Good Afternoon,
My wife and I have decided to paint our garage floor. We use our garage as both a wood shop and a place to park our minivan inside during inclement weather.
We have seen two different brands for garage paint. Behr and Rustoleum. Does anyone have experience with either brand? Both brands recommend a seven day drying period before moving a vecicle in. Does this seven day waiting period also apply to tools on wheels?
Cost is a factor. Our garage is 3 1/2 in size. Rustoleum states their product covers a 2 1/2 garage for $99.98. Behr cost is hard to compute since it involves several steps and could not find on the paint can the area of coverage
We had a friend tells us car dealerships have a harder paint. Does anyone know anything about this third paint product?
Thanks for your input.
Terre
Replies
Terre,
I used the Rustoleum 2-part epoxy on my new shop. I applied about 2 years ago and it is holding up well. I don't park vehicles in the shop but I do drag a lot of stuff around and it holds up well. It has never lifted or flaked but the paint itself scratches if you drag some heavy sharp object across the floor. I don't imagine any product is completely scratch proof. For my 700 sq ft shop I used about 1 1/2 gallons.
HTH,
Dave
This stuff has received pretty good reviews on the automotive boards I hang out on. Don't know how the price compares, though. http://www.ucoatit.com/mainprod.html
Thanks for the input. We believe we need to cover 860 feet, so two gallons might cover it? Thanks.
Hi Terre,
I got the Rustoleum at Lowes. Based on my experience, I think you should be able to cover your 860 feet with 2 gallons.
As others have said, the most important thing is preparation. My floor was new, althought it had cured for several months. The paint comes with a citrus-based cleaner that worked well for me. Problems would probably arise if your floor had oil or grease or some kind of sealer.
My floor was about 5 years old with a few stains. I used the citrus cleaner and a scrub brush and cleaned the areas very well. To date all is holding extremely well. If you look just to the left of the drain in the before pic you can see the oil stain. It is sizable. Would buy the product in a heart beat. I am getting ready to move. If the new house's garage does not have it, that will be the first thing I do.
I am having a new house built (small development cookie cutter house) and will have a 2 car garage. I would like to put down this epoxy - will it work on a new concrete floor, Do I need to do any prep for it, Would the cleaner be needed? 1 - measure the board twice, 2 - cut it once, 3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
Go by lowes or HD and read the material in the kit. It is very extensive. If I remember correctly the Concrete should be cured for a period prior to putting it down, but I don't recall it being a long time. If you are going to paint don't put a sealer on the concrete. It will cause delamination. The Epoxy will seal and it will look good to.
Good Morning.
Thank you for taking the time to send photographs. That was great. Your garage floor looks fantastic. Thank you again.
Do a search on the Fine Home Building forum. There have been a couple of threads on the Rustoleum product and it has received sharply divided reviews. My guess is that those who like the product were very meticulous with the preparation and applied it to older floors. Those who disliked the product probably were less than meticulous with the preparation and/or applied it to new floors.
Regardless, I do understand there are industrial products that are not significantly more expensive.
I used the Behr. It looked nice but did not stick well. The concrete was a few years old. I thoroughly cleaned and primed the floor per instructions. I waited the recommended time for the washing and priming to dry, but each was still a bit damp when I applied the next coat, which I think was a bad idea despite their help line saying it did not have to be dry so long as I waited as long as the can said.
It may have worked fine with thorough drying, but I'm not impressed.
Thanks for the input. My neighbor across the street used Behr. They painted their garage floor dark blue with white walls and a gray ceiling. It came out very nice.
I used the Valspar 2-part solvent based epoxy available at Lowe's. I washed the floor with TSP and water solution then hydro chloric acid etched it, 10-20% in water. I applied two coats with proper drying in between. Yes, it is necessary to wait 7 days before driving a car on it. After three years, the floor is still perfect. I don't think you can go wrong with this product and procedure. My advice is not to go cheap and follow all the steps to do it right. Otherwise, you could end up wth a mess that would be very hard to fix.
I haven't seen this product and we have looked at Lowe's. We'll be goint back to see if the Lowe's in Albuquerque has the product. Thank you.
I used the rustoleum product last year. I can't say enough good things about it. I have a large two car garage. I bought two of the box kits and it covered my garage fine. I use my garage as a shop and it houses my Harley. You will love the cleanup. No more stained concrete. I would caution you to read the directions. I put mine down on a very hot day. The cure time is accelerated by heat. I had to haul butt to get it down due to the 90+ day. I did half a garage first. It needs to set a couple of days before you get on it, but after that it's wide open. The second half went down easier (day was cooler). I'll include a link to my post. If you have any questions just let me know.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=19344.14
P.S. As the others have said "read and follow the directions" The rustolem product comes with a citrus based cleaner, and is not very harmful. Grease left will prevent the epoxy from binding. Also, if your floor has a sealer on it, it may cause problems, but they have a reccomended procedure if you do. Your concrete floor should be cured and not brand new. My house was six years old and I had no sealer on the floor. It greatly reduced the rust problem in the shop. It's amazing how much moisture comes out of the floor. Good luck on the decision you won't regret doing it.
