They (the contractors)have finally finished the construction of my garage, and now I need to do somethjing with the concrete floor.

I currently have an exposed, smooth concrete surface in the garage. I would like to cover it with an epoxy/paint to make it very smooth and easy to keep clean. What products do you guys recommend?

I need something easy to apply and a description of what it looks like (clear epoxy/pigmented etc.). Any help would be appreciated thanks.


Mike

 

I did a lot of research before I did my floor. Here's what I learned:

1. The floor needs to be clean. I was in the same situtation as you, in that I had a new house. Instead of cleaning the floor w/ muric (sp?) acid, I used TSP (trisodium phosphate). TSP is like powdered laundry cleaner. I did a good job getting the dirt off the floor. It's not as strong as acid, but it worked good for a new floor. I washed it off several times with the water hose. I let it dry for 24 hrs.

2. Buy quality paint/epoxy. Don't buy the paint from home depot/lowes. You'll regret it. I bought PPG paint. It's called Aquapon. It's an industrial paint. I bought 2 gallons of paint with 2 gallons of epoxy. I'm pretty sure the paint went by Part A and epoxy part B. You'll noticed the stuff at home depot will be a gallon of paint and pint of epoxy. This covered a 3 car garage with 2 coats. I let the first coat dry and reapplied the 2nd coat the following day. I bought the Aquapon at Monarch Paint in Houston. Total price was about 200 for the paint/epoxy. I was told Sherwin Williams makes a good garage floor paint as well.

http://www.amerimexpaints.com/Aquapon_WB.pdf

3) I decided to add some anti-slip to the paint. I added it for both coats, but if I ever did this again, I would just do it for the second coat only. I added less than the recommended amount. I think the stuff is called "shark bite" I bought it at Lowes. It seems to help if the floor gets wet.

4) Do not drive a car on the floor for a week. I put everything back in the garage the day after the 2nd coat and left the cars outside until the following weekend.

I painted my floor over a year ago. I park 3 cars in the garage. No paint has peeled, chipped etc. from driving hot cars tires in the garage, spilling gas, rolling a floor jack etc. My truck has a small power steering leak. No problems with the oil on the floor. I change oil in the garage. If I drip any oil on the floor it wipes up with a rag.

Another good point is that it's easy to clean. I usually just clean it with a electric blower. On occassion, I wash it with water,broom and soap.

Here's a few pics of the finished product. The color is a med/dark gray. I believe the color is steel gray.

Here's 2 pics of the garage.

http://www.camaroracing.com/mvc-002f.jpg
http://www.camaroracing.com/mvc-004f.jpg

Kevin

 

My dad has been doing a whole lot of research on floor coatings and he decided to go with this:
http://www.musclegloss.com/
I can't testify about its effectiveness because he hasn't installed it yet, but it looks like it'll be good.

 

Being in the concrete business, I'm very familiar with concrete sealers. What I recommend, which is to late now, is a concrete sealer such as Kure n Seal by Sonneborn, or something of equivalence. This is an invisible spray on sealer that protects the surface of the concrete from all sorts of liquids to prevent staining as well acts as a hardener and a waterproofing agent.

As far an epoxy/paint goes, for the most part they are all the same. The one thing which you must make sure is perfect is your surface preparation. I can't emphasize enough just how important this is. I recommend you use an industrial type degreaser and power-wash the concrete very thoroughly. You can by the most expensive epoxy/paint, and it ain't worth dick unless the surface is prepared right.

 

My floor looks horrible becuase the people that lived there before me did not prep it before painting.