Anyone have experience installing an Epoxy Garage Floor?

[leeland]

I have some vacation to burn and was looking into doing this for our 2 car garage...however I was curious the length of time it took someone to do it...by them self.

Any info is appreciated...

Leeland

 

[MrDudeMan]

I did this by myself last summer. There are a few very important steps:

If you already have a layer of paint on the floor, you should pressure wash it off first.
Sweep the floor completely clean - twice.
Next get the actual garage floor cleaner. It has acid in it so wear gloves and old shoes, but this is another crucial step. You will want to wash the floor after you do this because it leaves a residue if you don't mix it right (which is hard to do). You know if there is residue because it turns powdery white.
Do not skip the primer. If you don't put down the primer, you are wasting your time. Two coats minimum.
Finally, you are ready to paint the floor. This is also a two coat minimum thing. I put down three just to be sure and it still looks amazing a year later because of that.

Do not get impatient with the dry time! I can't stress this enough. I thought it would be fine to start dragging a few things back into the garage the next day but I caused myself a lot of headache by not waiting longer. After spending all of this time and energy, it would be to your benefit to wait longer than 24 hours, maybe even 48.

 

[WannaFly]

I bought a kit from home depot to do it - thought it'd be quick, boy was i wrong.

As MrDudeMan said , you have to "etch" bare concrete, so that the primer/paint will stick better, and before you do that you ahve to wash (And completely dry) the floor.

Steps/time for my 2.5 car garage:

1. Empty garage, sweep floor (1.5 hours)
2. Pressure wash (oil, etc) (1.0 hours)
3. Sweep (30min)
4. Etch (2 hours)
5. Wash again (1 hour)
4. Sweep again (30 min)
5. Paint (1.5 hours)

It's quite a job, maybe i went overboard but when i was done it looked really really good. Make sure you wait 24-38 hours, as MrDudeMan said.

 

[Queasy]

Yep, putting the epoxy down is the easy part. Prepping the garage floor is the PITA. Especially if you have a garage full of stuff.

 

[leeland]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Yep, putting the epoxy down is the easy part. Prepping the garage floor is the PITA. Especially if you have a garage full of stuff.

ha ha ha I am envisioning that as I write this...my garage is filled with crap.

One thing is it is getting a little cooler out and fear that the temp. will interfere with this project...

What time of the year did you guys start on this?

As for the cleaning and etching did you get a specific tool to clean the garage floor or can any deck brush work?

Our garage floor is quite dirty and I was anticipating getting a large squeegie (sp?) and a deck brush for the cleaning process...sound good?

Thanks for the info guys...