Edited 7/11/2005 10:29 pm ET by bones
Terre, just a note to let you know that I recently coated my garage with the UCoatIt product. This is an excellent product that I highly recommend.
http://www.ucoatit.com/
It is a two part epoxy that is easy to apply, cleans up with soap and water, and yields excellent results. Preparation is the key though. I degreased and cleanded until you could eat off of the garage floor.
On the down side, it is expensive. Including a concrete patch kit and shipping, the total bill was ~$350 for my 2 car garage.
If you are interested in the UCoatIt product, my recommendations are to study their web site, down load the instructions, and order the video (deducted from the first order) before placing an order.
Steve Pippins
I've used the Rustoleum product twice:
First in my shop (a walled off third garage bay). Results were excellent! No more dusting problems and old oil stains were covered with no problems. I followed the directions.
Next I did the two remaining bays where the cars are parked. A few years ago I had "sealed" some areas where the floor was pitting from winter-salt dripping from the cars. The Rustoleum epoxy does NOT stick to areas which were sealed. The rest is fine and withstood the ravages of last winter drips with no problems.
If there is a way to remove the old sealer, I did not read of it.
P.S. You can be real creative when applying the "sprinkles" to the epoxy. They look good.
Jerry
I see that no one has expressly addressed one part of your question
Does this seven day waiting period also apply to tools on wheels?
My answer is YES it does. just for safety, after spending the money, effort and time, do not take chances by getting overly eager - let it fully cure and you will enjoy it for a long time.
It is a good idea, after the seven days of staying off are up, to put cardboard under the wheels for another couple of weeks, and move wheeled machinery around every day.
NO QUESTION, the best paint is benjamin moore's Z22. it is indestructable. high gloss alkyd industrial coating. you can mix in some sand if you're worried about traction. and it's one of their cheaper products. go with a premix color (still a pretty good variety) and you're looking at about $25 per gallon. as usual with paint a gallon will cover appx 400 sqft.
as for dry time, think of it like a finish. it's one thing to be dry to the touch, another to be cured. alkyds take about a week to ten days to cure sufficiently. believe it or not, while they may dry quicker latex will take about two weeks to cure.
rusto is good stuff. behr is to be avoided at all costs. go with the ben moore. high traffic apartment buildings here in nyc use the stuff for their basement floors. trucks get backed over this stuff every day and it just stays put.
Does this seven day waiting period also apply to tools on wheels?
I'd say yes! Even walking on it can cause problems...
I would suggest if you want it NICE.. Get a pro to do it..
Before you do anything go ask at Breaktime.. Sure some will "eat your heart out" over it..
Those folks get REALLY serious!.. I just love them...
Terre,
I'm going to offer a contrary point of view: Unless there is something really wrong with the concrete floor as it is, don't paint the floor, it isn't worth it.
First, it is a garage after all, not your living room, it doesn't need to look beautiful.
Painting the floor costs a moderate amount of money, and takes quite a bit of time and labor while tying up the space for a week or more. Also, even with good preparation, there is a some chance that the paint will fail rather quickly, which leaves the floor looking worse than the unpainted concrete.
In my experience painted floors are dangerousy slippery, and adding sand to the paint makes it impossible to sweep the floor well. Finally, the paint will eventually wear out or start to flake off and it can be very difficult to get a second coat of paint to adhere well to the first layer.
John W.
I've seen the Rustoleum product on sale in the $60 at HDepot.
I used it in my basement and never had problems.
1) easy cleanup
2) No concrete dust
3) Reflects light making things brighter in room
4) No slip surface when mopping up
I used the Rustloeum two part epoxy product on my three car garage/shop two years ago and it has held up extremely well. It gives the area a finished look and makes it much easier to clean up spills and dust. You also don't have to put up with the concrete dust that develops with bare concrete. I highly recommend the Rustoleum product.
I recently faced the same decision as you. I chose Rustoleum. It's one step application is easier. The citrus cleaner worked well and the floor looks great. The manual says new concrete should cure for at least two weeks and you can walk on it and do most anything on it after 48 hours. Cars should not be driven on it for a week.
There are more old drunkards than old doctors. Ben Franklin
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