garage floor paint

[rightaway]

is there a difference in quality of garage floor paints? u coat it has a great look but cost way to much. is the something that looks the same with the flake and all but cost less?

[Ron Ketcham]

Proven quality costs, that simple.

Some are a bit more of the quality than others, usually shown in the cost of the system.

Keep looking, look as you are doing here for those who have applied and had a coating down for more than 2 years.

Ask further questions, like where they live, how old the concrete they put it on, etc.

There are some good ones, and some that are just a "looks good but don`t hold up after a few years" on the market.

I didn`t use this, although I like them, the good ones.

My "shop" is not for cars, and I live in an area with a lot of clay in the soil.

Put down as much as 8 in of concrete, lots of re-bar, etc for reinforcement and in three or four years, big cracks.

I used pavers, they have been two years, they heave, so they don`t crack, and they look great.

I clean out the shop with a leaf blower and once in a while I will vac it.

I don`t care if they get some stain on them, most I can clean up.

It`s a work shop, not a museum.

Just my input, make your garage a work shop, and understand it is that.

As I said, I like these coatings, the 2 part urethanes, just wouldn`t work for me.

Grumpy

[Bill D]

Painted garage floors are pretty commonplace around here. Mine has xylene based paint, two colors, black and white, two coats of white and the black on top, in checkerboard pattern. Stands up to use/chemicals fairly well. Worse thing I encountered with it was some accidental muriatic acid drips on it from handling for pool maintenace resulted in small, bleached-looking spots, but are easy to touch up. It looks great and it`s surprisingly low maintainence and best thing is if I get tired of the colors and the design, it can be painted right over.

[[SS]Shooter]

The real secret to floor paint is correctly prepping the floor.



But I`ve have friends with low-quality paint that peeled off in heavy use areas, such as where the front wheels of the cars are. So I would recommend a high quality (and probably higher priced) coating along with a psychotic level of prep work.

[TLMitchell]

As mentioned, you get what you pay for. Go cheap and you`ll probably need to do the job again eventually. A more expensive, high-quality coating is the way to go IMO. I see U Coat It highly touted on Garage Forums as well as a few more epoxy-based products. I`ll be going with an outfit called Armorcoat because they`re less than an hour away from me near Cleveland if I need more product while the job is underway. It`s also kinda nice to be able to drive up and look over the installed product as well as some jobs they`ve done. For a 900 sq ft floor I expect the cost to be between 800 - $1000. Probably twice that if I want them to do the work. Worth it IMO.... I don`t EVER want to have to redo it! YMMV.



TL

[Bill D]

I don`t plan to re do mine. It`s exactly what I wanted and it is not a small garage, so it was no small feat to have painted. I`d only possibly reconsider doing it again one day if a coating is available in this design.

[GearHead_1]

I`m not out to push one product over the next and I won`t tell you that what I have used is the best. I have used both U-Coat It with clear top coat and Rustoleum`s Commercial Coating with clear top coat. I put the U-Coat it on an 1800 sqaure foot garage 6 years ago and used the Rustoleum product in a basement storage room of about 1200 square feet at the same time. Both surfaces were new and identically prepared using muriatic acid. After 6 years I will tell you this is a marked difference in how the two products have held up. The U-Coat It mops and and looks like new, no lifting or wear through what so ever. The basement floor shows wear on much of the surface. My garage is not babied nor is it abused just normal use. I would buy the U-Coat It again in a heart beat.

[rightaway]

any picture of a mid price stuff. i ony have a one car garage but trying to make it look nice. i will be parking a car in there. i live in pa, so temp are all over the place, 0 in the winter to 100 in the summer