garage floor epoxy

[lilwalter]

Has anyone done this themselves? I'm curious if this is something I can do and be happy with the results or if I'm better off hiring someone to do it? Thanks for any info.

[minneman]

you can do it, follow directions, and be very anal about prep. if its an older floor with oil spills etc, be extra anal!

[hartner62]

Prep work is the most important part. When you think its clean enough do it one more time.

[Macgyver55]

I'm still pretty apprehensive about doing it myself after watching my neighbor do his. He did everything by the book and more. He is a neat freak, he pressure washed, scrubbed on his hands and knees with chemical wash, rinsed and repeated, etc. He even went so far as to belt sand imperfections in the floor. After about 6 months it began to peel in some spots. He belt sanded those areas again and blended them in and so far they have held up but man the amount of laor he put in was incredible. It might be worth having it done especially if they warranty it.

[Down Deep]

Is your slab dry? I mean from the bottom up. Epoxy will trap all the moisture from the top and the bottom. We have a large maintenance garage at work that we put this stuff on about 5 years ago and we are starting to see lots of bubbles. Whereever there is a hairline crack the bubbles are starting to appear as the moisture pushes up. We are now beginning to wonder if the rebar or concrete is deteriorating. We had the epoxy professionally applied.

[LundExplorer]

I did my 3.5 stall garage. I used the industrial floor coating made by Rust-oleum (...bought at Menards).

Note I did not use the 'garage' floor coating - I used the stuff labeled for industrial use.

The biggest factor is floor prep. I acid etched the whole floor using muriatic acid before hand and let it dry for days. Then swept, vacuumed, repeat 3-4 times. I rolled on the coating.

So far after 3 yrs it has held up very well. One half of the garage was brand new concrete, other half was old concrete that was resurfaced to fill in pits from years of road salt (also did myself).

Only issue I have had is a few popouts in the concrete, on both old and new floors.

All in all it cost me around $200-250 for the whole floor.

Another tip - if you do this by all means buy the non-slip additive and be generous with it. My old garage floor area does not have any and it is extremely slick when you have snow on your boots.

[slotlimit]

No Oil stains? That isn't a working man garage that's a kitchen. What's next plumbing in the garage for the dishwasher? Just kidding. You can easilly do this on your own. Don't make it to nice or the next thing you know the wife will turn it into her scrap book area.

[swandog]

I painted my garage floor with the rustoleum stuff from menards. 3 stall garage...new house so there wasn't too much as far as oil stains etc. As others have said the biggest factor is the prep work...once that is done then the painting part is easy. Not sure if you're supposed to do this or not but I ended up putting down two coats...I basically would paint a 6x6 area and then paint over it again while it was still wet and then moved on to another 6x6 area. I fealt that it put a better layer down than just one thick coat...so far only one small flake up area where the suv tire sits...definately use the anti skid stuff...if your idea of a diy project is one that should only take an hour then this is not for you...it's work and it will take up a weekend to do it right.

Doug

[HaywardBound]

Quote:

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No Oil stains? That isn't a working man garage that's a kitchen. What's next plumbing in the garage for the dishwasher? Just kidding. You can easilly do this on your own. Don't make it to nice or the next thing you know the wife will turn it into her scrap book area.

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Slot, that is funny!

I did mine in a garage that was 10-20 years old. Did the prep work with acid and everything. I thought it would last, but it didn't. I bet I got 6 months before the last flake was swept away.

I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought I'd post my results.