Hello! I am planning a garage renovation. Our garage is big enough for my corvette and my wife's CRV. Garage floor is pretty damaged now and I am thinking about doing something that will make it last long. I have heard about epoxy floor coating which can help it last long. I don't know much about it, but price is not much of a factor. Can someone give me more details about it, whether it is my best and cheap option? Any other suggestions are also welcome. Thanks!
Garage flooring
- Thread starter chriss789
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williame3590
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When you say floor is pretty damaged, in what way? Epoxy won't do much for large cracks, heaving and settling.
Bill
Bill
I have some of the Costco rolls for garage floors and the back area i put down black and white checkered flooring.
the rolls are cheap, need 3 $200 rolls for my 2 cars and can't remember how much the checkered stuff cost.
When I put the checkered stuff down I had these cushions and used cement blocks on top to set them down.. fine after 10 years now.
Brian
the rolls are cheap, need 3 $200 rolls for my 2 cars and can't remember how much the checkered stuff cost.
When I put the checkered stuff down I had these cushions and used cement blocks on top to set them down.. fine after 10 years now.
Brian
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Hi Chriss. Welcome to the forum. Regarding your garage, it really depends on what is wrong with your floor. Is it cracking, heaving, spalding,???? First of all I will assume your garage is heated???? If the soil structure below the slab is weak, there's not much you can do that will last short of removing the floor and a depth of soil and replacing it with compacted gravel and new reinforced concrete. The structure may be ok though, and cracking in the concrete floor can still occur and is fairly common. If the structure is good, the cracks may show up but they tend not to separate over time more than hairline width, and the concrete slab doesn't heave up. Bad structure allows the floor to heave over time, cracks to open up, etc. If your garage is not heated and you are in a zone where frost penetration is an issue, all bets are off as frost acts like water in a plastic bottle..... freeze it and the ice expands and swells the bottle....thaw it and the bottle returns back to it's original shape.... When the soil under concrete does this, the result is cracks and heaves.
Spalding is a layer of the surface separating and flaking off and exposing the aggregate which will continue to deteriorate and come apart. This is usually a result of bad concrete or improperly cured concrete, chemical damage, or extremely old concrete....
If you could post a couple of pictures of what your floor is doing and what you think the damage is, I might be able to offer some suggestions for remedy....... maybe....
Eric
Spalding is a layer of the surface separating and flaking off and exposing the aggregate which will continue to deteriorate and come apart. This is usually a result of bad concrete or improperly cured concrete, chemical damage, or extremely old concrete....
If you could post a couple of pictures of what your floor is doing and what you think the damage is, I might be able to offer some suggestions for remedy....... maybe....
Eric
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How is the Costco floor rolls holding up, seems coming apart, etc? I thought of doing the same but concerned about water under the floor. Any problems and how easy/difficult is it to clean since it has those little ridges in the surface? Thanks.
Tyho.... take another look at Brian's floor pictures. It's pretty obvious he cleans it with a toothbrush.....
Either that or it's not really his garage..... It's his living room.... 
Either that or it's not really his garage..... It's his living room.... Tyho.... take another look at Brian's floor pictures. It's pretty obvious he cleans it with a toothbrush.....
Yeah, it looks like a surgical room .... for his car. Nice.
haha, well, no winter parking in there now so it doesn't get dirty. 2 sports cars inside so DD gets parked outside.
Floor mat is holding up well. I did park in the garage through winter a few years back but can't remember if the underside got wet. It was a pain to clean when it did get dirty... needed a pressure washer. There is 2.5 sections put together. No tearing or cracking.
and that was a picture when first done..... get some pebbles from shoes and some dust.
Brian
Floor mat is holding up well. I did park in the garage through winter a few years back but can't remember if the underside got wet. It was a pain to clean when it did get dirty... needed a pressure washer. There is 2.5 sections put together. No tearing or cracking.
and that was a picture when first done..... get some pebbles from shoes and some dust.
Brian
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When I built my garage we made the mistake of not putting a vapour barrier under the concrete floor. There was lots of drainage material under the foundation but we have found over the years that water wicks up through the concrete no matter what.
Initially we covered the floor with an industrial grade two part epoxy material. It looked incredible for the first while then it started to peel. The tires on the car would pull it right off the concrete and today some 12 years later there are spots it looks great and spots not so much. In hindsight I would have done things differently but I am not sure I would have put any finish on the concrete.
So whatever you buy can it be jacked on? Will tires stick to it? Can you wash it? I know some garages have beautifully finished floors and there are a lot of options but if it is a working garage you need to take that into consideration.
Initially we covered the floor with an industrial grade two part epoxy material. It looked incredible for the first while then it started to peel. The tires on the car would pull it right off the concrete and today some 12 years later there are spots it looks great and spots not so much. In hindsight I would have done things differently but I am not sure I would have put any finish on the concrete.
So whatever you buy can it be jacked on? Will tires stick to it? Can you wash it? I know some garages have beautifully finished floors and there are a lot of options but if it is a working garage you need to take that into consideration.
Good points Murray. I have 300mm of compacted crushed gravel under my concrete floor. I am high and dry so have no worries of groundwater wicking anywhere. I also installed a 100mm floor drain pipe, sloped the concrete marginally to it and then piped down into the gravel and then horizontally out to drain well away from the garage. This was pre-Corvette days when my DD use to park and melt off in there during the winter... was easy to squeegee the floor dry and over to the drain. Now a days it never gets wet in there unless I spill my bourbon.... 
Good points Murray. I have 300mm of compacted crushed gravel under my concrete floor. I am high and dry so have no worries of groundwater wicking anywhere. I also installed a 100mm floor drain pipe, sloped the concrete marginally to it and then piped down into the gravel and then horizontally out to drain well away from the garage. This was pre-Corvette days when my DD use to park and melt off in there during the winter... was easy to squeegee the floor dry and over to the drain. Now a days it never gets wet in there unless I spill my bourbon....
Wow that garage floor sounds like a text book concrete pour. I was not so fortunate in the house I purchased used but my concrete floor is in good shape with no cracks after 25 years. I applied Epoxy 10 years ago and it was great for probably 2 years but then started experiencing 2-4 small (40-60 mm wide) blisters appearing in the Epoxy finish each year, no doubt from moisture coming up through the concrete. My only solution has been to peel back the blister a bit, mix up a little epoxy about once a year, sand the concrete and reapply some Epoxy. I of course notice the pock marked surface but most people don't notice it unless I point out the repair spots. The good news is that the finish is hard and smooth and cleans very easily with a quick hose out or a mop and bucket for more serious clean outs in the spring and fall. I had an acquaintance who broke out his floor and installed a new one with proper soil prep and drainage. I don't remember what it cost but I remember thinking that is was surprisingly reasonable at the time. He used a high tech concrete from Lafarge and the eventual finish was amazing.
My garage floor is nothing more than the anal tendencies of someone who has been in the engineering field much too long.... hahahaha..... Actually your floor sounds like you were fortunate enough that someone there built a quality product. A concrete slab floor that hasn't shown any cracks, hairline or whatever, has something right going for it. We get so much frost action here that we tend to accept minor cracking as nearly unavoidable.
Yep, no question original owner & his builder went to some effort to ensure quality product - shows in many aspects of the construction. Even more interestingly no saw cuts in the entire oversized slab and still no stress fractures in the entire slab. Not sure what type of concrete mix they used but it was not the standard mix. Some years ago I had to drill a hole in it to mount a motorcycle turntable and it was a real job even with a good quality hammer drill.