I’m starting to feel that my concrete slab needs attention.
I have a drive-in basement workshop with rather low (7′) celings,
and the floor is flaking and dusty. I’ve purchased some vinyl floor patch for the little craters, but I think I need a floor covering to
keep the dust under control.
I’m on a tight budget, so I’m thinking about paint or epoxy…
but I would also like to hear any feedback on tile or any other
industrial flooring. There are around 700 sq feet to cover.
Also, I own my house and i’m in a college town, so anything which might make the space nice enough to be used as another bedroom might warrant spending more money in the short term…
I really like the clear coatings on many industrial floors.
Are these likely epoxy? Where does one get clear epoxy.
I would love to hear any experiences you’ve had.
vincent
Replies
Hi vincent,
I did a google search on resurfacing concrete floor and got a bunch of hits, http://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/concrete_resurfacing/ for example.
Sorry I can't cite personal experience but at least you can get some ideas about products and perhaps costs. Many commercial floors are done in epoxy. I will check with a former employer (National commercial flooring company) as to the process and fire another post over to you here.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 10/1/2007 12:21 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
I used Rust-Oleum Garage Floor Epoxy and couldn't be happier with the results. I have a 24' by 38' shop and it took two kits which each cost $49.95 each so it was very affordable.
Hi Vincent,
That clear coating you see on industrial floors is most likely polished concrete. I would probably use concrete patch for repair and then use an epoxy paint. You could post this question over at Breaktime too for a different perspective.
Paul
Vincent,
I really, really, really wanted to paint my concrete shop floor, I've not done that....
When I added a 12x30 slab and unheated storage addition, along the way, from Home Dep. "Oops Paint, I collected one can of primer and six gallons of a beige colored single part Behr Epoxy floor paint for $5 a can. The product requires a clear primer, which if you were paying retail, the total cost would equal the 2-part Epoxy paint Rustoleum makes. I needed more of a vapor barrier than a tough paint barrier since I'm air drying some Pecan, Oak and Walnut. That's been two summers ago and the floor has had lumber blocked and stacked on it, so I can't tell you how it wears. Below is a finished shot of the storage area and the 25" wide pull-down ladder to 12'x20' attic storage.
With any floor paint, you've got to have most all your heavy equipment set where it's going to stay. Scooting, or even rolling a 20" planer that weighs 800lbs, on those narrow 3/4"-1" rubber casters on most popular mobile bases can cause the paint to lift if you have the slightest bonding issue.
No matter what you choose, remember that the rougher the concrete floor the more product it takes. The application estimates on the can seem to reflect a super smooth concrete finish...
What I've decided to use is the clear sealer that dries much like a floor wax. The brand I found is "Seal Krete". If I spill something, or while moving tools or machines I scrape the floor, this type of concrete sealer is easy to touchup with little worry of it matching the rest of the floor. It will be next summer before the workshop can be rearranged so I can clean the floor and begin to apply it.
For what's it worth,
Bill
Vincent, I used a product called UCoatIt for my garage floor and the stuff is bullet proof. They carry a line of concrete patching products too.
http://www.ucoatit.com/
It appealed to me because it is guaranteed against hot tire lift and it is water based.
The down side is that it is expensive.
Steve
The rustolium product stinks (did for me) when I did my second garage I really looked into it more and went with the real Devoe Industrial Coatings non water based true epoxy system. It is the only one I know of after a lot of looking. The stuff is bullet proof.
Drew
Why do you say it stinks? It was very low cost, was easy to apply and has held up really well for me.
If you look at the hardness of a waterborn epoxy versus the true epoxy paint you will understand the difference. Eventually I scratched my rustolium floor up pretty good dragging stuff around on it. I have done the same thing on the new floor and cannot hurt it. I have used the same acid etch floor prep for both floors. Just do a little googling and you will find this is really true. Be careful though... see if those guys in the dam powerplant in Colorado had been useing waterborn they would be alive today. However they were useing true epoxy paint as it works much better though it is flammable and does gas off a lot.Drew
Thanks for all the suggestions...It seems like the 2 part garage epoxy is probably the best bet for the money... I don't plan on dragging super heavy machines with tiny casters, so I think it will be hard enough. My basement has a garage door which opens, so I can leave it open with a fan blowing out while the stuff dries. I bought some quick-crete vinyl floor patch to fix divots and cracks before the epoxy goes down.Then I plan on doing the job in 2-3 parts so that I can move equipment from one side of the room to the other. vincent
vincent,
I'm not sure if epoxy will wave from the fan or not. Several yaers ago I waxed a floor and used a fan to aid in drying.
