Garage Flooring Choices

Seymour Snerd

Lifetime Supporter
I'm about to move into a 3-car garage (~36' wide x 24' deep) devoted entirely to my mechanical and wood-working projects. Currently it has a bare mature concrete floor that is flat and smooth. I've been bouncing back and forth between having it epoxy coated and using plastic-tile flooring like this stuff: Garage Flooring | Garage Tiles | Garage Floors | Garage Floor Mats | RaceDeck (or one of its several competitors).

Right now I'm leaning toward the plastic tile stuff, at about $3.50/sq/ft. but wonder if there is are any hidden "gotchas" that you guys might know about. One potential one I can think of is difficulty in rolling hard-wheel, heavy objects (shop crane holding Ford FE engine + transaxle, for example).

I would probably go with all-white (for any flooring), for underside visibility reasons, and live with the potential color degradation that may take place over time.

Part of my comfort with spending $3,000 on the plastic tile is that I can take it with me to the next place. I'm hearing cost figures like that for a professional epoxy coat anyway. (BTW I'm not interested in DIY; did that once and I don't need any more "projects" distracting me from finishing P2160).

Any warnings or suggestions?
 
I will be putting Armstrong VCT tiles in my garage soon. I like smooth surfaces and inexpensive replacement. I think in bulk these tiles are something like $0.60 a square foot. I used double sided rug tape to do a kitchen floor 5 years ago and it has held up to heavy traffic and abuse wonderfully.

I don't care for the racedeck tiles for a couple of reasons...cost and texture. Most of the ones I have seen have a textured surface which would make cleaning more difficult I would think.
 

Seymour Snerd

Lifetime Supporter
I will be putting Armstrong VCT tiles in my garage soon. I like smooth surfaces and inexpensive replacement. .

I'm really glad you said that. At some point I was vaguely remembering there were thin, hard flooring tiles and wondering why people don't use them for garages. Seems to me they have the advantages of bare concrete (cheap and hard), epoxy (whatever color you want and no dust) and plastic (easy to install). What surface prep and adhesive do you plan?
 
I know the products available this side of the pond won't be the same, but I would defiantly go with tiling the floor.

I epoxied my old garage floor and it would lift up with hot and sticky car tyres. I have subsequently moved house and need to tile my current garage floor, but there always seems to be better things to spend money on!
 
Alan, in some ways, a good concrete floor with no additional finishing can be quite practical and easy. Any kind of painted on coating will eventually start to degrade, either from moisture pushing up through the concrete or abrasion from above. And then it can be a real mess to restore. Tiles don't work for me as they won't stand up to some things I'm doing such as moving a car or two around on wheel dollys and letting it sit in one place for a while (they eventually dent). Chemical spills can be messy too as the chemical gets in between the tiles and stays there.

If the concrete is reasonably smooth then it'll sweep up well, which can be handy. The only downside to concrete that I've found is that it's very porous so inevitably it stains with oils or other substances and then starts to look a bit shabby.

Just a thought.
 

Rick Muck- Mark IV

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Perhaps look into having the existing concrete floor ground and polished?

Our local Home Depots have done that and the floor is glossy, bright and easy to clean. Downside is slippery when wet.
 
My local mechanic has the epoxy floor and has had it for years. Tons of spills and thousands of cars and hot substances on it and it is still going strong. Granted it isn't show worthy but it will take the abuse. It isn't the Home Depot type stuff, industrial in nature. Will have to ask what it is.

Bill
 

Randy V

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+1 for the Garage Journal, many many discussions on flooring options. I have struggled with this same issue in a couple of shops over the years. Although I really like the epoxy coatings, for my version of a home shop, I could never justify the costs. I liked the idea of the floor tiles since I have seen them in many older industrial and commercial settings over the years and they do seem to hold up well (I also liked the ease of being able to get a white / black checker floor). They also have the advantage of very easy repair if a tile or two gets damaged. I am talking about the old style tiles that are very thin and hard, some of the newer styles are thicker and softer to feel better underfoot - I don't think these would hold up to shop use. As Cliff points out, spills can get into the joints and be hard to clean up.

