Acrylic Floor Coating Vs Epoxy In The Garage

There are several choices if you want to apply a garage floor treatment so you can seal and protect your floor. Even though applying an acrylic garage floor coating can provide a great shine for a short time, it is really not durable enough to endure vehicular traffic. Acrylic floor coatings are made to cover different kinds of flooring like fired tiles, vinyl and even concrete but they are only designed for protection against light to medium foot traffic.

If you want to have full protection for the floor of your garage and additional anti-slip attributes, your best option would be to put on an epoxy coating which comes in two parts. Epoxy is an extremely strong and durable material which is made up of a resin and hardener. If you want to have an idea how hard the floor coating of epoxy is, imagine fiberglass products like leisure boats. They are epoxy— resin and hardener— applied over a woven mesh which is actually the structural support. The real hardness of the shell is shaped because of the chemical bond between the epoxy and catalyst triggered when the hardener is poured in.

It is so easy to apply an epoxy garage floor coating and you just have to schedule it on a weekend as a do-it-yourself project because it only requires two half days of real work. The first day is dedicated to cleaning and to degreasing the current surface of the floor. Begin these tasks by using a high quality degreaser product so that all or most of the remnants of petroleum are scrubbed off from the surface. Then, you have to use a detergent and stiff floor broom to clean off all the stains which are not taken off by degreaser. At this time, you spray water on the surface and see if water beads up. If there are beads, you have to degrease again and scrub this area more or else the epoxy will fail to bond. Then, you have to let it dry out over night, if possible using a space heater.

The next day, start the project by mixing a large enough amount of epoxy so you can cover at most a 6′ by 6′ area and spread it starting in the outermost corner from the door. Otherwise you will be painted literally into a corner. Spread out the mixture using a nap roller and, after this batch is applied, you should cast the non-slip material over the surface like the way you feed chickens. Continue repeating this step for every area until you cover the whole floor.