Question:
I will be closing on a house on this Wednesday and moving in this Saturday. I
was wondering if I should take the time to paint the garage floor before I
move in and I was wondering about the pros/cons.
Any opinions?
If I do go through with it:
What kind of paint should I use?
How many coats are typically necessary ? (I've found that painting walls with
paints that claim one-coat coverage can actually mean three coats...)
Is a painted floor more slippery than regular cement?
Any other thoughts/hints welcome.
Answer:
-Personally, I wouldn't bother with it. The paint only comes off and you
have to repaint it constantly. Plus, I have found that a painted garage
floor IS more slippery than regular cement.
So, on the plus side, it DOES look nicer until the paint starts coming
off. Then it's more trouble than it's worth, in my opinion.
-Get the commercial grade paint, the same paint they use in mechnical spaces
in commercial buildings. Using anything less, the paint will come up after
hit by your car's "hot" tires... The paint will keep the floor much
cleaner, bare floors get loaded with dust...
-If you want your garage floor to last then you need to use a 2 part
chemical epoxy paint. This type of paint is the only paint considered
permanent on a garage floor.
With any garage floor painting project the key is preparation. If the
floor has been in use it will need to be treated with a commercial
grade degreaser. In addition any floor, even new ones, need to be
treated with a muratic acid solution to open up the pores in the
concrete so that the paint can adhere. The actual painting must occur
on a clean dry slab.
Imperfections in the slab need to be appropriately filled. Then all
cracks, seams and edges should be painted with a brush. Finally the
whole floor can be rolled.
Chemical epoxy finishes smooth themselves out as they dry. The finish
appears like glass and if wet they are as slippery as glass.
Permanently painting a garage floor is a big task and usually only
considered in high end custom homes. People who will spend a lot of
time in their garages working on their vehicles may also benefit from
an epoxy finish because of the ease of cleaning up oil and grease.
Since it is a big job I recommend carefully considering the look of the
final product. One of the best floors I saw was a black and white .5
meter checked floor. There are a limited number of colors of chemical
epoxy paints, so you may want to check into what is available before
making any design decisions (for example wall color).
