Your self-made epoxy garage floor coating is highly unlikely to last more than a couple of years before it starts to flake, crack, and turn yellow. While acid etching is a much better alternative than simply cleaning concrete with soap and water, it doesn't allow the amount of adhesion between the coating and the concrete needed for the coating to last for many years. An epoxy coating for garage floors can go a long way in transforming your garage from a place to park your cars and store your things to an extension of your home. Whether it's a space for your weekend projects, family barbecues, or to prepare your street for summer, decorating your garage with an epoxy floor covering is a home improvement project that's becoming increasingly popular with homeowners across the country.
As mentioned above, the epoxy garage floor coating you use yourself is highly unlikely to last more than a couple of years without cracking, peeling, losing its glossy finish, or turning yellowish from exposure to UV rays. Once you've decided that fixing your garage floor is next on the to-do list, you'll now have to make an important decision: hire a professional or put your DIY skills to the test. To correct these imperfections, you'll need to remove the initial layer before you can apply new layers. The garage floor needs to be prepared first and, depending on the condition of the existing concrete, this could be a significant task.
A garage floor contractor ensures that the epoxy adheres properly to concrete and is not peeled by using a diamond grinder or blaster to mechanically clean and peel the floor. With more than 16 years of experience in garage flooring and cabinets, Best In Show Garage can take your garage to the next level. Vinyl flakes make the appearance of the floor somewhat more interesting than that of a solid color, but their main purpose is to distract the eye from any imperfections in the finished coating. If you don't have thousands of dollars to spend on a garage floor covering, it's better to install a self-made epoxy kit at a home improvement store than to leave the concrete uncoated.
However, these kits contain more than 50% of the water mixture, which provides the soil with a thin and brittle layer and, at the same time, prolongs the drying process much longer. Proper floor preparation is essential and determines the visual outcome and durability of your garage floor project. Many garage floor enthusiasts will say that their floor looked good for a year or two and then the coating started to peel off, while an epoxy coating installed by a professional should last more than 20 years and never peel off. You can opt for the same mottled design from a partial layer of vinyl flakes that you would get with a DIY kit, or you can choose between a full layer of vinyl flakes in which the entire floor is covered with vinyl chips and no epoxy base layer is visible (this is the most common design seen on a coating installed by professionals).
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