The racedeck type of flooring also seemed expensive and I also had the same concerns about being able to move heavy loads on small wheels over it. I haven't known anyone that actually had that option in their shops, so would be interested in hearing if that is an issue from someone using it.

For the shop that I am currently using and remodeling, I chose to use some cheap water based concrete paint from Sherwin Williams. The floor is old, uneven, spalled, cracked, and generally not in fantastic shape. I just couldn't see putting expensive paint on it. Plus it has 50 years of oil and grime soaked into it. I didn't think I would ever be able to get is clean enough to get epoxy to "stick". I am happy with the results. It is not glossy, rather a flat to satin finish. It was easy to put down and clean up, only down side is the 5 day recommended cure time. It has held up to driving over it with a 5,000# forklift while carrying up to 5,000# loads and also my Skid Steer maneuvering around on it. My hydraulic press leaks a bit of oil so there is spot that is always wet with oil and it hasn't hurt the paint. The only places where it hasn't held up is places where there was a thick layer of crud firmly stuck to the floor that didn't come off with the pressure washer and looked enough like the original floor that I painted over it. A few quarter sized spots have flaked off.

I will look up the stuff if anyone is interested and post it along with a few pictures later.
 

Seymour Snerd

Lifetime Supporter
These are all interesting comments.

Regarding Cliff's comments on bare concrete, my reason for not going with it "as is" was primarily my perception that it is an endless source of dust. I may be wrong about that but was under the impression that concrete is always "breaking down" at a near-microscopic level. That and as he says it's asorbent and hence hard to thoroughly clean.

I haven't found too many references to the "heavy weight" problem with plastic tiles (indentation, etc); a couple people saying it's not a problem, but so far nobody being negative about that. I did stumble in Club Cobra on Mr. Kirkham himself waxing enthusiastic about the Racedeck tiles which they have in their shop.

Like Bill says I need to investigate the hard floor tiles. I can't tell from the web how hard any of the Home Depot types are; I suspect they all try to be soft for residential use. If anybody has a pointer to the old-fashioned hard kind I'd love to know.
 

Doug S.

The protoplasm may be 72, but the spirit is 32!
Lifetime Supporter
For the shop that I am currently using and remodeling, I chose to use some cheap water based concrete paint from Sherwin Williams. The floor is old, uneven, spalled, cracked, and generally not in fantastic shape. I just couldn't see putting expensive paint on it. Plus it has 50 years of oil and grime soaked into it. I didn't think I would ever be able to get is clean enough to get epoxy to "stick".

I will look up the stuff if anyone is interested and post it along with a few pictures later.

I'd be interested in the information, Bill. We are fans of the Sherwin Williams products, use them on all of our house-painting, and the condition of your floor seems to be quite similar to the condition of our floor.

We want to spruce the home up for a future sale, and a finished garage makes a nice presentation.

Cheers!

Doug
 

Kirby Schrader

They're mostly silver
Lifetime Supporter
When I had my new garage built in 2007 (30 x 60 from Morton Buildings), I went with a combination of floors.

The majority of the floor is epoxy that my son and I applied. If you ask him, that was the worst job he's ever been involved in... he was the one on the spikey shoes and man handling the roller... I was mixing up bucket fulls and using the squeegee.
I did follow their instructions and washed the floor with soap and water and then used an acid wash and a flush with 2 days to dry before applying the epoxy. It was a new floor obviously, so easy to prep.

I got the coating from Epoxy Paint For Garage Floors – Epoxy-Coat.com

The epoxy is really easy to clean (I did not use the non-slip 'sand' that is offered), but that means it is slippery when wet. I had seen comments that the non-slip addition made it harder to clean. I took the easy to clean slippery option over the non-slip harder to clean option. I can always wipe up the fluid.
Grease, brake fluid, etc. all wipe right up very easily with no drama.
Burnouts by my wife require judicious quantities of either xylene or lacquer thinner to get the tire rubber off.
I used their beige color and added the flakes to make it look a little more 'fancy'. Trouble is, this sometimes makes finding those little things you drop a little harder...