Guess what, it looked like it had waves from the fan blowing on it!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I was planning to put the fan up off the floor and direct air away from the floor (to help vent the fumes)... would this possible cause any waves in the floor?thanks for your help
vincent,
I'm not sure but it doesn't sound like it would cause problems as your directing the air stream away from the floor.
My episode with the waxed floor was a great big DUH on my part. The fan was sitting on the door threshold facing the newly waxed floor. It was kind of funny in a way. Next to the fan there was very little wax left and as you looked across the room there were waves of wax all across the floor.
The boss wasn't too pleased either. He told me that wasn't quite what he had in mind! At least stripping new wax was easier than old wax.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I, too, use the Rustoleum two-part epoxy product and have been very pleased with it thus far. The key to any floor coating is in the preparation so take your time. Like you've said, go ahead and patch any cracks or gouges in the floor using a good quality concrete patch filler. Be sure to let it completely dry before starting the prep work. Also, if you have any heavy oil spots, use a degreaser before starting the process. I used two rounds of muriatic acid followed by the power washer after each one. Note: be sure you were protective gear when using the muriatic acid since it's toxic. I have a 22'x26' workshop and it took me about 7 hours of prep time.
Just a word of warning on doing the process in 2-3 parts as you mentioned. The "open" time when using these products is very limited so once you mix the epoxy, the application time is maybe a couple of hours. I think the Rustoleum product only allowed me about an hour due to my location (Houston) based on temperature and humidity. Two problems can occur if you don't apply it within this window: it won't be seamless so you'll see the stop and start lines and the color of the epoxy will be lighter. So, it's best if you have some help and can move everything out of the shop so you can do one application. Plus, it's best to keep things off of it for at least 24 hours. If you can't do a one coat application, you might try to move as much to the perimiter as possible so the portions of the floor you see the most will look good. The perimiter will probably be covered with machines, workbenches, etc. so it won't matter as much or be as noticeable.
Hope it turns out well!
P.S. I attached a photo of my finished floor...
Brett
that looks really nice... I think I want to do the room in two sections and I can live with it if there is a visible line. My two worries now are1. Getting the floor clean enough- i own a power washer, but unless i move EVERYTHING out of the shop then i can't really use it. I was hoping to mop and use a scrub brush to clean the surface with less water going everywhere. 2. The odor sounds pretty bad- I really don't want to have to vacate my house for two days if I can avoid it. I was going to do this during good weather so there is no furnace running or air circulating to the upstairs... but it might be too strong even then. these two considerations make me think that linoleum tiles might be a better option... or I'll just have to make the decision to move everything out of the shop for 3-4 days and find a place to stay while I do the job. I wish I had done this when I bought the house.
There are also lots of "solid" (as opposed to paint) products made for covering garage floors. You can get click-together rubber, vinyl and polypropylene tiles, both solid and perforated, roll-out vinyl sheet flooring, etc. The only prep work any of them require is that you sweep up the big chunks of dirt before you lay them down.
Here's one source: http://www.jnkproducts.com/
-Steve
I used the Rustoleum product in my shop (I'm well pleased though I wish I hadn't spilled so much stuff on it over the years. Do they call that patina?) The garage was a different story. In Michigan the roads are salted in icy weather and the drips from the car begin to spall the concrete. Several years ago I applied a "concrete sealer". It didn't help. But - when I later tried the Rustoleum it DID NOT stick to any area that had been sealed. (The instructions warn of this problem.) Do you think the epoxy product you mention would stick to "sealed" concrete?Frosty"I sometimes think we consider the good fortune of the early bird and overlook the bad fortune of the early worm." FDR - 1922
Linoleum stick down tile is a cheap as it gets.
I went with an industrial two part epoxy. It was cheaper then rustuliam (bought witha contractors discount). It was as toxic as hell going on. My shop is attached to the house and we moved out for 2 days as it stunk bad. But once it was fully cured it was harder then hell and as stood up great for the past few years. I am going to repaint soon, but not because the paint has lifted or failed in anyway, but more becuase in three years I have spilled to much other crap on the paint and does look great anymore and frankly I never really like the color I picked out.
Look for an industrial paint supplier and check out there Two part epoxies.
Yes... this is another consideration. Do you know if this can be stuck directly to clean, flat concrete without any kind of sub-floor? Does it stand up well to heavy abuse? The primary advantage for me might be the relative lack of fumes when compared to epoxy. thanksvincent
I bought an older house with a family room that had linoleum tile stuck to bare concrete originally. Someone had carpeted over it, and I found the linoleum when I pulled up the carpet. I left the linoleum as the subfloor, but had to replace broken tiles from the carpet's nailing strips so I could have a smooth surface again. The original linoleum on concrete seemed to have worked out very well given its age.
