazy about 100% of all the **** getting below the tiles. So i figured let the high sodium snow melt go down the drain and I will mop up the dirt every 2 or 3 weeks or so. At least that's my plan!

Jim