Turning your garage into a Man Cave?

At some point in time you have probably considered coating your garage floor with one of those epoxy kits from the DIY store. More often than not, these floors look great........until you park, walk, spill water or use the floor for any purpose! But why does this happen?

Besides the point that these kits are barely more than paint & sprinkles and not a true epoxy floor here are a few things to consider if you want to roll the dice on your own project.

PREP!

No, not the girl that got straight A's in class and wouldn't give you the time of day, were talking about preparing your concrete to receive the coating your putting down.

Nearly all of the DIY kits include some kind of magic "etching" powder or acid to "clean & etch" your floor prior to coating. Here's a tip, mix a 1:1 solution of water and orange juice in a pump up sprayer. This solution will be safer, but equally worthless for prepping your floor!

The point is, simply "acid washing" your floor and expecting any coating to stick is ridiculous. First of all, moisture and epoxy are not friends. Any wet prepping you may do is just setting up a certain failure. Second, the concrete may have been previously sealed with concrete sealer which acid has no effect.

Grind or Shotblast....the choice is yours!

The proper way to prep for an epoxy floor is to either grind using a diamond floor grinder, or to shot blast using a machine that hurls steel shot at the floor to create the needed profile. Both methods can be low mess with the use of dustless equipment. Some tool rental outlets have diamond grinders or shot blasters for rent, but not all include a dust vac.

Mechanically grinding or blasting the floor cleans the surface and exposes fresh concrete for the coating to adhere. Even if your concrete is new it is still a good idea to mechanically prep the floor. (Be sure to wait at least 30 days prior to coating any new concrete)

Some other random epoxy facts:

• Vapor transmission through the concrete can cause any non breathable coating to fail. A crude way of testing your concrete is to prep a small area of floor (see above) and tape a 2' x 2' piece of plastic to the floor securely and completely on all 4 edges. Wait 48 hours and pull up the plastic, if there is visible moisture your likely to have problems.

• A typical professionally installed epoxy floor consists of a primer coat, chip coat, and one or two clear coats of 100% solids epoxy. These floors can also be waxed and buffed.

• Glass bead is often used as a non slip agent.

• A typical professionally installed residential epoxy floor is anywhere between $3 - $5.50 per square foot depending on type of floor and required prep.
  

• All the prep in the world won't make a junk product last.