I have been reading on garagejournal.com a lot recently about flooring. The advice that you give matches closely to what they say on there. One question is did you check out Legacy Industrial? They are very active on the GJ site and seem to have a much better selection of epoxy then epoxy-coat.

 

Lars - if you can figure out a way to swing it, I would highly recommend doing whatever floor treatment you think you want now. Once you move in and that garage is filled to the rafters with cars and crap, you'll be hard pressed to find the motivation to drag everything out and do it.

Even a cheap Home Depot kit (I think I used the Rustoleum?) is better than the bare concrete floor if done with some care.


Coming from the world of concrete cinder block construction it is still weird for me to see unfinished, unpainted walls in a garage or workshop.

 

Nope. I heard of that GJ site, i may have gotten a little bit of info on it but never really read any of the threads.
Haven't heard of Legacy Industrial. The other reason i went with epoxy-coat was because they're local. It was overnight shipping, i probably could have went and picked it up even. But they gave me a pretty good discount for being local.

 

i was going to do my garage before we moved in, but projects ran longer than expected, so then i was going to do it this spring, then summer, and now i probably will never do it.

i really need to though, I've already discolored and stained the crap out of mine in 1 years worth of wrenching and oil spills

 

The one time that I epoxied a floor I rented a tool to remove all the existing paint. It looked a lot like a floor buffer, but instead of a buffing wheel it had giant carbide teeth. The thing cut through everything including bolts sticking out of the concrete.

I don't remember it costing much to rent and made it possible to prep the concrete in a way that I otherwise wouldn't have. Recommended.

 

Some of you may remember the saga of my flooded garage years ago in Florida: https://www.miataturbo.net/insert-bs...kin-day-32730/

After I got the carpet pulled up, I rented a tool similar to this one from the local tool rental place: EDCO Single-Disc Floor Grinder along with a carbide disc with replaceable cutters. It took a while, but not only did I get all the carpet glue up, it put a surface finish on the concrete that was damn near perfect.

After cleaning and drying the concrete, I epoxied it using an inexpensive kit from Home Depot, like this one: Rust-Oleum EpoxyShield 2-gal. Gray High-Gloss 2-Part Epoxy Garage Floor Coating Kit-251870 at The Home Depot

The finish wasn't perfect, owing mostly to the fact that I took my time laying it down in sections. So it's a little patchy. But it proved to be exceedingly durable. I never was able to harm it with jacks, stands, hot tires, etc. My sister and her husband live in that house now, and that floor still looks like the day I laid it down four and a half years ago.

 

Yup, i rented one of them. Had to take up the old crappy paint that was down. What a dang mess. I wasn't even done and that dust pile there was easily 20lbs.

 

I still have to clean up oil stain correct if I want to grind it down? The local Sunbelt has grinders for $71 a day. They are closed Saturday and Sunday though. So I am guessing it will be $150-175 for a weekend rental. I will call the local home depot tomorrow to see if they rent them and how much. Much easier to get one from them on a weekend. I will call Legacy Industrial tomorrow and talk to Scotty about what all I would need to do my garage. I have a rough list of what I think I would need to order to do my garage.

Legacy HD System 600 sq ft. = $309
HD356VOC Urethane clear = $249
pigmented primer = $155

Legacy HD System 300 sq ft. = $184
HD356VOC Urethane Clear = $150
Pigmented Primer = $99

spiked shoes = $47
Moisture and PH Test Kit = $22
Total = $1172

So I am at about $1300-1400 to epoxy the the garage floor properly. That is just a few hundred short of what it would probably cost me to do porcelain tiles.

 

so just do porcelain tiles, peasant.

 

That would then mean I have to not get the stripper pole, kergerator, refrigerator, washer dryer, paint inside of the house. While yes it would be great to do the floor now. I really just can not justify spending that sort of cash.

Going with epoxy-coating.com it would cost me about $700 to do the floor. This will have to wait till tax return season or something.

 

Yeah. I didn't prime or clear coat mine. It wasn't needed with the epoxy-coat.
And yes, oil stains should come up. If not the surface will bubble a little. If you have a leaf blower, that helps get rid of those bubbles. Because my garage was so old, getting some bubbles i think was inevitable. Even when spending over a week prepping.

 

This may be a case of perfect being the enemy of good, resulting in crappy being the winner.

I bought the kit from Home Depot, prepped per their instructions, and that was it. I might have bought a squeegee to attache to a broom handle, but I didn't rent any equipment and I didn't pay nearly that much.

The risk is that, rather than do a decent floor job, you will hold out for an excellent floor job. Then, you will load the garage up to the point that it is never practical to empty it out - resulting in no floor job.

See Braineack's earlier post.

 

The problem with the local big box store brands is that they are the greddy kit of the epoxy flooring world. They are not 100% solid epoxy, usually around 25%. So long term it does not stand up to heavy use. It is meant for garages that you simply park your car in and that is it. If you start with a clean floor and just use the garage floor for that then it tends to be decent. Cost of epoxy supplies would run me about $350 to do the garage.

Going up to just doing 100% solid epoxy is about the equivalent of getting an FM or Begi setup. You have good base, but it is no means optimized to be the best. The cost of 100% solid epoxy would be roughly $500-700.

Going up to 100% solid epoxy with primer and sealant would be getting the fancy Artech or Absurdflow setup. You are getting the best of the best. It costs a bit more, but you know you have the quality. The cost to do all this would be $1200

Realistically no matter what epoxy I would go with I would need to rent a concrete grinder to prep my floor. It will probably be a minimum of $200-250 and 3 days of work just to prep the floor. After that much prep work it is hard to justify going the cheap route. When I do the garage floor it will be done once, and done correctly. I would much rather put it off a year, and do a good job, then cheap out now and redo it all in 2 years because of my cheapness now.

 

I'm not sure how cold it is where you are, but i ran the heat in my garage and it was only like 50F out. I know you can't put the stuff down in the cold. So that's another thing to look at.

 

I suppose those are valid points, as my garage is not a professional grade facility that sees a ton of abusive traffic.

I am still willing to bet that you will be working atop dirty, dusty, and stained concrete in 12 months' time rather than a mediocre but serviceable Rustoleum coated floor. Or, to use your analogy, you'll be running an N/A 1.6L instead of a GReddy or DIY setup.

 

I'm just going to briefly reiterate the notion that I achieved excellent results with this $99 product, and the floor still looks good four and a half years later: Rust-Oleum EpoxyShield 2-gal. Gray High-Gloss 2-Part Epoxy Garage Floor Coating Kit-251870 at The Home Depot

 

Do Greddy-level floorcovering and buy the hard rubber covered wheels for your engine hoist from HF. Used small squares of plywood or plastic under your jackstands to protect the floor (I've had to do that on asphalt before).

 

I just got the call from my recruiter. A 15U just popped up with 2 seats. I reserved it. Someone got cold feet

Holy ******* ****. I was preparing myself to wait until August to get a 15T/15U. Mechanical avaition jobs are ******* slim to none, but my patience paid off. I have my job.

I can't take it. I'm about to cry. 3 years of busting my *** and now it's all coming into plan perfect. **** me.

I love you phaggettes

 

Congrats on getting what you want. So when do you actually join up? What is your mailing address for boot camp. We will gladly send you some things to help get through it.

 

Congrats! You'll have to let me know when you ship out so I can make it down to Key West and buy you a bar tab in celebration.