You like your garage clean and organized. Every item has its place, and your vehicles have plenty of space to park inside the garage. Despite your efforts, something still bothers you: the garage floor. It is filled with stains, discoloration and has chips all over the surface of your floor.
Fortunately, you can prevent these sore sights with epoxy flooring. Epoxy coating is the perfect solution to improve the look and durability of your garage floor. The epoxy will prevent stains and protect the floor from cracks, chips, or other damage. Plus, there are tons of options so you can choose the color that fits your garage and your personal style best.
Whether you’re tired of your stained floor or need a way to improve the durability of your garage floor, epoxy flooring may be the answer. Keep reading to find out more about epoxy flooring as well as the benefits and why you need epoxy flooring in your garage.
What is Epoxy Flooring?
Garage floor epoxy can change the overall look and color of your floor. It’s a protective coating that helps seal out moisture, prevents damage, and makes floor maintenance easy.
Many homeowners, however, confuse flooring epoxy with paint. While some flooring paint may consist of epoxy, flooring paint is entirely different from epoxy.
Epoxy flooring, also sometimes called resinous flooring, consists of multiple layers of thermosetting resins that are poured over a concrete face.
Epoxy floor coatings contain resin and polyamine hardeners that thermosets onto the concrete.This makes the epoxy coating incredibly durable, strong, and resistant to stains.
The flooring is used as both a protective covering and a decorative layer.
The epoxy resin contains two parts that undergo a chemical reaction when mixed. This reaction causes the epoxy to cure rather than dry. Curing is the process of molecules hardening to form a more vital linkage, giving epoxy its strength.
Epoxy is a much thicker coating compared to paint and even epoxy-containing paints. Most of the time, your garage floor will only need one coat of epoxy, whereas multiple coats of paint would likely be necessary.
The epoxy also forms a stronger bond to the concrete garage floor. Epoxy’s bond with the concrete can smooth out your garage floor and help prevent further cracking. All of this leads to a long-lasting coating that will protect your garage floor.
Painting a garage floor, although it may look nice once finished, will not give you the durability or stain resistance that you find with epoxy flooring. For a long term solution, epoxy flooring is a better option.
Types of Epoxy Flooring
- Solid Epoxy Flooring – This choice comes in a few color choices. This is a good choice if you are looking for a basic epoxy covering for your garage.
- Flake Epoxy Flooring – With this option, acrylic chips or flakes in all different color choices are applied to the epoxy during the curing process, giving the finished floor a more vibrant look.
- Granite Epoxy Flooring – This choice is designed to give your floors a clean, modern, granite look.
Each of these floor epoxies give you tons of color options, including metallics, crushed granite, and solids, so that your garage flooring is unique to your style.
The experts at Garage Designs of St. Louis can help you make the right choice in both your epoxy garage floor type and color.
Epoxy Flooring Benefits
Why do you need epoxy flooring for your garage? The biggest reason is it adds extra lasting protection. Spills are easy to clean, and the floor itself will look great for years.
Still not convinced? These epoxy flooring benefits are sure to convince you to give epoxy flooring a try in your garage.
Floor Aesthetics
You take great pride in your home.The yard is immaculate, the siding is sparkling, and the interior is spotless.The last thing you want is for your garage to ruin the hard work you’ve put into your home.
Floor epoxy coating is aesthetically pleasing and adds a clean, fresh look to your garage floor. You can find epoxy coatings in many different finishes, including marbled, metallic, and granite. The color combinations are nearly endless, meaning you can pick a color that complements the rest of your home.
The best part is you can place epoxy directly on your existing concrete floor, as long as you clean and prep it first. It will cover unattractive blemishes, defects, deteriorations, and spills. You’ll absolutely love how floor epoxy coating will revitalize your garage.
Weather-Resistant
Whether you live in the humid four-season northeast or the dry southwest, epoxy flooring can withstand the most extreme weather. Epoxy has a temperature tolerance of below zero degrees and over 200 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s also fire-resistant, making it safe for both inside and outside use.
