alternatives of epoxy flooring?

Staining, for one.

 

There are garage floor tiles the snap together and look really good. You can do patterns etc. it's very easy to install no glue etc. and it's about the same price maybe a bit cheaper depending on what you are doing for the epoxy. Google garage floor files they have 100s of choices.

 

tiling the floor.

 

@mondial83: But the car must be dry? If you drive into the garage with a car full of snow the water will accumulate under the plastic tiles, won't it?

 

Epoxy is a great long term solution. It is what aircraft hangars use. Make to have a great prep job done with etching of the concrete. If that is not done correctly the epoxy will not adhere. Easier to do when the concrete is virgin but can be done to used as well; just requires more work ensuring a proper prep.

 

Diamond cut/polish finish.... awesome finish, low maintenance, lasts, looks great IMO (Exactly why Costco diamond polishes their wharehouse floors). I have epoxy now, and wish I would have diamond polished .... looked into it in designing a new garage, and cost is completely reasonable. You can also do some cool staining in the concrete that looks cool polished....
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does look very nice

 

If you're looking to get your floor done. You ideally want an epoxy basecoat / polyaspartic topcoat combination. Not just epoxy and not just poly. Polyaspartic is basically a fancy epoxy. The benefits of it are its more durable, UV stable, quicker curing, and more clear. Epoxy will yellow over time, and in a garage it becomes an issue where the strip outside the door will yellow from UV light, and the inside not as much. When you open the door it becomes visible.

Why you want the combination is that epoxy will cure slower and on prepared concrete it allowed a proper grip into the capillaries of the concrete. Polyaspartic can cure too quick, and not bite in enough.

Polished concrete as mentioned is awesome. In a garage I advise people against it. ITs slippery. IF your garage is a showroom, go for it. If you park daily use cars in there, which can be wet. Dont!

 

I am also building a new garage and I loved the diamond polished concrete but now that you mention slipping I am worried. Do others notice it being slippery?

 

My garage floor was too poor a surface to do any epoxy/paint coating, so I went with Racedeck (plastic tiles). I've been happy with it and their product support is great.

If I had to do it over again, I might do porcelain tile planks that look like wood. Not that I don't like the Racedeck, just the wood tile that's available now is really cool and (from what I've read) porcelain is very strong for garage use. I just put wood tile in the basement and I like it a lot..

One advantage of Racedeck is that the plastic surface doesn't get cold during winter -- I notice the tile in the basement gets cold and is like an instationable heat sink quickly draining the heat out of your body if you spend any time on it barefoot.

 

I have RaceDeck also and like it a lot. I needed to cover an existing slab that was rough, stained, painted, peeled and had aggregate showing in areas. Was either cover it or replace the slab, as no contractor would guarantee that an epoxy coating would adhere for any length of time.

If I was going to pour a fresh 4"-6" slab, I'd do stampcrete. Lots of design and color choices, and for indoor use you'd probably only need to roll on a fresh top coat every 5-7 years or so. I have stampcrete for my driveway - takes a beating from the salt in the winter, oil drips, fuel spills when refilling the lawn mower or snow blower, and all I do is roll on a fresh top coat (like a polyurethane) 1x a year. If you drop a tool and it chips, the color is mixed into the concrete so it's not obvious. You can add an anti slip powder to the top coat so the floor wont be slippery when wet. And you can use concrete stain to make some intricate designs before you seal it with the top coat (you can stain any concrete, doesn't have to be stampcrete).

I also considered pouring a new 3" slab and covering it with pavers set in a pulverized granite base. If a paver get's stained or damaged you can lift it out and replace it easily. This would work for me because my garage never sees a wet car, if you're bringing in a snow or rain covered car this method would retain dampness.

I love the porcelain wood plank looking tiles, but I'm concerned they are one dropped wrench away from a chip or crack, which would drive me nuts.

 

concrete staining is what I'll do next if I remove the epoxy finish. Pros can make a stained floor really amazing, but again, with all of the options, make sure you think about use, I added some grit to the epoxy but it's still slippery in the winter when wet.

 

I have the "generic" version of RaceDeck, made by the same company and sold direct online at Discount Garage Flooring | Cheap Quality Floors for Garages. Very easy to install. My wife and I laid it down. It's been fantastic.

I clean it with some hand spray after each winter. Nothing stains it. Just wiped down some rust stains from my snow blower. Came right off. Any water can drip under and evaporate, and never any problem with wetness or mold. If any complaint, the edge pieces at the garage door will warp in direct sunlight but return to their normal shape a few minutes later.

 

My epoxy floor is slippery when wet. When you go in Costco with wet shoes, is it slippery?
Growing up, I worked my summers in a grain elevators. The concrete floors inside the elevators were polished which made sweeping the spilled grain and the grain dust a breeze. In all my summers, I never noticed it be overly slippery when it was wet. Even as a kid, I thought, man this concrete is cool. Then my father purchased a wharehouse that Sears moved out of and it too had polished concrete floors. Again, I never noticed it being slippery, but it was AWESOME for our indoor go-Kart races in the wharehouse. We raced around the palates of merchandise and you could drift like nobody's business (this was back-in-the-day before drifting was cool)!

 

I put "Versaroll" down in my father's garage last summer. Looks really good and according to reviews holds up quite well.
NewAge Versaroll Garage Flooring Sale

His (terribly oil stained) 2-car garage took two 9x20' rolls to cover, which I got for $130 each. They're now $200 a roll.
NewAge Versaroll Pro 9x20 (2.2mm) - Grey #10190| GarageCabinetsOnline.com

I want to cover 1/3 of my 3-car garage (~150sq ft), and will probably just buy 1 roll for $200.
Racedeck tiles would cost about $400+ to do the same area.
Here's a pic of my boy testing out the freshly unrolled floor in Pop Pop's garage.
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Have you concidered tiles? I am more than happy with mine. Easy to clean, durable and nice to look at. Have had no issues so far. Also applied a sealing( a top coating if you will) so that the water easily comes off and the oil spills doesn`t stain. Its not even slippery when wet;-)
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I am getting prices to do an epoxy coating system on my new 3 car garage floor.... Will let you know the outcome

 

I'm planning on having my concrete floors polished. The bids I've received range from $4-4.50/SF. The floors are supposedly not slippery and meet the ADA slip resistance requirements. Which is why you see them in commercial buildings.

 

I have epoxy flooring. If I were to do it all over again, I would do terrazzo. When properly maintained, it's absolutely gorgeous and lasts a lifetime + you can custom any color or logo your heart's desire.

 

This. Its really super. Did it at my new house. Haven't regretted it at all!

 

If you actually use your garage, Epoxy is not a great long term solution.

I put one down about 10 years ago, and have areas where the epoxy has cracked/chipped when I used jacks or jack stands, dropped heavy tools, etc.

Also, the clear coat does yellow over time with light. You can tell when I back the Ferrari out of the garage, the area under the car is less yellowed than the rest of the garage which has been exposed to sunlight.

At some point, I need to redo the floor and am not sure what I will use. That Versaroll stuff that Nurburgringer mentioned above sounds interesting, as it should be easy enough to replace every few years.

Tile sounds nice too, but am afraid that it will crack if I drop something onto it.

 

I went with Racedeck tiles as I couldn't make up my mind on epoxy color scheme and being fiber mesh slab, I couldn't do a polish and stain. Been through 4 winters albeit with a vinyl full size protector under each car. Still looks great after a good clean and polish.
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Vinyl floor tiles. Make up any pattern or use any color you want. Easy to replace a piece if damaged. Needs a good wax every few years. Slippery if you get it wet. Bruce