Garage Pics - BEFORE AND AFTER

As with everything I do in life, I put alot of research into ensuring I make the right decisions on things that are meant to last a long time. I've seen a number of posts about garage flooring alternatives and I have seen some amazing floors - ceramic tile, rubber tiles, plastic snap-on tiles, paint, and epoxy. Many of the floors look great so this is not intended as a bash to any product you chose. Variety is the spice of life - it's why Baskin Robbins makes 31 flavors of ice cream (some with nuts).

Anyhow, I chose a professional grade epoxy coating for a number of reasons:

1. PROFESSIONAL is the key. You can have a hack painter go to Home Depot and buy the crap "epoxy" paint and slap it on the concrete floor and it will look nice for a month, maybe 2 before chips, cracks, peeling, staining, etc. PROFESSIONAL epoxy coats are done with highly expensive materials, use numerous coats, use high quality sealers over numerous coats and make sure healing and sealing in between each coat is done correctly.

2. Professional Epoxy coatings are used in most industrial settings such as pharmaceutical companies and clean-environment assembly plants. The main reasons for this are because these floors need to be resistant to wear, easy to clean and reflective of harmful elements.

3. Epoxy done right will not harm the concrete floor upon which it is applied. It will actually act as an almost bulletproof shell to any conditions (except a piece of steel falling on an angle into the coating or metal scraping, etc).

4. Epoxy applied with a layer of "flake" can e done to meet YOUR requirements. For instance, it will be hard to see in the pictures, but I chose a dark blue flake a dark green flake a black flake a silver flake and a tan flake. I chose these because my cars are black, silver, TDF, dark green and my walls are tan...this gives you the ability to choose, not buy tiles in only very typical "popular" colors.

5. Cleaning a properly installed epoxy floor takes nothing but a squeegy and broom handle and nothing can stain it or penetrate it.

Reasons against tiles:

1. If ceramic, they crack, especially with various weight distributions. More crucial is staining in the grout lines. Not matter how well you seal the grout, grout is porous and will need to be resealed too often. Ceramic is generally VERY slippery. So, unless your garage is nothing more than a museum, ceramic is not a great solution.

2. Very popular are the rubber or plastic tiles. These are not a bad solution but do carry some problems. First, in the long term, they are leading to the deterioration of the concrete floor below. Moisture is constantly created because of the gap between the tile and the concrete which is very bad for the concrete. And don't believe the manufacturers who say the tiles do not allow ANY moisture penetration; where there's a seam, there will be moisture...you can trust that. The other problem with these are staining. The worst problem is cleaning them.....they have dimpled or raised circles, squares, dots, bumps, etc....those areas collect dirt and grime and it becomes a cleaning nightmare.

So, I tried to capture a number of photos during the process. This process included:

1. Grinding the exisiting concrete floor with a machine grinder.
2. Applying a heavy muriatic acid coating to remove and raise stains from the concrete.
3. Applying a neutralizer chemical to the concrete to eliminate chemical inconsistancies.
4. Applying a professional grade epoxy coat; we used a Sherwin Williams product called ArmorSeal.
5. During that application, applying a gritty glass section which seats into the epoxy in a pathway we chose. This gives you an area in the garage where you can walk without slipping when the garage floor is wet.
5. Applying another coat of epoxy after proper cure of the first coat.
6. Application of the flake and a clear coat.
7. Application of a sealer clear coat in gloss finish.
8. Application of a final sealer clear coat.

The beauty of the materials applied are not best illustrated in these pictures, but I tried. You should recognize that as far as durability is concerned, when cured, the consistency of this floor is ONE LEVEL BELOW THE GRADE OF DIAMOND CUT. That's pretty damn strong in my book!

Any questions, let me know. I will actually need two threads to post all of the pictures!

Cheers,

Joe
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Thanks for the compliments guys. The Sherwin Williams Co makes the epoxy as well as the clear coats.

Joe

 

No worries, will do so this weekend. However, my Model A is getting a new wire harness installed so I will only have the Ferrari, my S2000 and my FX45....Audi will sit outside in the fog this weekend!!

 

sitting in a friend's garage...how about this for trust: I parked it, put the cover on it and took the keys with me. He asked me what I would do if there was a fire. I told him I will take that risk versus him driving my car all week!!

 

The last clear coat application was done on Wednesday. It takes 72 hours to fully cure, so to really play it safe I am staying off of it until Sunday afternoon!

Joe