Any experience with epoxy floor coatings out there?
I coated my 600 sq feet floor this week-end using Quikrete purchased at Lowes (3kits @ $62 a kit) and it went on nicely. The Lowes paint fella colored it to exactly what I needed, the finish really looks good.
I followed the instructions and keep temperatures above 55 with a couple of heaters, now it’s crossing fingers that everything cures and dries well, and the coating remains durable.
Has anyone used this product before and experienced the durability afterwards?
Willem
Replies
I did my garage with Valspar epoxy paint. It's been on through 5 winters and summers without a hint of wear. I did make the mistake of not putting the silica into the paint and it was like an ice rink when it got wet. I recoated it with the silica in the paint and it's been great. I plan to do my shop soon.
1) Apply it as soon as the floor is cured - before it gets dirty. Any contaminent will cause the epoxy to fail over time.
2) Silica silica silica - unless you wear ice skates in the shop.
I've been thinking about doing this, but there's one small area on my floor that's always a little damp. There's never any standing water. Would I have problems with epoxy paint in such an area?
Short answer..Yes.
Longer answer... Absolutely yes.
In fact, there is no finish that you will be able to apply that will not fail in these damp conditions. JL
I have used the two-part epoxy kits from the hardware stores. I love it - good-looking, no slip problems, easy to sweep and glue drops wipe up w/o much trouble.I liked it so much I put it down in the garage. Problem! I had previously "sealed" sections of the floor and the epoxu DOES NOT STICK to the sealed areas. (The instructions say as much so it is not a product fault.)Otherwise the garage floor is good too after three years.Frosty
how can you clean an old floor so you get good contact. My shop floor is about 40 years old and dirt, old paint etc. that I will have to clean off. Frankly, getting it clean has been the bock to me putting down this epoxy coating.Dan Carroll
Power washing with a degreasing detergent, then scrubbing with muriatic acid can get concrete completely clean. There are usually instructions for using the acid on the gallon bottles. Be careful with it, always add acid to a bucket of water, never add water to acid, use gloves and a natural bristle brush and neutralize or flood with lots of water. Too much acid wash can make the surface very rough.
Rich
Edited 2/27/2007 12:23 pm ET by Rich14
Is power washing really necessary? It will be difficult to keep that much water in the shop and out of the rest of the finished basement. I hear enough about saw dust on the carpet now, I can just image what power washing the adjoining floor would bring forth.Dan Carroll
"how can you clean an old floor so you get good contact. My shop floor is about 40 years old and dirt, old paint etc. that I will have to clean off"
"Is power washing really necessary?"
Um . . . pretty much!
DanCC, just a note to add my two cents worth to the discussion.
I bought a house a couple of years ago that had cars and lawnmowers parked in it for 20+ years. In one corner, the grease and oil was so thick that I had to scrape it off with a putty knife.
Instead of using a power washer, I used an ordinary floor buffer, a stripping pad and lots of degreaser and detergent. To etch the surface, I used the same buffer and stripper pad commbination and scrubbed the floor with ordinary builders sand. A muriatic acid wash followed by rinsing was the final step.
The cleaning process resulted in a clean floor that I coated with a 2 part water based epoxy from UCoatIt. The floor is bullet proof.
Using a buffer is labor intensive but may give you the results you want without the power washer overspray.
Steve
Hi Rich, the power washing and degreaser will clean most of it up but will not take off any sealers that have been put on, like Thompson or the like. If you read the directions the only way to deal with this is to shot blast or grind the floor. Either way it is a mess.
In my shop the previous owner had sealed the floor. I renter a concrete floor grinder and that worked out well. It took awhile to grind the floor and I had a lot of dust to sweep up. After the grinding I then power washed it to get rid of all the dust residue. The new coating has stuck very well doing that.
Mike We are the people our parents warned us about. J. Buffett
parrothead
Yes, grinding the surface is necessary if it's been sealed. But that's such an extreme measure that it's something only a very tiny number of people would even consider.
On the other hand, if you really want to be sure an epoxy paint will adhere, and if you really want a smooth surface, that's really the way to do it!
Rich
Having the smooth floor is nice but what I was really after was having the epoxy adhere well. I agree it is not something that many people would do. It is also not to cheap a propisition. It cost almost as much to rent the "diamond blades" as it did to rent the machine they fit in.
We are the people our parents warned us about. J. Buffett
The epoxy kit I used came with a citrus cleaner. Brush it on with a scrub brush on a handle - rinse; repeat. I had oil drips from power equipment and the epoxy sticks just fine in those areas.Frosty
This is from a face-to-face conversation with a Sherwin Williams commercial division representative regarding surface prep for their 2 part expoxy:
"...if there are places that you know have an oil or grease residue, get some Easy Off oven cleaner and apply to the spots and let sit overnight. Continue with regular cleanup and etching per normal instructions..."
Haven't tried it myself, yet.
My results haven't been as good as I had hoped.
I used a kit from HD in one of their stock colors.
Using a pressure washer, I washed, degreased and washed and washed and washed. I also etched the surface and washed and washed and you get the idea.
However, I'm still got lift-up under the tires of my truck. The wife's side of the garage doesn't suffer those problems.
I think the problem was the age and amount of accumulated gunk on the garage floor. 40+ year old house and the stains looked like a post-modernist painting gone awry. Quite a few cracks in it too unfortunately.
I haven't tried re-cleaning / etching / painting the trouble spots yet. Mostly because I'm waiting for the temperature to warm up and for the spots to stop spreading. The paint job is a little over a year old.
The other option I'm considering is getting some diamond plate for those spots and epoxying them over the floor. I'll probably do a moisture test first before I re-paint the area as I don't know if my problems are due to residual gunk or moisture coming up through the floor.
Everywhere else the floor looks great and I haven't had any problems. I have also foolishly dropped objects on the floor without chipping the paint.
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