Epoxy Floor Coating Materials

Home Depot, Lowe's, Sears, Menard's and other hardware or paint outlets have paint that you can apply to your concrete garage floor for about $20-30 per gallon.

They usually also have a $69 - $99 epoxy kit for a two car garage floor and may contain a pound or two of tiny 1/16" decorative chips.

An inexpensive $20 - $30 / gallon concrete paint or one of these kits applied to your garage floor will fail fairly quickly from peeling, staining, yellowing or "Hot Tire Pickup."

It is not worth the effort since you (or a contractor) will have to grind off the failing surface and then coat it yet again frequently. Over a few years this is going to be a costly and time-consuming project. You have better things to do with your time and money.

There are two categories of epoxies: A one-part product and a two-part product and secondly a low solids vs a high solids epoxy.

1.) One-part epoxies are little more than house paint and just sit on the surface of the concrete. Not very durable and particularly not for high traffic areas like a garage.

2.) Two-part epoxies contain a "part A" resin and a "part B" hardener. When mixed they create a chemical reaction that results in a hard plastic-like surface. This surface is very durable and is highly resistant to household chemicals, abrasion and automotive fluids (including battery acid).

3.) Two-part epoxies are not like house paint or floor paint. Paints depend on the water in their makeup evaporating to leave behind remaining solids. They sit on top of the surface. The quality epoxies are nearly 100% solids. The resin and the hardener react chemically to create an aggressive bond to the concrete and a very tough surface.

4.) The cheap hardware store kit epoxies contain no more than 30% solids. Professional grade epoxies contain 95-100% solids. (Guess which one is going to last longer.)

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Further differences:
(More coats are not necessarily better)

1.) Some epoxy floor coating systems require a primer coat plus two coats of the epoxy before decorative chips are applied. (Two coats are needed because the epoxy only contains 30%-40% solids. The rest is water or solvents which evaporate during application and curing). This is older technology and leads to higher labor and materials costs for the job and a less durable surface.

2.) Industrial-grade epoxy coating systems are self-priming and contain 95%-100% solids, dive down deeply into the concrete pores and make for a strong, thick coating with one layer. This high-solids epoxy coating also provides 3 times better resistance to moisture vapor emissions (MVE) from your slab. Moisture coming up through your concrete floor can easily cause the cheaper epoxy to pop off.

Since these industrial-grade coating components are highly reactive, they require an experienced installer to apply properly. (The pot life, or usable working time, with these materials is usually less than 30 minutes compared with up to 24 hours for the cheaper water based materials.)

Decorative chips for epoxy floors are normally made of PVC (polyvinyl chloride plastic). They are usually a blend of 3 or more colors of chips. When applied at the proper rate, they create a rich granite-like look for your floor that helps hide floor imperfections and provide traction when the floor is wet.

Chips normally come in 1/32", 1/16", 1/4" and 1" sizes. The hardware store kits supply about 2 pounds of 1/16" chips for a 2 car garage. That small amount is difficult for anyone to spread evenly over 400 sq. ft. The chips are about 1/4" apart and it is all too easy to create splotchy or bald areas where too many or too few chips fell. There are also not enough of them to provide skid resistance when the surface is wet.

Professional installers normally broadcast 25 - 50 pounds of 1/4" chips on a 2 car garage. The coverage is 100% and that amount provides an even, rich appearance.

A 100% chip coverage is also MUCH easier to repair should something extra-ordinarily bad happen to your floor. One of our customers dropped an engine block on the floor which fractured the cement underneath. It was easy to repair seamlessly because matching a 100% chip coverage to a 100% chip coverage was easy compared to trying to match a 10 - 15% coverage.

It is highly advisable that your epoxy floor be coated with a tough, clear UV-resistant sealer.

A high quality sealer is the main component in the coating system. It will lock down the chips, protect your floor against household chemicals, automotive fluids and abrasion, make it far easier to clean and provide an attractive high gloss and drastically extend the life of your floor.

Sealers are not included in the hardware store kits. The store personnel usually cannot even recommend a compatible and appropriate sealer.

Professional installers use industrial-strength clear urethanes and polyurea sealers which have high UV resistance to sun damage. These sealers are usually quite thick (75-80% solids) and provide a tough, glossy and easy-to-clean coating over the epoxy and chips. These high solids sealers only require one coat to protect your floor.

These professional sealers will protect your floor from fading, turning a blush white or yellowing. They will also be compliant with your local Air Quality regulatory board's requirements for limitations on any smog-causing vapor emissions.

Certainly.

We use professional-grade materials from Versatile Building Products of Anaheim, CA. Check out their web site at www.garagecoatings.com. Versatile has homeowner kits for 2-3 car garages which include many of the same materials we use professionally.

Obviously we have more experience with the proper preparation of the slab, crack and hole repair and handling and applying the reactive materials properly.

In any case, you will be FAR better off using professional materials than the $99 epoxy kit from a hardware or paint store.

California Concrete Restoration, Inc.
Laguna Hills, CA
calconcrete@cox.net
(949) 939-4088