New garage floor

[chester rides again]

We are having an addition put on our house. As a result, I had to remove the garage, and dig up the floor. Now seeing as we live on the Canadien border, I'm seriously considering putting in a heated floor.

Since I'll have a nice shiny new concrete floor, I was wonder on the best options for sealing/painting the floor to keep all those wonderful Rover fluids off of my pristine surface. I've heard that some of the floor paints will come off if you drive on them with hot tires.

When I worked in a GE plant, they had 6x6 blocks of wood lining the floor and as they soaked up the chemicals they were just replaced. The "full" blocks were brought to the boiler plant.

[Momo]

http://www.floorepoxy.com/

[LaneRover]

Some folks are even putting the epoxy floors inside their houses because they are so nice!

A guy in Maine who has many Rovers and a plumbing business had a huge new garage built and put in heated floors as I am sure that he knew that he would be laying on them during the winter months!

Heck I live in San Diego and decided to put a heated floor in my kitchen. A friend tried to talk me out of it saying, "You'll only use them a couple months out of the year" and I figure that is more than I usually use the air conditioner in my living room and I got a small house so better to try it on a small place than a large one and THEN find out you don't like it!

When I move back to Maine if I have the means to do it I would definitely put heated floors into my garage - even if you have to stoke a fire to get them heated up.

Brent

In San Diego I went with the electric heated floor as my house has no boiler. I guess that you could call the gas wall furnace central heat as it is basically in the center of the house....

[gudjeon]

I have seen larger shops go a step further and put heating under the concrete just outside the shops doors. Ice and snow never builds up and you have a bare spot to steam clean. No skating rink.

[S11A]

I believe the concrete finish people are using in their homes is the stained concrete, not the epoxy. It chemically reacts with the lime in the concrete so it penetrates, as opposed to the epoxy which is a surface treatment. The floor is then sealed.

We did our garage floors in the stain, and it is very nice. Here is a link to the company whose products we have on our garage floor (looks much like the dark brown finish on the photo in the upper right):

http://www.kemiko.com/

It turned out so well, I am thinking of doing the patio. They have one that looks like a limestone (to match the truck ) or travertine or some sort of lighter stone.

Depending on the size of the garage, the stains (you usually blend 3 or so colors) and sealer would run a couple of hundred so the price is fairly comparable to the better epoxies.

[adkrover]

As a general contractor I've had a lot of experiences with concrete. Not all good. Any type of sealer, paint or epoxy will be a surface coating and is likely to scratch and wear. The worst part is that if you get any amount of snow or sawdust on the floor it will be EXTREMELY slippery and in my opinion dangerous.

The heated floor is absolutely the best way to go for several reasons. I have it in my garage/shop that is 3000 sq ft and love it. Not only is it nice to lay on while you look at your baby from below, it will dry very quickly when you do get snow on it. My favorite part is how quickly the air inside will warm up after you've closed the door. Since the entire floor becomes a giant radiator, the air will warm back up within minutes of closing the door. The only other way to get that kind of recovery is to use a ceiling mounted hot air blower.

As far as the finish, the stains are the best but you have to use the proper type. Some home centers like Home Depot sell a stain that you paint on after the floor has cured. That stuff is just watered down paint and not worth a darn. You have to get the powdered stain that is either mixed into the wet concrete while still in the truck or is sprinkled on during the final troweling. The differences are mostly cost and finished appearance.

If you mix it into the batch on the truck, it will be a solid color (all the same) as long as you use the same recipe on each truckload. Most regular garages will only use one truckload so that shouldn't matter. This will most likely be more expensive since you need to purchase enough stain to color the entire load and not just the surface. The benefit is that the color is all the way through so you don't need to worry about scratches and you can have the mason trowel it to a velvet finish so it is smooth enough to sweep clean but still has a little traction when wet. Only use a penetrating sealer so the floor won't be too slippery.

If you go with the type that is sprinkled on top, you can use several different colors and if you're good at it, the floor will have a mottled look very much like marble or granite. The color does penetrate into the wet concrete a little bit so mild scratches aren't a problem and because it is a textured look, you won't notice any larger scratches or stains. Again, use only a penetrating sealer and leave the troweling just slightly rough so it won't be overly slick. You don't want it to reflect like a mirror.

It really depends on the finished look you want. One solid color like paint or a more natural look like stone? If you do go with infloor heat, make sure you have them put antifreeze in the system. It won't take long for the cold to find it's way through the concrete under the overhead door and could freeze the line. It only take a small piece of ice to create a plug that will stop the whole sytem from flowing. Then you're really in trouble. The tubing should be installed in several loops no matter how large the garage is. That way the temp will be more balance and you won't have it really hot on one end of the floor and luke warm on the other. If you decide to run a loop into the driveway, make sure you have a shut off valve so you can isolate it if you ever decide you don't want to heat all of Canada.

Just my opinion. Scott

[thixon]

The company that makes POR-15 also makes a floor coating. I have no experience with it, but that advertise it like its gods gift to concrete shop floors.

Good Luck.

[Tim Smith]

This forum is a veritable fountain of good information. Thanks folks!