Concrete shop floor sealer

[Dodgentwo]

Some of the guys I know say they have mixed sand in while preparing epoxy to help prevent it from being slippery. Something to keep in mind . And yes we had done the same thing with the acid treatment on the floor prior to putting down the epoxy.

 

[ToolManTimTaylor]

Floor is 40X15 and it was 1100.



Now don't forget that they ltterally shot blast the floor and any existing oil stains are erraticated with either acid or blasted down and filled. ALSO all cracks and uneven surfaces are leveled.



Home depot also offeres the DIY kit that is a 2 stage as opposed to 4 that is I think 120 bucks.



Here is the Contracted Floor Page 2 Page 3



Here is the DIY kit

 

[sdstriper]

Prep is key

I have some experience with two part epoxies, methacrylates and concrete sealers too. Prep is the key, acid etch is better than nothing but my opinion is the shot blasting is better and now there are concrete grinding machines that are faster and easier to "open" the concrete to "white concrete" so your coating will have a very clean surface to adhere to. If you cannot find good information from a product supplier on how to prep and apply then don't buy from them. I would shy away from "paints". If your looking for a floor coating as shown above get something with high solids content. Colored quartz is the non-skid additive a previous poster had mentioned, not sand. Many colors are available with quartz and there are color flakes also, more for aesthetics then non-skid though.



Concrete sealers, these are starting to come around now. You would have been hard pressed to convince someone of the benefits or necessity in the past. Penetrating concrete sealers, not "cure and seals", cure and seal is to be used after placement of the concrete, to keep it from drying out too quickly and shrinking, cracking and curling the edges etc. Also, if cure and seal has been used it has to be gone before any other products are used on the concrete. There are many of these products (floor coatings & concrete sealers) out there and as with everything, you get what you pay for. I would use a good penetrating concrete sealer, the last one I used was $40+/gal. That sounds like what your looking for, correct me if I am wrong. With a power trowelled finish the product will go farther, meaning the product will cover more than with a non-trowelled surface that would be more porous, like a sidewalk etc. Remember that penetrating concrete sealers are not a coating, they do the job from within. You will not see it, unless you pour water on the surface, then it should bead up and not soak in, and it should make oil spills etc easier to clean and keep them from soaking in. I have actually seen old soaked in oil stains expelled from within the slab after applying sealer, over several months slowly but surely out damn spot! Amazing stuff for many different reasons from hardening the slab to protecting from freeze and thaw cracking and oil stain protections etc.



If anyone has experience with coatings or sealers I would love to talk with you or if someone has any questions please PM me. Hope I had something informative to add here, love this site.



Ross Marcotte

 

[ToolManTimTaylor]

Some of the guys I know say they have mixed sand in while preparing epoxy to help prevent it from being slippery. Something to keep in mind . And yes we had done the same thing with the acid treatment on the floor prior to putting down the epoxy.

I WAS going to have them add a product called SHARK Sand but then decided not to. Shark sand is a clear sand (My guess is good ol fashoned cancer causing silicate) The shark sand would have reduced the color alot and well I wanted a durable NICE looking floor. The stuff is tough tho. I forgot to mention that last year I came into the garage after taking the sleds out and the arctic cat has a studded track , the RX-1 has deep carbide ski runners. The only marks I have is from where the RX-1 laid down some rubber and it cleaned up mostly.

 

[LesStallings]

A relative of mine is big into commercial storage buildings. He recently built a million square foot facility and told me three things:



1) Require a FF factor of 35 or better. I believe that refers to the smoothness.

2) Require Laser Screed. That is a level thing.

3) Mix should be 3,000 psi, which will test out around 3,500 psi and should not crack

4) Require "Ashford Formula Coating" to seal the concrete.



OK, thats four things.



I believe he knows his stuff as he has made millions in the storage business. He tells me that the only thing he has is a concrete pad and walls/roof, so the concrete pad is VERY important to his profitability.

 

[ARedetzke]

FF factors refer to flatness, FL factors refer to levelness. We're in the process of designing a new warehouse, and the specs for it are FF 50 and FL 35, we stack pallets of beer 25 feet high so the floor being flat and level is very important. We're also using the Ashford formula for the finish. It will literally make the floor shine like glass when properly applied, and it's really tough, it actually takes about 6 months of use for it to gets it's sheen. The downside is that it's slicker than snot when wet. Not sure if I would use it in a shop or not.

 

[MMiller]

In all the shops I have worked in, the slickest floors were the easiest to keep clean. I work on equipment and trucks that by nature have dirt on them. Having a rough floor is hard to keep dust out of the shop. I really dislike trying to rebuild a trans, or hydralic system with dust blowing around. If *I* were to build a shop, it would be smooth as possible, even though it would be slick when wet, it would be easier to keep dry and clean. Just my $. 02. Sorry I can't help with the floor coating. I have seen the floors with epoxy coating and like the looks of it.



Michael

 

[TowPro]

We built a 160,000 sq ft warehouse down in AL. The owner of the company told the project manager the exact color of the floor he wanted. They epoxy coated this whole floor, looked beautiful. The owner showed up and throw a fit, the floor is not the correct "shade" blue! They had to repaint the whole floor! They used hard wood floor sanders to scratch up the whole floor, then repaint it. Ever since seeing that floor I have planned on doing that to my Garage.



Worse part is when they were done they had 4-55 gallon drums of the paint left and had to throw it away!!!!! At the time I could not even afford to put one on a truck to ship back to PA. Oh well that was 10 years ago and I did not build the garage until last year.