Should I coat my new garage floor with something?

[corn18]

We are closing on our new house 6 Aug. It has a 3 car garage with a standard smooth concrete floor. We are in the midwest, so some snow. We keep our garage very neat and tidy but over the years it seems to get rubber marks and the odd oil/grease spill on it.

Wouldn't mind getting the floor finished but not sure what to do or how much it costs. Just want something that doesn't stain like concrete. I don't mind doing it myself.

What would you recommend?

Thanks, Corn

[austin757]

Rustoleum garage floor Epoxyshield. You can do it yourself. Let it settle for a few days then you can drive right on it.

[Normchad]

Rustoleum garage floor epoxy. You can do it yourself. Let it settle for a few days then you can drive right on it.

+1. This stuff is awesome. It’s cosmetic, but it makes the garage look so nice, and makes it super easy to sweep,the floor. I highly recommend this as well.oh yeah, its pretty easy to DIY. The hardest part is getting all your stuff off the floor for a few days.

[Tim_in_GA]

Rustoleum garage floor Epoxyshield. You can do it yourself. Let it settle for a few days then you can drive right on it.

I agree. The day after we closed on our new house I put that on the garage floor. 3 years later holding up well here in Ohio.

[bob60014]

Epoxy garage coatings are popular in my area. It's easy to clean, durable, it protects from oil and road salt and it looks good. For best results let a pro do it.

[CheCha54]

Ask here. https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/for ... f8bae&f=20

[fortfun]

We are closing on our new house 6 Aug. It has a 3 car garage with a standard smooth concrete floor. We are in the midwest, so some snow. We keep our garage very neat and tidy but over the years it seems to get rubber marks and the odd oil/grease spill on it.

Wouldn't mind getting the floor finished but not sure what to do or how much it costs. Just want something that doesn't stain like concrete. I don't mind doing it myself.

What would you recommend?

Thanks, Corn

Garage floor would be nice, BUT I especially recommend that you treat your driveway with a waterproofer the first few years. If you don't, MagChloride will seep into the concrete and the top surfarce will begin to flake off slowly (it's called spalding). It happened to our driveway and I eventually had to resurface it ($700 do it yourself). Boy I wish I had waterproofed the new driveway. After it has cured for a few years, you may be able to stop waterproofing it. The first few years are critical though, as that's when the concrete is still curing a lot.

[EddyB]

Rustoleum garage floor Epoxyshield. You can do it yourself. Let it settle for a few days then you can drive right on it.

I used it at my prior house and wish I’d treated the garage floors in our current place before we moved in (although my wife was in her third trimester and we had a toddler, so I remember why I didn’t do it...).

[Sandtrap]

We are closing on our new house 6 Aug. It has a 3 car garage with a standard smooth concrete floor. We are in the midwest, so some snow. We keep our garage very neat and tidy but over the years it seems to get rubber marks and the odd oil/grease spill on it.

Wouldn't mind getting the floor finished but not sure what to do or how much it costs. Just want something that doesn't stain like concrete. I don't mind doing it myself.

What would you recommend?

Thanks, Corn

If the slab was "power troweled" when green, which is a way of tempering the surface, it will give off very little dust and all you might want to add to it might be a sealer coat. As it is not new, you can powerwash it and seal it.

Up from that would be any number of concrete paint systems that you can roller on.

If you want to go "whole hog", you can powerwash and prep, then apply a 2 coat epoxy finish yourself. Roller finish. It will look pretty and clean up well, but remember that once it looks pretty like that, you're going to work hard to keep it looking like that as well.

j

[Sandtrap]

Epoxyshield.
YouTube Video, prep and finish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdolrDw4GUs

[Nate79]

I did the DIY stuff from Lowes when we moved into our house a few years ago. The stuff is amazing.

[Sconie]

We are closing on our new house 6 Aug. It has a 3 car garage with a standard smooth concrete floor. We are in the midwest, so some snow. We keep our garage very neat and tidy but over the years it seems to get rubber marks and the odd oil/grease spill on it.

Wouldn't mind getting the floor finished but not sure what to do or how much it costs. Just want something that doesn't stain like concrete. I don't mind doing it myself.

What would you recommend?

Thanks, Corn

Garage floor would be nice, BUT I especially recommend that you treat your driveway with a waterproofer the first few years. If you don't, MagChloride will seep into the concrete and the top surfarce will begin to flake off slowly (it's called spalding). It happened to our driveway and I eventually had to resurface it ($700 do it yourself). Boy I wish I had waterproofed the new driveway. After it has cured for a few years, you may be able to stop waterproofing it. The first few years are critical though, as that's when the concrete is still curing a lot.

