Hey guys,
Put down a Wolverine Coatings floor on my garage a couple weekends ago.
Closed escrow Friday July 18, had the Edco floor grinder in the truck before we even got the call. Spent Friday evening grinding the floor and doing prep. It's a brand new house so there weren't any stains or anything. Slab was poured in Feb, plenty of time to cure. I was surprised how uneven it was in spots though, I did my best to take extra time grinding down the high spots.
Saturday morning, mixed and poured Integraflex into all the cracks. I didn't really measure the crack sizes very well and didn't get enough, should have gotten a second gallon. I had about 75 linear feet of expansion joint to fill, ended up having to buy about 6-7 tubes of the expansion joint filler stuff from Home Depot, which wasn't even enough really, so between the $6-7/ea tubes and the time/gas for the extra HD trip, would have been cheaper to just get another gallon of Integraflex.
Saturday afternoon, put on the first coat of Bondtite. Garage is ~650 ft^2, did it in three batches of 3 quarts.
At this point I should mention I have some experience dealing with epoxies in making composite stuff, mainly race car wings. While this may have helped in understanding mixing and pot life, I think this kinda messed me up WRT applying to the floor - with the race car parts, you only want enough to use enough epoxy to fully wet-out the part, as extra epoxy is just extra weight. I put down the first layer of Bondtite with a squeegee, watching to see the concrete turned dark, then moving the extra epoxy aside. By the time I figured out I was going to have a bunch left over I was already stuck using the squeegee, so I did my best to spread out the extra stuff evenly. The end result would have been more consistent with a roller.
Let the Bondtite dry overnight, the next morning it was totally dry, started on the Liquatile. For this I split the garage into six areas, again doing 3 quarts at a time, since this stuff goes on twice as thick. I should note that temps in the garage were low 80's, with humidity around 50%, for each phase of the project. Gotta love San Diego.
This was about halfway into it. I did all this myself but the gf was on hand to take pictures and do what she does best, laugh at me.
She didn't stick around long due to the smell (Bondtite stronger smelling than Liquatile):
By this point I had figured a roller would work better than squeegee, and got a nice extending pole to reach the edges of each patch.
I let the Liquatile dry overnight. I did get a couple little bubbles, and there were a couple places where **** had fallen in the wet epoxy, so I sanded them down, then went over the whole floor with a warm-water mop and shop towels to make sure the floor was 100% clean before the clear.
For the topcoat of Bondtite, I followed the same 3-batch/3-quart process as the first step, but for the last batch I mixed ub a half pound of the Supergrip additive, per the GF's request that the high-traffic areas not be too slippery when wet. I much prefer the deep/wet look of the smooth areas to the grippy area, but I suppose falling is no fun either.
So here she is, all done, before all the junk got moved in:
I am quite pleased with the result, this is my first time having anything other than bare concrete. The epoxy feels softer to walk on than the porcelain tile inside. I was able to roll my heavy wood jointer across the expansion joints no problem, should be no problem for the car jack too. I didn't want to have any flecks- 1) because I do a lot of working on cars, and have a hard enough time finding the tiny bolts/washers/springs/etc. as it is, I didn't want to lose them in a background of fleck and 2), as above, I really like the deep/wet look of the smooth floor, like you could fall "into" it.
As for the decision to use the Wolverine products vs. anything else in light of some recent threads
- I do like to consider myself a relatively informed consumer, and have read most of the threads here on the various products. My requirements were that it be something I could put down myself, be available in a tan/beige color, and able to withstand all sorts of mechanical and chemical abuse.
The Costco product looks like a great !/$ but is only available in gray. I priced out the Ucoatit product, and it came out to ~$690 in materials to do the garage (http://www.ucoatit.com/pgs/estimator.htm - 650 square feet, Automotive floor, solid color/high gloss, beige). Plus there was *some* question about the true long-term durability of the Ucoatit product. The quote (and price) I paid for the Wolverine product, including the Integraflex and Supergrip, was $835. If you take out the Integraflex and Supergrip for a more apples-to-apples comparison, the cost was $750, only about 8% more. Seemed like a worthy gamble vs. Ucoatit.
The other factor, which I put a lot of weight on, is that Fred and Eric, the people selling and talking about the Wolverine products, know how to write and spell well. That sounds silly, but in my view people that know the difference between their/they're, to/too/two, etc., and take the time to use the right one on the Internet, generally have their act together, and to me that more than made up for the less-than-forthcoming-ness WRT to their product data sheets.
