Shiny New Epoxy Garage Floor
If you'd like to know what it would be like to drive onto your own personal auto showroom floor, you may want to give thought to an epoxy garage floor. This type of floor is not only durable, but it's also very shiny. Imagine seeing your own car in the floor's reflection, be it either a brand new car or your old '76 beater that's seen better days. An epoxy garage floor coating is viewed as the best in garage flooring to many, and for very good reason. Epoxy garage floors last a very long time, often as long as the concrete itself, though you will have to sacrifice quite a lot of time, and there is a bit of difficulty. Every once in a while the garage floor paint will have to be refreshed with a new coat, but other than that, the initial install covers most of the work. Epoxy will not move or crumple under car tires, which is a problem with some other garage floor coverings.
Durable Epoxy Garage Flooring
Extremely tough, epoxy is a very long-lasting coating that is painted onto concrete. Different than normal paint, epoxy will resist grease, oils, and many other things that ruin or plain out dissolve ordinary paints. Regular paint wouldn't be able to handle things like motor oils since they're mostly oil based themselves, which means you need a special type of paint, such as epoxy. This is because when two oil based substances mix, they naturally attempt to combine with each other. This effect causes motor oil and paint to basically be mutually self destructive. Parts cleaner, grease, fuel, power steering fluid, brake fluid...all are petroleum based, and all have the same effect on petroleum based paints. It's actually pretty interesting if you start thinking of just how petroleum based most of our lives' are. That's what's great about epoxy based paints, though. Since they're resin based, they're not susceptible to damage from oil and oil based substances.
Old Shiny Epoxy Garage Floors
Of all the different types of garage flooring, the epoxy garage floor is unique in that it bonds with the concrete at a microscopic level. This means that once the epoxy coating is years, sometimes decades old, it can still be cleaned just like the concrete by itself. The difference is that it doesn't stain since it doesn't absorb the oil based chemicals that are so often found in garages. Since it doesn't stain, it's usually just a matter of power washing the garage floor, if that. Most chemicals will just sit on top of an epoxy coating and can be cleaned up with either a towel, or possibly pushed out of the garage with a squeegee or broom. Be careful, though, that you don't contaminate the earth around your garage with chemicals that, before, you would've absorbed with kitty litter or the like and thrown in the trash. Just because it doesn't damage your garage floor doesn't mean it won't damage the environment, and everything that hits your soil will eventually end up in the groundwater - that's drinking water.
Epoxy Garage Floor Coatings In Pretty Colors
Epoxy coatings usually come in gray. It's a very shiny, very attractive gray, but it's still very gray. Now just because it's gray doesn't mean you're not going to notice a marked improvement over your cement garage floor, because you certainly will. However, lots of people would rather add some sort of color, and it is possible. Unfortunately, many times your local hardware store won't have anything but gray epoxy coatings. In fact, it's not uncommon for these hardware stores to tell you there's no such thing as colored epoxy, that it's all gray, which is simply not true. Sometimes it does take some looking, but epoxy garage floor coating kits are in good supply on the web, and usually a lot cheaper than the hardware store. Odds are pretty good that, compared to other things, you'd have no reason to return a garage floor kit, and the ability to return things is my biggest worry when it comes to buying on the net.
The Great Concrete Garage Floor War: Will Epoxy Win?
Maybe. Well, probably. Epoxy does require a lot of preparing, as opposed to just about any other type of garage floor. Some concrete, though, simply can't take a good epoxy coating. Even should your concrete be determined to be in good enough condition to accept a coating, it will have to be cleaned and etched, which is extremely tedious and labor intensive. There's really no method of applying an epoxy garage floor that is for the faint of heart, or faint of back, for that matter. If you're like me, and aren't exactly in the best of shape, you may want to consider something a bit less intensive. Garage floor tiles, for instance, can be started and finished pretty much whenever you like, without regard to time limits and setting times. Small garage floor mats can be moved about when you need to, so sometimes they're all you need. However, if your body or bank account are up to the task, an epoxy garage floor coating just might be for you. - 21396
Durable Epoxy Garage Flooring
Extremely tough, epoxy is a very long-lasting coating that is painted onto concrete. Different than normal paint, epoxy will resist grease, oils, and many other things that ruin or plain out dissolve ordinary paints. Regular paint wouldn't be able to handle things like motor oils since they're mostly oil based themselves, which means you need a special type of paint, such as epoxy. This is because when two oil based substances mix, they naturally attempt to combine with each other. This effect causes motor oil and paint to basically be mutually self destructive. Parts cleaner, grease, fuel, power steering fluid, brake fluid...all are petroleum based, and all have the same effect on petroleum based paints. It's actually pretty interesting if you start thinking of just how petroleum based most of our lives' are. That's what's great about epoxy based paints, though. Since they're resin based, they're not susceptible to damage from oil and oil based substances.
Old Shiny Epoxy Garage Floors
Of all the different types of garage flooring, the epoxy garage floor is unique in that it bonds with the concrete at a microscopic level. This means that once the epoxy coating is years, sometimes decades old, it can still be cleaned just like the concrete by itself. The difference is that it doesn't stain since it doesn't absorb the oil based chemicals that are so often found in garages. Since it doesn't stain, it's usually just a matter of power washing the garage floor, if that. Most chemicals will just sit on top of an epoxy coating and can be cleaned up with either a towel, or possibly pushed out of the garage with a squeegee or broom. Be careful, though, that you don't contaminate the earth around your garage with chemicals that, before, you would've absorbed with kitty litter or the like and thrown in the trash. Just because it doesn't damage your garage floor doesn't mean it won't damage the environment, and everything that hits your soil will eventually end up in the groundwater - that's drinking water.
Epoxy Garage Floor Coatings In Pretty Colors
Epoxy coatings usually come in gray. It's a very shiny, very attractive gray, but it's still very gray. Now just because it's gray doesn't mean you're not going to notice a marked improvement over your cement garage floor, because you certainly will. However, lots of people would rather add some sort of color, and it is possible. Unfortunately, many times your local hardware store won't have anything but gray epoxy coatings. In fact, it's not uncommon for these hardware stores to tell you there's no such thing as colored epoxy, that it's all gray, which is simply not true. Sometimes it does take some looking, but epoxy garage floor coating kits are in good supply on the web, and usually a lot cheaper than the hardware store. Odds are pretty good that, compared to other things, you'd have no reason to return a garage floor kit, and the ability to return things is my biggest worry when it comes to buying on the net.
The Great Concrete Garage Floor War: Will Epoxy Win?
Maybe. Well, probably. Epoxy does require a lot of preparing, as opposed to just about any other type of garage floor. Some concrete, though, simply can't take a good epoxy coating. Even should your concrete be determined to be in good enough condition to accept a coating, it will have to be cleaned and etched, which is extremely tedious and labor intensive. There's really no method of applying an epoxy garage floor that is for the faint of heart, or faint of back, for that matter. If you're like me, and aren't exactly in the best of shape, you may want to consider something a bit less intensive. Garage floor tiles, for instance, can be started and finished pretty much whenever you like, without regard to time limits and setting times. Small garage floor mats can be moved about when you need to, so sometimes they're all you need. However, if your body or bank account are up to the task, an epoxy garage floor coating just might be for you. - 21396
About the Author:
Eppie likes to write articles about her garage floors and epoxy garage floor coating.
posted by X - Men @ 3:08 AM
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