Garage floor coatings – three factors to consider
Are you hoping to install an epoxy, polyurea or other polymer garage floor but feeling overwhelmed with all the information out there? Take a few moments to read this short guide, which will make things much clearer.
1. PRIMER LAYER
Your garage floor contains moisture, and this is perfectly normal. This determines the ideal primer to choose for your coating. The primer has the most influence on the durability of your coating. It is responsible for ensuring the coating adheres to the floor. At this stage, there are usually two choices available: epoxy or polyurea. Chemists will confirm that epoxy has significantly higher compatibility with concrete moisture than polyurea. Therefore, epoxy is the best choice for the first coating layer.
2. FINISHING COAT
Polyurea is the best choice for this layer. It has excellent chemical resistance, particularly against the calcium chloride used on winter roads to prevent ice from forming. It is more abrasion resistant than epoxy and is easier to clean. And, unlike epoxy, polyurea is UV resistant.
3. OPTIONAL FLAKES
Adding vinyl flakes to the polyurea epoxy coating is very popular and adds an aesthetically pleasing finish to your garage floor. The texture of flakes also improves grip on polyurea epoxy floors, but the surface can become slippery and unsafe when wet. But we can fix that by added quartz sand to the polyurea top layer. Flaked polyurea epoxy is therefore the ultimate coating to properly protect your garage floor for many years.