As long as the entire surface is coated, epoxy can withstand sun, rain, sand, snow, and temperature fluctuations. This durable coating will protect the underlying concrete no matter the weather.
Superior Durability and Strength
The strength and durability of epoxy flooring make it an excellent choice for your garage floor. Garage floors experience heavy foot and vehicle traffic, impacts, heavy machinery, chemical spills, and much more. A concrete garage floor without epoxy will rapidly wear and deteriorate.
Epoxy is a resilient medium that’s much stronger than bare concrete. It can withstand heavy impacts without chipping or cracking.
Epoxy floors can support significant amounts of weight. The tensile strength of epoxy flooring ranges from 3,000 pounds to 10,000 pounds per square inch.
Different types of epoxy floor coatings have varying tensile strengths to fit anyone’s needs.
You don’t have to worry about dropping items, spilling liquids, or damaging your floor with epoxy flooring. This durable coating is nearly impossible to damage and can withstand your heaviest vehicles and equipment.
Enhances Safety
An epoxy floor coating will make your garage a safer place. Besides its strength and durability, epoxy is slightly reflective, which enhances the lighting in a space. It’s also fire-resistant and prevents potentially hazardous chemicals from seeping into the concrete.
Cracks in your garage floor can be a tripping hazard. Epoxy floor coating helps to seal and prevent cracks in your garage floor.
One misconception about epoxy is it can be slippery, especially when wet. Today, your epoxy flooring specialist can add anti-slip additives to increase the epoxy’s surface grip. They’ll also help you find a suitable non-slip additive to fit your garage flooring needs.
Easy to Maintain
Have you ever spent a day or more deep cleaning your garage and scrubbing the garage floor? While most homeowners love a clean garage floor, not everyone has the time to wash away the spills, salt, and other debris.
Cleaning and maintaining epoxy is much easier than a bare concrete floor. The concrete can produce dust and particles as it ages, contributing to the dirt and mess. An epoxy coating will seal the concrete preventing the dust and particles from escaping.
The epoxy’s smooth and durable surface prevents liquids and salt from seeping into the epoxy. Cleaning epoxy is much easier as everything remains on the surface. The epoxy is also resistant to hazardous chemicals and road salt.
Long-Lasting Protection
Concrete doesn’t last forever. Over time, the elements, temperature changes, and general wear and tear will shorten the lifespan of your garage floor.
Fortunately, you can make your garage floor last longer by adding an epoxy coating. The coating won’t peel, crack or erode like other types of flooring.
Investing in quality epoxy resin will enhance the protection of your garage floor. Epoxy can last for decades, sometimes longer, making it an excellent long-term flooring investment.
Quick and Easy Installation
Installing epoxy flooring is a relatively easy and fast process. For best results, you should have an epoxy flooring expert mix and install the epoxy for you.
They’ll pour and spread the epoxy on the floor to create an even layer covering the entire floor. The longest part of this process is the curing time, which can take up to 72 hours to cure. Aside from the curing, the installation is fast and easy, saving you time and installation costs.
Affordable Epoxy Flooring Cost
Speaking of installation costs, adding a protective coating to your garage floor must be expensive, right? You’ll be happy to learn the answer is no. Epoxy flooring is more economical and costs less per square foot than other flooring options.
Other garage flooring installations may require you to remove or resurface your existing concrete flooring completely. Not necessary with epoxy flooring as you can apply epoxy onto your existing concrete, steel, or wood flooring.
What about epoxy repairs and reapplications? These are also affordable and cost less than the initial epoxy installation. Fortunately, needing to repair or reapply an epoxy coating is very rare.
Improves Property Value
Your home is an investment. The changes and modifications you make to your home should improve the property value. Adding epoxy flooring is no exception and is a great way to boost your home’s property value.
