Epoxy-Sheild Floor Installed this weekend

I had thought about using a few coats of primer, but couldn't decide on which would be the best. I know Behr makes it, but again, I wasn't sure if that was a critical step...seems like the people who do it without primer have good results also. I am up for any last minute recommendations!



Edit: I also took note that there are an excessive amount of chips and a seemingly excessive amount of chip "dust" at the bottom of each bag. I used a spaghetti strainer and dumped the chips in that, filtering out the larger chips as I plan to use those and not the dust and smaller chips. A relative has a professionally done floor and it looks like they used only the larger chips. After filtering, it looked like it eliminated about 1/4 of the volume of the chips.
 
BJ007 - Is Behr's acid etch muriatic acid?

According to Rust-Oleum's instructions it states-

Note: Do not use muriatic acid.

I wonder if they state this from a health perspective. Muriatic acid is some pretty nasty stuff. It looks like they could be suggesting to use their cleaner only since it is a mild citric acid.



Thanks for the tip about the chips.



paul34 - I am not certain that using a primer would be beneficial. This garage floor coating is made to be painted directly onto concrete. I would think using a primer may cause more of an issue because if the primer gives then the coating will more than likely come up in that spot anyway.
 
twitch - I read that the box said not to use muratic acid. The stuff that Rustoleum gives you is pretty mild and I felt it didn't really get it clean like muratic. When you put the muratic down full strength and really scrub it in, it gets that concrete CLEAN. 2 minutes of scrubbing for a 4'x4' square definitely gives it quite a bit of tooth.



On to my results...











Really, my walls look a lot whiter than that in person, honest! In the first pic, you can see some slight gloss differences at the far end of the floor. When you enter the garage from the house, they are not apparent, but at this angle they are. The second shot is where the garage door comes down and you can see a before and after detail. The third is just an overall shot of the garage the way it looks if you are standing in the doorway.



My thoughts... It dried pretty quick. You really should have two people, a roller and a helper (trim the edges, make sure the tray is full, sprinkle the chips, etc.). They are not kidding around about the drying time, you have to hustle to keep a "wet edge"! Also, the chips set on the epoxy, and I thought they would sink into it a bit more. No big deal for me since I'm going to do the gloss top coat on Monday. But maybe something to think about. Working the garage in quarters worked well for me since I was working alone. It gives you a definite start and finish to the area. 1 kit (1 gallon) covered exactly what it said it was going to, with ZERO left over. I thought I applied it pretty liberally, so maybe that is why I used it all. If you are planning on doing a space bigger than 500 square feet, I would definitely recommend having a third kit in reserve, just in case. Thats all for now, more on Monday evening after the gloss coat is done.





Edit: Oh, and I MAYBE used 1/3 of 1 bag of chips for the whole garage, so you can see the coverage that I got with that amount. I felt like the throwing the chips at the ground left them in clusters, so I started throwing them up maybe 7 feet in the air, and they distributed themselves nicely. You be the judge.
 
A few updates...



The clear coat went on this afternoon. No hiccups in the process, goes down a lot quicker than the base coat. It can be a bit difficult to see if you miss a spot, since it is clear. I recommend hanging a light from the ceiling about 2 feet from the ground and using that to be your gauge. I also used about half of the non-slip additive that was included with the kit.



Side note - a friend used this same system and said that he had good longevity with the product because his prep work was solid. He also cut cardboard strips for your tires to roll onto during the first month that the floor is down. Pics to follow perhaps tomorrow.
 
i did this to my garage, and if i park a car with a hot tire on it it comes right off if it sits on it.



i let it cure for 2 weeks, and prepped and everything...donno what happend. it looks great though



i used a high speed floor buffer with a cleaner pad to clean the crap off of it with oils, then used the supplied cleanser and used as directed.



i let it sit and dry adn put a piece of plastic over the cement after 2 days to see if any moisture would come up. then i applied the stuff.
 
Not sure what happened there... Should work out ok for you. Did you acid etch and make sure there was no dust settling on the floor before you rolled it down? It just sounds like there was something on your floor that is preventing the adhesion of the epoxy to the concrete.
 
yea you can literally eat off the floor, i dont know what happend, i followed the directions. its durable as heck against like oils and stuff but iono why my hot tires just suck it up?
 
armoredsaintt said:
Does living in warm climates versus people like myself in the north affect the long term durability?
Click to expand...



Maybe only in terms of the moisture content of the concrete. But if you do the test and it doesn't look like you get moisture, you are probably good to go. Just be careful in the winter - the salt and pooling water that drips off the cars can't be a good thing for the floor long term... Keep the squeegee that you used from cleaning the floor and use it to sweep away puddled water in the winter.



I used to live in Chicago but never got the chance to try this on my garage floor there, or else we'd have a good comparison! I'd say go for it.
 
Glad to see this is still providing good info. I just cleaned the garage last weekend and it still looks good as new. Again, I live in Phoenix, so I suppose the warm weather might help?
 
New Update...



3 weeks later we are still looking good. I would definitely recommend the clear coat for the top as well. I moved some heavy stuff on a dolly this week and it didn't even mark the floor. At the advice of a friend, I made cardboard runners out of a bunch of boxes we had from moving. We park on those now and will for the next few weeks.
 
Where is the clear-coat for the Rust-Oleum epoxy kit found? I cruised Lowe's today and just saw the kits - gray and tan.
 
So the clear-coat comes in the standard kit? From BJ007's posts above, it sounds like he "opted" for the clear-coat rather than using something that was included in the kit.
 
The clear coat is an extra product that you can purchase. So, for a 2 car garage, I used 2 kits of the grey water based epoxy and 1 kit of the Rustoleum EpoxyShield clear coat. So 3 boxes total. Go to HD and check it out, it will make perfect sense then.



Update - Still going strong. Can't believe it has already been what, 7 weeks? I used the cardboard runners I made for quite some time and recently threw them out. Just requires a little mopping once in a while and looks great.



An idea that someone may or may not want to use... You can lay down a vinyl logo/stickers on top of the base coat, then lay the clear down on top of it. Just an idea in my head. If you plan on selling your house soon it wouldn't be a great idea, but if you are a die hard fan of a certain car, that would be pretty sweet. Wish I would have done that, but hindsight is 20/20.
 
I have been meaning to take some photo's of the garage to show how this is holding up after two years, but I am afraid of how you all will laugh at the mess I have created in my garage.



The bottom line though, the garage floor is really holding up well. I only mop it down every other month or so and it is really nice still. There are a couple of scratches from dragging a ping pong table across the floor one night.
 
What kind of protection does doing that epoxy on your garage do? I think there's someone in our neighborhood that did something like this to their driveway too, even though it was against the HOA to do it.
 
It seems to provide adequate protection for day to day use. My truck is leaking coolant and it has no problem with that. I just wipe it up and it is fine.
 
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