Epoxy flooring might not be a suitable garage flooring for you. But why this sudden shift of perspective?
Most of the time, garage floors will often go together with epoxy. Take a quick look at the most celebrated benefits of epoxy floor coatings for garages. Experts of Orangecountydecorativeconcrete.com noted some important factors like the area’s size and a garage location.
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What were some of the advantages of Epoxy floors?
- Epoxy is a pure solid material
- The coating is super durable as concrete
- Epoxy floors are easy to clean
- Maintenance of epoxy flooring is low-cost
- It adds value to a property
- Epoxy lets you have custom designs
- Epoxy floors are super resistant to stains and chemicals.
The last statement convinces you of epoxy floors’ superior quality. So, what else suits the chaotic and often greasy space like the garage floors? Epoxy garage coating should suffice, right?
YES, but also NO. Read on and figure out what makes epoxy NOT your ideal garage floor.
Source: thisoldhouse.com
The drawbacks of using Epoxy for Garage Floors
Getting to know the downside of epoxy helps you use it in a proper manner. Time of day and the area’s temperature play crucial roles in curing. The only time that epoxy will not be the suitable material for your garage is if the climate conditions and the environment do not meet the material’s requirements.
Knowing these factors will ensure that the epoxy adheres properly, giving more of its advantage than the downsides. Know the following challenges with epoxy to avoid the worse.
- Poor adhesion. Poor adhesion of the epoxy coating may be due to various reasons. One drawback is if it’s DIY finished. Not all who work with epoxy can achieve the best results. It is still proper to have an expert flooring installer apply it.
- Warehouse Suitability. Another reason why epoxy may not be for the garage is that not all garage areas function as a warehouse. If you have forklift areas, industrial facilities which need intense activities, and extreme sanitation, epoxy flooring products will work best. However, it is a drawback for your garage if the space does not often work with heavy uses or greasy activities.
- Quick Curing, but not the fastest. Curing time for epoxy might only take days. But some facilities need no downtime. It means that you need zero amount of time for repairs, rework, or a simple flooring patch. Epoxy dries in a few days. Give three days, and the coating materials dried up, suitable for walking. But for you to use its entirety for heavy purposes, you need a more appropriate material. The question is. Is there such a product that cures quicker than epoxy? Yes. You might have a very demanding garage space. One product that serves as the best and only fitting alternative to epoxy coating is the polyurethane or the fast-cure 1-day coating polyurea-polyaspartic floors.
- Function rather than form. Epoxy is known to be the Ing of flooring fortis superior for nd functions. It’s true. However, this is more of an advantage among commercial spaces. A retail store, an office lounge, a mall strip, and other business-driven spaces need a flooring solution that remains attractive and satin-free after long hours of heavy use and traffic. If you need something like this for garage flooring, that space must be used for a showroom or a profitable auto-space.
- Epoxy over epoxy. Most epoxy floors will allow another epoxy coating for restoration or recoating a faulty epoxy. But this work is a complex task that requires grinding the floors. If this will be your option, eventually, you’ll need to cash a lot. And the total expense you used for treating the floor and applying the second coating will amount to a new flooring after all.
So, instead of epoxy floors, why not use a better alternative.
Source: epoxy.la
More reasons for using the alternative
- Use polyurea floor coating instead of epoxy when using the facility or the garage space a day after application.
- Use the one-day coating instead of epoxy when you need more function than form.
- Use the one-day coating instead of epoxy when your garage space is in a semi-humid area.
- Use polyurea coating when you need to resurface during the rainy season or winter season.
- If you are willing to invest and know your garage’s value, go for polyurea instead of epoxy. If you are living in a flood-prone area, polyurea-polycystic floors will be more suitable.
A quick look at the One-day Coating Floor
What is polyurea-polyaspartic flooring? If this is the better alternative, will the cost be worth it? Dive into the next discussions. It’s time to know the new flooring hero.
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How is it different from epoxy floors?
The one-day coating is a product of synthetic polymer coatings. What does it mean? If you remember, epoxy, the one-day install flooring, is made of two solid parts, namely resin and a hardener.
On the other hand, one-day coating consisted of synthetic polymer and aliphatic compound, a resin hybrid. In short, the one-day coat is a much innovative product. It is pretty new in the industry, and those who already try using this will not deny its superior benefits. And where else do they find its optimum use than the garage floors?
Epoxy or Polyurea-Polyaspratic?
Your choice boils down to what you require and what will work best for you at the end of the day.
To finally get your best pick, here are things to consider when choosing between epoxy or polyaspartic-polyurea flooring.
Source: concreteresurfacinglasvegas.com
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Use epoxy for massive industrial areas.
What does this tell you? Epoxy has a more controlled curing time. Unlike a one-day coating, the poly aspartic material solidifies once it gets exposed to the air.
So if you are working on large-scale flooring, then a very quick dry coating will only leave a mess and might be hard for the installers to spread it over the surface.
This is where epoxy has more advantages. You do not need a super quick dry coating when you want a seamless floor surface. Keep this one in mind. If you try to smoothen out the polyaspartic material, then it will only result in a mess. The coating dries up once it feels the air. It will be impossible to smoothen out the surface. That is also the reason why the “poly” flooring has a distinct texture.
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Use polyurea-polyaspartic floors for small garages.
Congrats to you for reaching this conclusion! Finally, your garage floors will find a more suitable floor coating using polyurea floors. As mentioned above, the coating cures in a second. It fits garage spaces where not much sun touches the ground. And if you got a small flooring area like a 2- car to a 3-car sized garage, a quick cure coating is more suitable to use.
