How do you protect your garage floor?

my Ferrari has not dripped a drop in 12 years.

 

Prior to moving in to our new home 17 yrs ago, we had the garage floor professionally painted with an oil based, two part epoxy paint. The prep included an acid wash of the concrete floor prior to rolling on the paint. That coating provides an impermeable protection to all sorts of spills over the years including oil, household bleach. Cleanup is simple sweep and mop.

Since we had that done, there are now service companies who put down protective coatings that are probably equal to or better than what we have.

You can get two part acrylic epoxy paint and DIY. But, like any good paint project, the prep is very important. Make sure to acid wash the concrete.

If it were me, I would research in your area and get a pro to do it. It is really a messy and somewhat hazardous job.

Steve

 

Griot's Garage used to sell small absorbant mats for catching drips. I had a couple that were about 4' x 4'.

I now use a 17' x 7' mat from Car Guys Garage under both cars. I got tired of the ac and rain drips on my painted floor, and this solved that.

 

I used the epoxy garage floor coating kit bought at Home Depot. I did the garage floor prior to moving into the new house back in 2005 and it still holding up well. You need to powerwash the floor using the kits included cleaner. You mix the epoxy and paint in the kit together. It applies very nicely and then you just toss the colored chips out onto the paint to give it a nice textured look. Start to finish took less than a couple of hours for a two car garage. I needed a second person to toss the colored chips while I painted since it dries fairly quickly.

 

Just a recommendation, the DIY kits include a cleaner that may be satisfactory. But, if you really want to make sure to get good adhesion, I recommend you use an acid wash. Acid wash will give greater assurance that any paint will have the very best adhesion. The DIY kits use a cleanser because it is safer to use and on a virgin concrete floor it should be ok, but acid is better and certainly much better on older concrete.

An easy way to acid wash is to prepare acid solution of 1 part hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid) to 3 parts water. I would mix up about 4 gallons. You can get the acid at any swimming pool supply store. Wear old clothes and plastic gloves and goggles. Make sure the concrete floor is clean. If there is already some grease or oil, use a strong detergent like simple green to wash and rinse before you apply the acid wash.

Using a stiff brush on a handle, scrub the acid solution on the bare concrete. Make sure to get corners. You do not have to use a lot, but make sure to use enough to generously wet the surface. After the solution has soaked in for a couple of minutes, rinse off with water. This process is known as acid etching. Now take some baking soda and sprinkle it around the wet floor. Scrub the floor with the brush to work the baking soda solution into all corners. This will neutralize the acid. Rinse with clean water and allow to dry.

After the floor is dry, like overnight, you can apply your two-part acrylic epoxy floor coating. Color chips and anti-skid abrasive particles are also available to add a decorative touch and/or anti-slip surface. I elected to not have the anti-slip, but living in Arizona the floor does not get wet very often. If you live where the floor is going to get wet, then anti-slip particles are recommended.

I think it is a fair amount of work. And, the pros have better compounds they can use that only a licensed pro can purchase, so you may want to check with pros in your area. But, if you are up to the task, go for the DIY approach.

Steve

 

Or, just lay down generous sheets of cardboard.

I currently have the carton to our air conditioner - disassembled - under an old Jag and it's working great. May not be "pretty", but it certainly does the job.

Will I paint someday? Perhaps, but from what I've just read here, it really seems to be much more trouble than it's worth. IMHO. YMMV.

gp

 

3 coats of epoxy....

 

Choose a prep method, but don't skip. If you skip the prep, the paint you apply will flake off -- even with brand new concrete. Acid is the best, but with new concrete the wash compound that comes with a DIY kit will probably be fine.

BTW, doing this while you have virgin concrete is best time. You will not be disappointed as it will look great, will resist staining, and cleaning it will be a breeze.

Steve

 

My garage floor is made of nice Italian tile but that's mainly because I live in Italy. I can't help it............ the floor came with the house.

Since my Ferrari doesn't leak anything, I don't protect the floor at all.

At the risk of sounding really silly, but since you asked, I will confess to having a genuine, but relatively inexpensive, Persian carpet on the other side of the Garage on which I park my Ducati. It doesn't leak either but since I don't have a motorcycle lift, I do much of the work on the Ducati sitting on the floor. The carpet is more comfortable than the bare tile and I just use a piece of cardboard if there is a chance of any oil escaping, for example during oil changes, etc.

 

Be very careful with epoxy floor paints, it doesn't work on all cement garage floors. You must test your garage floor for how much moisture can come through your particular cement floor. If there is too much moisture content, your epoxy job will crack and peel off.

Why does the epoxy crack? Well, as you know cement is porous. The cement slab floor sits right on top of bare earth and some locales experience higher water content than others, especially in the Spring in Northern climates where there is ground thawing and melting snow in the Spring.

Cement will crack if enough moisture is introduced from the earth below and cannot dry off because you just sealed the floor and trapped the moisture. The trapped moisture causes the cement to swell and eventually cracks and breaks your epoxy coating. Cement will swell from moisture.

This happened to one of my neighbours, it was very costly because on top of a wasted professional paint job, the cracks and peels looked awful and he had to pay to have it all removed and have the pitted cement floor repaired.

If you're doubtful, have a look at this article. It's actually a well-known problem if you speak to experienced painters who are honest. You need to test for moisture at the time of year when the floor experiences the highest moisture.

Good night and good luck!

 

You can test for moisture. If your ok in that area then good quality epoxy coating will be fine. If not, then I would go with ceramic tile. Other options are vinyl garage tiles, vinyl sheeting, concrete polishing, etc. you really have a lot of options.

I notice you are in Quebec. You may want to contact these people ... http://www.zonegarage.ca/en/home


Steve