In the last 5 years... the color does turn darker over time. You don't notice it though unless you have an area covered and then uncover it. This color change is on the surface. If you clean the floor with the xylene or lacquer thinner as mentioned above, you will have the original color back again.
Dropping heavy items or dragging heavy items across the floor can scrape off the coating. I have scratches that arc across it where the lift arms drag in places where the floor was not perfectly level.
It is easy to repair.
It fills cracks and voids since it is self leveling.
You will require probably 20-30% more than they say you you will need.
It dries fast and is ready to use very soon after application.

Bottom line: The epoxy has some drawbacks. It's super easy to clean.
Would do it again. I am happy with it.

One corner of the garage where I have the workbenches, drillpress, etc. is covered by Gladiator garage tiles. They are interlocking and easy to install.
They aren't cheap. I forget what I paid for them, but got them through Direct Buy.
They have a non-slip pattern on them which makes does make them slightly harder to clean.
They have a spring or cushion to them which makes standing on them for long periods of time MUCH easier on the old body than hard assed concrete.
If you weld above them, any dropped hot pieces will melt them since they are plastic. (By the way, the epoxy will have a brown spot if you leave something really hot on it for too long)
You can make any pattern you want and the have a nice beveled trim to transition back to the concrete floor.
You can easily replace a bad tile by just taking them apart back to the bad one and then putting them all back together again. Kind of a pain to move everything to do so, but easy to do.

Bottom line: Would reconsider these and try something else if I was starting over, but for now they are just fine.

FWIW,
Kirby
 
What surface prep and adhesive do you plan?

I was going to use a simple spray adhesive to stick them down. There won't be too many forces trying to pull them up once they are all down. I might seal the concrete underneath first. I want to be able to pull tiles relatively easy if I mess them up.
 
These are all interesting comments.

Regarding Cliff's comments on bare concrete, my reason for not going with it "as is" was primarily my perception that it is an endless source of dust. I may be wrong about that but was under the impression that concrete is always "breaking down" at a near-microscopic level. That and as he says it's asorbent and hence hard to thoroughly clean.

Hi Alan, I'm sure you're right that it can do this over the years. As Rick mentioned above however, the surface can be polished and becomes very good at keeping dust down (and doesn't add to the dust). Surprising, but true, concrete can be polished to a very nice finish. It ain't cheap though, a standard 20 X 20 shop could be a couple thousand dollars to have the concrete polished. It's just one of many good options.

Good luck!
 
I convicted my grandma to get her garage done with epoxy. It was done by a professional. Life time warranty, oil,cool lent and chemical resistant, Wont peel. We have had it for a little over a year. Very easy to clean. I just take the pressure washer and hose it off. If some thing rust on the floor I can get down with simple green and scrub for a bit and it comes out.

I see your out west so you can take this with a grain of salt. During the winter the water never freezes up. It just sits on top and puddles up. So I can go out there with a squeegee once every few weeks and take care of it.

I will take a Picture of it once it warms up and is clean.
 

Seymour Snerd

Lifetime Supporter
I was going to use a simple spray adhesive to stick them down. There won't be too many forces trying to pull them up once they are all down. I might seal the concrete underneath first. I want to be able to pull tiles relatively easy if I mess them up.

One thing I learned researching last night is that you can do your own moisture test on the concrete for ~$15 that will tell you if it's "in spec" for the adhesives, etc. No equipment, just a canister of a chemical that is attractive to moisture. You weigh it carefully, put it in place, wait a day or two, then weigh again. Kinda cool in its own right.
 
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Seymour Snerd

Lifetime Supporter
Bottom line: Would reconsider these and try something else if I was starting over, but for now they are just fine.

Kirby -- yours is a particularly interesting case since you have the two leading contenders right there in the same garage. If you were doing it over would you consider using the plastic tiles in the vehicle area? Do you have any reservations about using it in an area where you roll heavy things (eg shop crane)? Maybe another interesting question would be: if cost were no object which would you choose?
 
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