Garage Floor Paint Coatings
The number one question to ask yourself when contemplating which garage floor paint to choose is how much traffic the floor will need to support and what type of traffic it will be. Now-a-days most people don’t ever park their car in the garage, instead they use it for storage, as a play room, as a work room, or just as extra space. The use you intend for you floor will determine what type of garage floor paint coating to choose.
For example, if you are actually going to be driving your car in and out once, twice, or more times a day you will need a tougher, thicker product than if you are only going to store cardboard boxes on the floor. If you are going to be parking your car the best choice is going to be an epoxy coating.
Epoxies are hard, tough surfaces that are formed by the chemical reaction that occurs between two ingredients, the resin and the hardener. These two parts are liquid until they are mixed together and the chemical reaction occurs. Once the curing process is complete, the epoxy will provide a very good protection for your floor.
There are basically two types of epoxy floor coatings that you can use. The first suspends the epoxy solids in a liquid vehicle that allows for the painting of the mixture. These usually have about 50% – 60% solids which means only this amount of the coating will actually turn into the surface paint. The rest of the mixture will dry off and their only use is to allow for painting. One of the nice things about this type of epoxy coating is that it is easy to clean up. If you splatter or spill some it can be cleaned up using soap and water if you do it before the curing process occurs. Like all epoxy products you can add anti-skid additives which provide good footing if the floor gets wet. This is very important as these hard surfaces get very, very slick. You can also add color chips before the surface dries and these can add not only color but also texture to the floor.
The second type of epoxy floor paint is almost 100% solids. The up side is this coating can be applied much thicker which means it will last a lot longer. The downside is you have to work fast when applying this product as it cures very fast. Also, since the solids are not suspended in a liquid medium, clean up can not be accomplished with just soap and water.
If you are only looking for a sealer or clear coating over the concrete and you don’t intend to have very heavy traffic then an acrylic clear coat will work fine. The application steps are about the same but the acrylic is much thinner and thus will not stand up to abuse like the epoxy will. This product also should have anti-slip additives applied as it will be slick when wet and you can use color chips for accent. Usually, if you use color chips on acrylic you will spread them out on the first coat and then apply another coat over the top to help keep them in place.
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We just bought a new house. The previous owners had previously painted the garage floor. The garage had been used as a workshop so there are house paint drippings and smudges on the floor. Can we simply repaint it with an epoxy paint, or is there something that needs to be done to the floor other than preasure washing? I have asked 10 different people and nobody seems to know the answer. Please help
Hi Patty,
As long as the paint is adhering to the floor surface well you can apply an epoxy over it. There are three things you need to look out for though. First, be sure none of the paint is loose and peeling. If it is, you will need to get this all scraped up. Second, use a good quality degreaser to be sure there are no petroleum stains left on the surface. Usually if you scrub with a degreaser and use a pressure washer you will be fine. Third, you will need to rough up the surface by sanding in order to give the epoxy a something to adhere to. Be sure to get all the dust off before you apply your coating.
These are general recommendations for most epoxies. As always, follow the particular instructions of the product you decide to use.