More on garage floors...

Yell00ITR · 10-04-01, 07:10

Hi guys,

I just moved and my new neighbor (male, <30 years old, and single..what a life!) has some REAL nice cars (2000 Porsche 911, 2001 BMW M3, 2001 Lincoln Navigator). In any case, he painted his garage floor with some of the 2 part epoxy you can find at Home Depot. Since he is aware it will lift under his tires, he cut long (garage length) 3' wide strips of astroturf for him to pull just his tires up onto. I thought this was a good idea and wanted to share it. I am not yet sure how well it will hold up (only been a week!).

Ripsnort · 10-04-01, 08:28

I just finished my 3-car garage, and did the following:
Interior paint (Its a 'finished' garaged, sheet rocked)
Stainless steel wall outlets
Fire extinquisher, wall mounted
Florescent lighting
Carpeted 2 stalls with indoor/outdoor carpet, and one stall with the two-app Concrete paint (Lawn tractor sits in 3rd stall with workbench, tool boxes, garden stuff, etc. thus I chose not to carpet it)

I'm buying two carport matts that are rubberized on the back, and slotted on the top for not only absorb any oil but channels water in the rubber groves back to the garage door entrance.

I noticed without this, the indoor/outdoor carpet tends to 'crush' a bit from the tires, and I want to ensure I don't get carpet rot from being wet, although the garage does maintain a 55 deg temperature year around (warmer in the summer).

Total cost minus the matts was $600 dollars, the matts will cost $89 a piece and I need to order them soon before the Seattle Monsoon season is here.

You can see pics of the garage in the background by clicking the link below in my siggy.

Its alot of fun fixing ones garage up, and gives you a sense of pride when it looks like a showroom floor!

BradE · 10-04-01, 08:58

Yell00ITR,

How long his floor will last has a lot to do with how he prepared the surface. You really need to get it spotless, and then acid etch. Putting something under you tires is not a bad idea, its cheap insurance.

Ripsnort · 10-04-01, 09:01

Quote:

Originally posted by ShowroomLincoln
Yell00ITR,

How long his floor will last has a lot to do with how he prepared the surface. You really need to get it spotless, and then acid etch. Putting something under you tires is not a bad idea, its cheap insurance.

yep, you have to prep the floor, I can't think of the name of the concrete de-greaser, cleaner I used, but it was spotless prior to applying the paint in that one stall, and the carpet in the other two.

Best part about carpet, its a big romper room for the kids on bad weather days, as long as you have your garage 'child proofed' as I do mine.

Guess My Name · 10-04-01, 09:06

Have you ever seen garages that have vinyl tiles laid down in black and white checker board. Very nice and durable. Another product is Rubbermaid industrial series vinyl flooring.

But for paint I would look into the industrial floor paints used on machine shop and manufacturing plant floors. It was designed for forklift travel. Carboline, Glidden, and Ameron are some manufactures. You have to buy from the paint distributor.

BradE · 10-04-01, 09:11

Guess My Name,

I know people that have used industrial paints, and they still lifted. The key to the whole process is surface prep. The floor needs to be clean of oils spots, stains and just about everything. Then you need to acid etch, maybe twice to make sure the paint bonds to the concrete properly. I have seen floors done by pro's fail because of poor surface prep.

Tile maybe O.K., but you need a perfectly smooth floor to put it on. And if you use a tile with adhesive backing it may still lift. Water can get between the tile and the floor, or a hot tire my soften up the glue and lift the tile.

Ripsnort · 10-04-01, 09:50

Here's a link to the product I was suggesting for over the top of either painted floors or carpeted:

http://www.cleanupstuff.com/

If you click on the product link picture, you can get an idea of the quality of it. I'll post my results of this product as soon as I order them (November time frame)

BradE · 10-04-01, 11:30

Since the topic of garage floor came up I will add something. I am redoing my garage, and was going to put a Epoxy floor in my garage like Brads. I have a friend who is a contractor, and he pointed me in the direction of some good paint. He called me today, it is $113/gallon just for the paint.....and he gets it at a discount!! No wonder it costs so much to get the floor done by a pro.

Yell00ITR · 10-04-01, 12:05

How many gallons did your friend say you needed? I have a standard 2 car garage so I would like to get a guesstimate (~400 square feet)

BradE · 10-04-01, 12:09

I dont know yet. I was just seeing how much it costs per gallon. I wanted to see the price to decide it I wanted to try it. He said you should do multiple coats for best durability. He recommend 2 coats with 12 hours between each one. He said the full curing time is about 2-3 weeks. I am sure you can get it cheaper than $113/gallon. I think that stuff is higher because it industrial grade stuff.

Gene Arch · 10-27-01, 11:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Guess My Name
Have you ever seen garages that have vinyl tiles laid down in black and white checker board. Very nice and durable. Another product is Rubbermaid industrial series vinyl flooring.

But for paint I would look into the industrial floor paints used on machine shop and manufacturing plant floors. It was designed for forklift travel. Carboline, Glidden, and Ameron are some manufactures. You have to buy from the paint distributor.

A source for those "rubberized" tiles is:

MotorMat

I bought a box to evaluate. It's a nice product but I decided to go with Epoxy.

Don2000g · 11-11-01, 12:33

Seems like a very good product. A bit pricey though. It will cost 2K to do a garage 20' x 20'. Ouch!