If you decide to sell your home one day, potential buyers will love the look of an epoxy concrete floor.
Epoxy Will Help Your Vehicles
Epoxy flooring creates an even and level garage floor surface. Old uneven concrete can cause a vehicle’s tires to wear faster. Since moisture, dust, and other debris don’t stick and seep into the epoxy, it won’t affect your tires.
The strength and even surface of epoxy flooring will make it easier for you to work on your vehicles. Items won’t slide and roll away due to cracks and bumps in the floor.
Epoxy Flooring Disadvantages
The benefits of epoxy flooring sound almost too good to be true, is there a catch? Not exactly, but there are few downsides to epoxy flooring every homeowner should take into consideration.
Application Fumes
Wet epoxy can release unpleasant and potentially toxic fumes during the installation process. Most epoxy flooring specialists will wear PPE gear such as masks and goggles to protect themselves from the fumes. Make sure you can ventilate your garage and avoid it during the application process.
Once the epoxy cures, the scent, and fumes will diminish, making your garage safe to use again.
Slippery Floors
As mentioned above, some additives can enhance the grip of an epoxy floor. If you choose to skip this, regular epoxy will cure smooth, making it slippery when wet. Slick floors, in particular, can be dangerous for families with young kids.
Curing Time
The installation process of epoxy flooring doesn’t take much time. The curing, however, can take about three days to harden.
This problem isn’t significant for most homeowners as you can store equipment and vehicles outside of your garage during this time. You will, however, need to consider this if you decide to add epoxy flooring to your garage.
Epoxy Flooring Installation and Cost
Epoxy garage flooring installers recommend not trying this yourself.
You risk the chance of you making a mistake during the application process and not getting the result you want.The best choice is to find a epoxy floor instraller in your area who is an expert. As
As a garage organization company serving in St. Louis, we can take care of the entire installation process, meaning the only thing you have to worry about is clearing the space where the epoxy will be poured.
And right now, we are offering $250 off your next flooring project. But don’t wait, this deal won’t last long!
Your epoxy garage floor cost will depend on multiple factors such as epoxy type as well as the surface area of the space. Luckily, we offer free in-home estimates so you know exactly what to expect!
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Invest in Epoxy Flooring Today!
You take pride in the look and feel of your home. Shouldn’t you place that same level of care in your garage?
Adding epoxy flooring to your garage will enhance aesthetics and make maintenance a breeze. You love how epoxy will improve the life of your garage floor.
Are you ready to give your garage a much-needed makeover? Request a free in-home estimate from one of our epoxy flooring contractors today! We’re here to help you with all of your garage organization and improvement needs!
Frequently Asked Questions
What Are the Advantages of Epoxy Flooring?
There are lots of advantages of epoxy flooring. The biggest advantages are extending the life of your garage floor as well as increasing the value of your home. Other advantages of epoxy flooring include that they are durable, easy to clean, and affordable.
What Are the Pros and Cons of Epoxy Flooring?
The pros to epoxy flooring include longevity, simple maintenance, durable, easy installation , and affordable. Epoxy flooring can also improve the look of your garage as well as increase your home’s value.
The cons to epoxy flooring are drying times, fumes, and slipping hazard. Although application is quick, drying time could take up to 72 hours. The fumes during application can be strong, but with good ventilation and time, the fumes will subside. Although some epoxy options can be slippery when wet, there are a lot of options that would prevent the slippery nature of the flooring.
Are Epoxy Floors Worth It?
Absolutely! For most people, the convenience, durability, and protection provided by epoxy flooring in your garage is worth the cost.
Epoxy flooring is an inexpensive way to extend the life of your garage floor.
How Long Do Epoxy Floors Last?
A normal range for the life of your epoxy is between 10-20 years. But keep in mind, they may last fewer years or more years depending on installation and maintenance.
Making sure you have an experienced installer, and ensuring that you properly clean the floor on a regular basis, is important for extending the life of your epoxy flooring.
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