The Lowe's and HD "oops" racks can be a goldmine if you're not picky about color. The Lowe's close to me recently had a Rustoleum Garage Floor epoxy kit at $19.99; the next aisle over the new stuff was at $59.99.
Rob
thanks - I'll certainly be looking in the OOPS section at my local lowes and menards. Since I'm not doing this project right away, I can buy one kit at a time for the next few months. I'm trying to decide if the cost of paying someone to help move all my equipment out into the driveway and back into the basement, so that I can powerwash and use epoxy, would be less than the added cost of linolium. Looks like 800 square feet of cheaper linolium would be $500 vs. 60-180 for epoxy and 50 for muric acid... but more labor all at once.Thanks for all the help everyone.
An old carpenter adage is to make any defect you can't fix into a feature. If I were coating the floor in two passes, I would use blue painters tape to mask a line down the middle. You may have to score with a knife to get it up, but you would at least have a straight and uniform 'seam'. When you do the other side, you would need to mask a bit over to the first side so the two coats could lap a tiny bit.
You could also get tricky and use multiple colors to a racing stripe or team colors inspired floor. Anything but haphazardly slopping epoxy on half the floor followed up by the other half later.
sounds good- even if i use the same color, I'll mask to get a straight line. Although now I'm thinking it's probably best if I do the whole thing in one shot so that I can powerwash the floor before laying down expensive epoxy. We'll see when the time comes. It is tempting to buy whatever 'oops' colors come available and then design a pattern of some kind using those.
Rob,
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the "OOPS" paint being a goldmine!! Most of my workshop, attic storage, and smaller sheds have been painted with their return paints that cost $15 for 5 gallons of preminum semigloss, exterior paints costing at retail for $120. A HD employee told me that they sell it at that price for a good reason.... Here in Texas, if they were to legally dispose of all the returned sealers and paints, it costs them $50 a gallon.
One or two words of caution, though. On two occasions I've been bitten... The first was a returned gallon can of Deft. Some jerk that returned it mixed Deft with something else to make it look like a full can... The standard milky-white color of Deft hid the settled foreign filler while it was being stirred with a drill and mixing paddle. Whatever it was, the first coat wouldn't dry until two weeks passed, and then I had to redo 20 oak doors!! The other was a 5 gallon drum of Behr's preminum grade of clear deck sealer. That JERK just filled half the drum with water.... No damage, but double work and an additional sealer purchase at a retail price...
Just be careful and like ANYTHING you buy at HOME DEPOT, open it and check it before you go to the checkout counter!!!!!
Bill
Thanks for the warning about the "OOPS." I thought it was just stuff where someone didn't like the color, etc. It makes sense, though, because I bought a wallpaper stripper at HD and when I got to my work site I could immediately tell that someone had bought it, used it for their job, then returned it (for whatever reason) and HD just put it on the shelf as new. Unfortunately I was on a deadline and had no time to take it back for a new one. On the flip side, I got a top-of-the-line Rigid industrial shop vacuum for $65 when someone returned it after using it to clean up a water mess of some type. HD tossed in a new replacement filter and sold it "as is," missing one attachment and the noise reducer. A year later and the thing is going as strong as the day I brough it home for $85 under list.In the world of returns-if-not-satisfied I've encountered used/returned sold as new at stores other than just HD. Dishonest customers and dishonest retailers sometimes combine to screw those of us who expect "new" to mean "new and unused." I open all boxes now ASAP to inspect the packaging and make sure I didn't get a return.Rob
The clear coating you see in big box stores is a Sealer/Hardener/Denisfier. One brand is Ashford but there are many others. They don't require the kind of maintenance paint or epoxies do.
Do these provide a shiny 'film' type finish, or do they soak into the the concrete and look nearly invisible?
You have to polish or scrub the concrete to get the shinny finish. On large projects, they use walk behind machines but you can also use a buffer.http://www.ashfordformula.com/Concrete%20Sealer-Application.html
I recently built a new addition with a basement for a shop. I coated the concrete floor with a two part epoxy paint for "garage floors". I followed the directions and etched the floor first and then used 2 coats. I chose traditional "battleship grey" for a neutral shop floor color. I considered adding the flecks but decided against it. I'm very pleased with the result and you're right, sweeping and vacuuming is much easier now.
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