Epoxy floor coating

[Scarpozzi]

My 5 year old garage project is finally coming along. I built this 900 square foot garage and have been using it for years as staging for the other 1000 square feet of space I've been building. I had some guys put up drywall and unloaded all my stuff to a few storage units...so I figured I'd finish the floors after I painted the ceiling/walls since I had it emptied out.

I went to Lowes/HD to look for expoxy products and found the rustoleum type water-based epoxies. I quickly saw they were very small kits claiming 250 sq ft of coverage. I called BS on them and didn't bite. I read some online reviews about Sherwin Williams epoxy solids-based epoxies and visited my local store to have this fat chick that looked like she'd never painted anything in her life tell me she didn't think I should be working with the industrial line. I got a quote and went across town to my local PPG store where they sell a product called Amerlock. The guys there quoted me on the product which was only stocked in the color Pearl Gray. I'm not doing paint flecks or anything....so I took 8 gallons(4, 2part kits).

I mixed up a batch and used a 9" roller to spread it out...then went back over it again with another coat on the thin spots. I waited about 3 days and started driving on it. It's a decent finish. I did all the prep work...never sealed the concrete, etched with acid...didn't bother grinding. The finish was only about $650 for all materials.


https://imgur.com/gallery/XUdMY3e
https://imgur.com/gallery/2XBA7iQ
https://imgur.com/gallery/QILd5BR

 

[mindless1]

Looks nice. Now you need those garage door frames painted.

 

[mizzou]

i had like months of concrete "sweat" after a new pour. Its been two years now and I want to do an epoxy finish

thanks for the post!

 

[homebrew2ny]

Nice work! Amerlock is a quality product but I may be a bit biased because I was a sales rep for PPG for a handful of years.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Nice work! Amerlock is a quality product but I may be a bit biased because I was a sales rep for PPG for a handful of years.

I couldn't find much info about it. There are a handful of solids-based epoxies out there. I sort of lucked out because I happened to pick a cold, non-windy weekend to do the job. (wind blows across my driveway really bad and could have blown debris into the job while the doors were open) The 40-60 degree avg temp when I rolled the stuff out made for a slow cure...and it gave me more time to go back with a followup coat on my schedule.

 

[Greenman]

Did my garage with epoxy a few years back. I don't recall what I used, but it was a two part kit and one kit did the whole garage. It still looks fantastic. The stuff wears like iron.

 

[RearAdmiral]

My garage floor is a hot mess. Does this stuff require it to be pretty flat / cleaned up? I wonder if it could work for me. I'm tired of all the little pebbles and stuff breaking off in my garage.

 

[homebrew2ny]

Yes, you will need to have the floor clean of debre, and any chemical stains cleaned or sealed in. As for the profile, a little rough is fine as long as all loose debre is removed.

On a side note, you can also get a "quick converter" for this product that takes the dry/cure time down from 5 to 7 days (when using the normal converter), to 7 to 12 hours. As long as you are close to the recommended 70 degree ambient/surface temp.

Also, it can be recoated after dry/cured if needed.

 

[Scarpozzi]

The epoxy coating sticks best when there's something for the epoxy to grip to. This is why some people diamond-grind and/or etch the concrete with acid. It roughs up the surface. If you ever sealed the concrete or have grease spots, you've got to address that stuff because the epoxy coat won't stick as well and you'll end up with the coating lifting.

There are quite a few approved filler products that people use under epoxy coats for filling cracks and holes. My concrete was a pristine few year old pour, with the exception of some divots created by gravels that my tires picked up and the expansion/contraction joints that are 1/4" cut joints in the slab. I didn't bother filling these. I also put the epoxy coat down and didn't prefill those little divots/holes. Now there are obvious voids in the floor where the small gravels create the holes. Other than that....it's pretty flat every where else. Along the expansion/contraction joints, I used a brush and cut in the epoxy to make sure that it made better contact than using a roller alone for application.

 

[evident]

Looks great so far.

I wish i can do this to my garage... too much shit in there right now... and the prep work would take forever since it's so gross and stained...