How To Pick The Best Garage Floor Coating
If you want to pick the best garage floor coating for your home, this is the article for you. We discuss two of the most common garage floor coating options offered by most industry professionals: epoxy and polyaspartic systems. We’ll go over everything you need to know about each coating so you know what to expect when you call the professionals.
What Is The Best Garage Floor Coating?
Most experts call a full polyaspartic system the best garage floor coating option since it’s longer-lasting and more durable than other solutions. But it’s also the most expensive. The other most popular choice, epoxy, is still a great option and comes with a wide range of design choices.
Polyaspartic Garage Floor Coating
A polyaspartic garage floor coating can be an optional topcoat added to an epoxy coating or an entire system comprising multiple layers. This mixture of polyaspartic ester (chemical compound) and other materials is easier to apply, more versatile, longer lasting, and more durable than any other choices on the market. They’re more resistant to UV exposure, preventing them from losing their color or yellowing and are perfect for garage floors since they resist marking from hot car tires.
Polyaspartic coatings shouldn’t be confused with polyureas, another well-known coating solution. Polyurea coatings are also durable but have a shorter cure time, making the application process harder since experts have to work faster. On the other hand, polyaspartic coatings are designed with a cure time that’s slow enough for easy application and fast enough to quickly allow foot or vehicle traffic. For example, a polyaspartic garage floor coating can be ready for foot traffic in two hours and vehicle traffic in 24 hours. An epoxy coating needs 12 more hours of cure time before foot traffic and 72 hours before vehicle traffic.
Polyaspartic garage floor coatings can cost about 20% more than epoxies, but the increased benefits make the investment worthwhile.
Epoxy Garage Floor Coatings
Epoxy coatings are the most popular garage floor renovation solution and cost less than a full polyaspartic system. These coatings are also installed in layers, usually comprising of a base coat, second coat, and optional topcoat. In some cases, the top coat is a polyaspartic coating.
An entire epoxy garage floor coating can contain UV inhibitors, accelerators, adhesion promoters, pigments, aggregates, flakes, glitters, and sand blends. It all depends on the style you want and what your garage floor is capable of holding. For instance, suspending slabs require special attention, and professionals usually choose a flexible epoxy membrane rather than a basic coating. Here are some of the most common forms of epoxy coatings.
- 100% Solids (Two-part) – Made from one-part hardener and one-part resin, this is the most durable and reliable epoxy coating on the market. They are also the most difficult to apply to garage floors, which is why you should always call a professional.
- Water-based – Water-based epoxies are the least expensive and easiest to apply coating offered by professionals. Unfortunately, these coatings cannot resist abrasion or heat, as good as other epoxies.
- Solvent-based – Solvent-based coatings are more resistant to gas and diesel spills, making them perfect for homeowners who work on their cars inside their garages.
- Two-part water-based – This form of epoxy is similar to a solvent-based coating, except it doesn’t have an extreme odor or VOC (volatile organic compound).
Always avoid any epoxy coatings that are labeled as “paints.” These paints will not protect your garage floor from stains, chemicals, heat, or aging.
Should You DIY A Garage Floor Coating?
No, we do not recommend installing a garage floor coating yourself. The DIY kits sold online may be easy to install, and the instructions may seem easy to read, but that’s their only benefit. There’s a lot more to installing a garage floor coating than just pouring the epoxy. Your concrete surface needs to be cleaned, free of cracks or pits, and ground down before anything is poured or spread.
Most homeowners aren’t aware of how temperature affects the garage floor coating process. Hotter months and higher temperatures can lower the workability time contractors have when they install an epoxy or polyaspartic coating. Some homeowners end up spending the same amount of money as a professionally installed coating after they buy or rent all the tools and products necessary to do the project themselves.
Read more: How To Epoxy A Garage Floor The Right & Wrong Ways.
Who Can Help You Pick The Best Garage Floor Coating?
If you live in or around Salt Lake City, Utah, call Complete Concrete Coatings. Our team of experts will inspect your garage floor, choose a coating that fits your style needs, and make sure it works with your concrete surface. Once we’re finished, you’ll be left with a transformed garage floor that looks great and protects your concrete surface. Call today for your free consultation and estimate.
