Nothing beats a clean shop floor! If you have a garage sees regular use you will constantly be fighting keeping the shop floor clean and not staining the concrete. That is why we always suggest coating your floor with a durable garage floor coating. Concrete floor coatings get a bad rep because of the small percentage of people that have had issues with chipping or peeling coatings. We can attribute most of those to poor surface prep or inferior coatings. Since you’re here we’re going to assume you won’t go with the later. Read below as we give our top 3 tips for preparing your floor for a fresh garage coating.
- A Clean Floor is a Happy Floor- It may seem obvious; but the cleaner the concrete is the more durable your floor coating will be. First you should use an air nozzle to blow all loose dirt and dust out of the shop. Then we suggest starting with a non-toxic degreaser like Oil Eater Cleaner mixed in a power washer soap reservoir. By using the extreme pressure of a power washer and the cleaning properties of the Oil Eater you will find that 99% of the dirt, grime and oil will disappear. Stubborn stains and dirty spots may require soaking with oil eater as well before spraying.
- Crack is the Enemy- Damage to your shop floor can be difficult for the coating to adhere and will give it a place to start peeling if the coating gets damaged. We suggest using an epoxy crack filler kit or a quick-setting concrete from the hardware store to fill cracks and crevices to give a nice smooth finish for the floor coating to adhere to. Plus if you’re going through the hard work to clean and coat your floor you might as well have the concrete all repaired and smooth!
- Seal The Surface- If you like to do things 110% (we don’t blame you!) then you want to seal the bare concrete before coating with your desired shop floor coating. The best way is to apply a primer; preferably an Epoxy Primer for Concrete. The primer or sealer will keep a barrier between the shop floor and the coating to seal out any possible contaminants and it will also give you a great base for the shop floor coating to bite into. We’ve found that the coatings tend to be more durable and longer lasting when an Epoxy Primer or Sealer have been applied.
If you’ve been thinking about protecting your shop floor than there’s no better time than now. We offer a full line of DIY Shop Floor Coating Kits HERE.