It's called "spalling."

Some info.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF08FgnXDnM

[Blake7]

Now’s the time to do it before the new surface gets soiled. I’d use a two-part epoxy. Our’s was coated about 15 years ago, and it’s still holding up. Avoid “concrete paint”; some make the mistake of using that, and it will peel up. You’re then stuck with a difficult prep job to do it right with two-part epoxy. As others have said, sweeping up will be easy (unfinished concrete creates dust), and oil spills will be easy and not leave a stain. Easy DIY job to paint a garage floor too.

[Mapmaker]

I had a contractor do my new garage floor just this week. They spent a couple hours prepping the concrete and spreading the first coat and came back the next day for a second coat and sealer. 20x20 garage. $2350.

[TLB]

Also building a new home in AZ, hope to be finish around November. I’m looking at a Metal Essence Metallic epoxy by Cohills. www.cohills.com
I will have over 1900 sq ft In my garage and I’m thinking of having it done in my game room. The painter has done a few homes now and it’s a wow factor. I don’t know the price yet, even with a new slab there is a lot of prep work they have to do.

[Wannaretireearly]

Love our snap together garage tiles from costco

[BolderBoy]

When you say "new house" do you mean literally a new house with a freshly poured, never driven / parked on concrete garage floor?

Yes = sure put the coating on it.
No = cleaning the concrete enough that the epoxy coating "takes" permanently can be an enormous headache.

[corn18]

When you say "new house" do you mean literally a new house with a freshly poured, never driven / parked on concrete garage floor?

Yes = sure put the coating on it.
No = cleaning the concrete enough that the epoxy coating "takes" permanently can be an enormous headache.

Brand new, never driven on. But it did get a lot of builder debris on it during the building process, so it is not pristine.

[PescadorPete]

No... it's a garage.

[corn18]

No... it's a garage.

That is exactly what my wife said!

[senex]

Coating is nice, especially if you spend time in the garage (workshop, exercise, etc). I've had 3 types of garage floor.

Bare concrete stains and always seems dirty/dusty.

Acrylic was always smooth and shiny, no stains, easy to clean, but was extremely slippery when wet, and chipped a little, even after pro install.

Epoxy was in between: relatively shiny, relatively easy to clean, grippier than acrylic when wet. Also chipped a little after pro install. Also, all epoxy yellows with time, which doesn't look as good as when new.

[BIGal]

Epoxy garage coatings are popular in my area. It's easy to clean, durable, it protects from oil and road salt and it looks good. For best results let a pro do it.

BIG second on this one, especially letting a pro do it. Had ours done about 5 years ago and it completely changed the look and feel of our garage. You won't regret doing it, I assure you.

[BolderBoy]

When you say "new house" do you mean literally a new house with a freshly poured, never driven / parked on concrete garage floor?

Yes = sure put the coating on it.
No = cleaning the concrete enough that the epoxy coating "takes" permanently can be an enormous headache.

Brand new, never driven on. But it did get a lot of builder debris on it during the building process, so it is not pristine.

I bought a pressure washer to use to clean the floor before I did mine. No question it was a good idea and I recommend you do the same. I did the epoxy application myself. Two coats. Let it dry a long time (many days).

[Carter3]

Epoxy garage coatings are popular in my area. It's easy to clean, durable, it protects from oil and road salt and it looks good. For best results let a pro do it.

Professional is different than rustoleum

[austin757]

No... it's a garage.

That is exactly what my wife said!

Is this your forever home? If you ever decide to sell, you'd be surprised what a great impression a well cared for garage/work space can make on a potential home buyer. I have a friend who recently sold his home to a nice, young family. He was big into the garage, classic cars, man cave, that sort of thing. He is convinced that the garage floor (he put Epoxyshield) is what got the home sold to this particular family. The husband could not stop talking about how nice the floor was lol. So while some people may call it "just a garage", plenty of guys out there will love the way it looks!

[squirm]

No... it's a garage.

Agree.

[Stupendous]

I like nice looking garages so I would. I'm also a motorsports guy so I spend time in the garage.

I spent ~$2K for a professionally done, full-chip, epoxy for my 3 car garage 10 years ago. It is still holding up. I occasionally scrub the floor with degreaser and rinse it out.

The full chip makes cleaning up spills more difficult but it prevents it from being slippery if a liquid is spilled on it.

[bloom2708]

It might be something to do, but not priority 1 or 50 when moving to a new house.

The last thing I would want to do is try to do a 2-3 day project while trying to move into a house.

Move in. Get settled. It may still be a priority 3-6 months down the road.