Party on,
J-Rho
Put down a Wolverine Coatings floor on my garage a couple weekends ago.
Closed escrow Friday July 18, had the Edco floor grinder in the truck before we even got the call. Spent Friday evening grinding the floor and doing prep. It's a brand new house so there weren't any stains or anything. Slab was poured in Feb, plenty of time to cure. I was surprised how uneven it was in spots though, I did my best to take extra time grinding down the high spots.
Saturday morning, mixed and poured Integraflex into all the cracks. I didn't really measure the crack sizes very well and didn't get enough, should have gotten a second gallon. I had about 75 linear feet of expansion joint to fill, ended up having to buy about 6-7 tubes of the expansion joint filler stuff from Home Depot, which wasn't even enough really, so between the $6-7/ea tubes and the time/gas for the extra HD trip, would have been cheaper to just get another gallon of Integraflex.
Saturday afternoon, put on the first coat of Bondtite. Garage is ~650 ft^2, did it in three batches of 3 quarts.
At this point I should mention I have some experience dealing with epoxies in making composite stuff, mainly race car wings. While this may have helped in understanding mixing and pot life, I think this kinda messed me up WRT applying to the floor - with the race car parts, you only want enough to use enough epoxy to fully wet-out the part, as extra epoxy is just extra weight. I put down the first layer of Bondtite with a squeegee, watching to see the concrete turned dark, then moving the extra epoxy aside. By the time I figured out I was going to have a bunch left over I was already stuck using the squeegee, so I did my best to spread out the extra stuff evenly. The end result would have been more consistent with a roller.
Let the Bondtite dry overnight, the next morning it was totally dry, started on the Liquatile. For this I split the garage into six areas, again doing 3 quarts at a time, since this stuff goes on twice as thick. I should note that temps in the garage were low 80's, with humidity around 50%, for each phase of the project. Gotta love San Diego.
This was about halfway into it. I did all this myself but the gf was on hand to take pictures and do what she does best, laugh at me.
She didn't stick around long due to the smell (Bondtite stronger smelling than Liquatile):
By this point I had figured a roller would work better than squeegee, and got a nice extending pole to reach the edges of each patch.
I let the Liquatile dry overnight. I did get a couple little bubbles, and there were a couple places where **** had fallen in the wet epoxy, so I sanded them down, then went over the whole floor with a warm-water mop and shop towels to make sure the floor was 100% clean before the clear.
For the topcoat of Bondtite, I followed the same 3-batch/3-quart process as the first step, but for the last batch I mixed ub a half pound of the Supergrip additive, per the GF's request that the high-traffic areas not be too slippery when wet. I much prefer the deep/wet look of the smooth areas to the grippy area, but I suppose falling is no fun either.
So here she is, all done, before all the junk got moved in:
I am quite pleased with the result, this is my first time having anything other than bare concrete. The epoxy feels softer to walk on than the porcelain tile inside. I was able to roll my heavy wood jointer across the expansion joints no problem, should be no problem for the car jack too. I didn't want to have any flecks- 1) because I do a lot of working on cars, and have a hard enough time finding the tiny bolts/washers/springs/etc. as it is, I didn't want to lose them in a background of fleck and 2), as above, I really like the deep/wet look of the smooth floor, like you could fall "into" it.
As for the decision to use the Wolverine products vs. anything else in light of some recent threads
- I do like to consider myself a relatively informed consumer, and have read most of the threads here on the various products. My requirements were that it be something I could put down myself, be available in a tan/beige color, and able to withstand all sorts of mechanical and chemical abuse.The Costco product looks like a great !/$ but is only available in gray. I priced out the Ucoatit product, and it came out to ~$690 in materials to do the garage (http://www.ucoatit.com/pgs/estimator.htm - 650 square feet, Automotive floor, solid color/high gloss, beige). Plus there was *some* question about the true long-term durability of the Ucoatit product. The quote (and price) I paid for the Wolverine product, including the Integraflex and Supergrip, was $835. If you take out the Integraflex and Supergrip for a more apples-to-apples comparison, the cost was $750, only about 8% more. Seemed like a worthy gamble vs. Ucoatit.
The other factor, which I put a lot of weight on, is that Fred and Eric, the people selling and talking about the Wolverine products, know how to write and spell well. That sounds silly, but in my view people that know the difference between their/they're, to/too/two, etc., and take the time to use the right one on the Internet, generally have their act together, and to me that more than made up for the less-than-forthcoming-ness WRT to their product data sheets.
Party on,
J-Rho