Official Luthiers Forum!

I was looking at my new 3 car garage/workshop today and trying to figure out what type of epoxy coating to put down, the walls are an off white stucco, What are you folks using on your garage cement floors ???

I moved into a new-for-me house last fall. The previous owner had made "upgrades" to every conceivable aspect of the house. This included finishing the three car garage with custom cabinets covering all walls and a fancy epoxy floor -- light grey with black and white bits embedded in random patterns in the surface, probably to provide traction and to hide any stains or discoloration due to usage. Visitors invariably exclaim about the good looks of the garage.

Because I use one stall in the garage as part of my workshop, I dislike the "improvements" intensely.

The cabinet doors obscure what's stored and dictate the maximum depth of storage bins; fortunately the doors are removable.

The floor is worse. If I never dropped anything, it would be OK. However . . . And it's remarkably difficult to find a small item that been dropped onto (and then bounced and/or rolled across) a highly patterned floor. AMHIK.

So, after this long-winded venting, let me suggest that whatever color you choose, apply it in a solid pattern (at least in the area you want for your workshop). If I were in your position, I would either leave the floor untreated or give it a thin coat of latex paint that let the concrete texture provide traction. Most certainly, I would avoid any visible pattern in any coating.

Latex paint won’t hold up. Use solid color epoxy on a clean floor.

Sherwin Williams 2 part epoxy, garage floor paint. Adding the speckles is optional. Great stuff, reasonable price.

I don't remember if it carries their name but the one they stock is very good

_________________
Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Our new garage has 3 windows on the n side and nothing else. Going to add some LED lighting, and I will check into the sherwin williams epoxy paint . No sparkles please .There will be anti fatigue mats by the benches. There must be other companies marketing epoxy paint ?

I don't know any brands as it's been years since I've done this.

We coated one two car garage with a do-it-yourself epoxy kit. It was good, but vehicles driving on it wore out spots in a few years.

My Dad got two quotes for professional installation of epoxy-type coating in his two-car garage. One was about $4000 and the coating was about 4 mm thick. Another quote was around $7000 and the coating was about 7 mm thick. He went with the 7mm stuff, which including a 6" wrap up the sides of the concrete curbs. After 10 years of driving on it the stuff looks brand new.

Tnx steve we have over 1 acre on our property, plus a 3 car garage and i we are not as cold as calgary . in OKC my cars will be always parked outside mild winters and hot summers. The 3 car garage faces west, and will be used for doing the finer aspects of instrumentmaking. All the major machine operations will be in the large 1200 sq ft shop behind the garage. I checked SW paint and they have concrete garage floor paint. There will be mats all over the garage floor.

"coating was about 7 mm thick"

Hi Steven,
The coating was 7mm not 7 mils thick? That is thicker than some fiberglass boat hulls.