Garage makeover planning. Epoxy flooring first order of business

Hey guys,

About to close escrow this week on a home and of course, the garage will get "modded" :) First order of business will be to clear out some very obscenely large and unmatched cabinets and then have the garage floor epoxied. I want every square inch of the garage to be covered. Has anyone done this on their own? I've read alot lately about 1 part and 2 part as well as the process. Judging by what I've read, the store bought 1 part epoxy isn't a long lasting product. And it sounds quite involved especially the sanding part w/ the big concrete sander. So I'm also considering having a company do it. Any personal experienced advice is appreciated!

Have someone do it. I did the garage at my parents and it did not turn out well. Spend the money on a high quality product and good prep.

Congratulations Bob, having a garage is key!

My dad did his garage floor himself and he was very happy with how it turned out and how well it wore. A coworker of mine just did his over the weekend and he struggled a bit with getting the paint flecks distributed evenly. If you want I can talk to my dad and see how he did his.

Congratulations on the house Bob, very exciting.

I was very happy to get a garage when I bought a house. One of the things I wanted to do was coat the floor and looked into it quite a bit and talked with several friends who have done it/had it done. In the end I'm glad I didn't do it. For one I had a few cracks in the concrete which would have caused durability issues and two, my garage is high use in several different categories.

I have a neighbor who works as a commercial epoxy floor installer and while he used to do a lot of installs he says most of his work is warranty work. In some instances the coating won't hold up and several of those instances occur in my garage. Beating on stuff, dropping stuff, welding, kids, all wear on the coating and I didn't want to tip toe every time I worked in the garage. Another thing is that it can be slippery when wet and when it gets wet it doesn't really dry (you have to dry the floor) especially if you park a wet car in there. In the end I'm glad I didn't coat my floor as I feel it would have created further work for me while not adding much benefit.

Vehicle wise I'm not messy but if I need to be I drive onto a giant trap I have for this purpose or move out to the gavel patch I have next to my driveway.

Sean,

Prep-wise, what did (or didn't) you do? I read that sanding is super important. Did you do that?

Ken,

Oh no worries, I pretty much know the process and what the right things to do are. But I wanted to see if any of the people I know here have done it and what their practical experience was like.

Mike,

All good points I didn't really consider except the welding. I thought that I'd buy some big welding blankets and just spread them out our do any welding in the backyard. I want to really use the garage though more for storage and working out vs. doing mechanical stuff. But you know, that'll probably change once I have a garage again (kicking myself for selling that '76 BMW now) lol.

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Originally Posted by Bob98SR5

Sean,

Prep-wise, what did (or didn't) you do? I read that sanding is super important. Did you do that?

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Did a good sweep and scrub, pressure wash, acid wash, pressure wash then let it fully dry. Sanding was not mentioned in the prep instructions for the paint.

We had some oily areas and areas where laundry soap had spilled. Those adhered fine. Random areas with no apparent reasons for a lack of adhesion are what came up.

Some things we did wrong, and realized after: Put it on super thick. Ours was a little thin, and I think that might be the reason for some of the failure. Don't do it in hot weather, ours dried too fast (but was within the specs on the instructions).

Bottom line, it's a giant pain in the ass. I would gladly pay someone to do it. Or, a better idea might just be to go with a good sealer, and avoid the coating all together.

Yeah I've read the instructions for two 1-part garage floor paints and neither of them said concrete sanding whereas all the 2-part epoxy (the true epoxies) included sanding as part of their instructions. i think that makes perfect sense but that's probably why most people don't do this on their own as you'd have to rent that sander and have some experience w/ it.

ours was a 2 part, I remember mixing the parts together. Maybe I just didn't do enough prep, but honestly, I'd skip it and go with either a sealer or just not worry about it.