Whether you simply use your garage to store your vehicles and tools, or you use your garage as an extension of your living space, painting your garage floor is easy and affordable. Garage floor epoxy coatings look great, are easy to clean and require minimal maintenance, which makes garage floor epoxy a popular choice among Nashville homeowners.
Why is Pre-Painting Garage Floor Prep Important?
In order to achieve the best possible results from your your epoxy garage floor coatings, your garage floor needs to be properly prepared. This is because garage floor epoxy bonds best to clean, even surfaces. Grease and dirt will degrade the adhesion between the epoxy or coating, and that can lead to less-than-satisfactory results.
In fact, proper garage floor preparation is one of the most critical factors in achieving a professional, long-lasting garage floor finish. The other two factors include using only top-qualify floor coatings that are applied by a team of skilled garage floor installers who have the experience it takes to deliver outstanding results.
What Are the Steps Involved With Garage Floor Epoxy Prep?
The goal of pre-painting prep work on your garage floor is to make the surface as clean and even as possible. Any bits of dirt or oil that are remaining will compromise the adhesion between the epoxy and the garage floor, so you don’t want to cut corners at this stage of the project.
While you may have seen garage floor cleaners and concrete strippers on sale at your local hardware store, these products don’t completely remove all the residue. To do the job right, the upper layer of your garage floor needs to be ground down using a specialized industrial tool known as a diamond grinder.
Repair any holes and cracks
Before any grinding can begin, any cracks or holes in your garage floor need to be repaired. If you do any patching using concrete, you’ll need to allow at least 60 days between the repair work and the application of your garage floor epoxy. This is because the concrete must be completely cured, otherwise, the epoxy won’t fully bond to it.
Once you’ve made any necessary repairs, it’s time to give your garage floor a thorough cleaning using a stiff brush. If you have a pressure washer with a wide nozzle, you can use it to carefully clear off any surface debris.
Grind off oil stains and existing coatings
The next step in preparing for garage floor painting is grinding. This involves using a specialized diamond grinder which effectively removes the uppermost layer of your garage floor, which is likely contaminated with dirt and oil.
The grinding process results in a lot of dust that must be cleared away before applying garage floor epoxy. An industrial-strength vacuum with squeegee attachments are used to completely clear away any remaining debris, and this process must be repeated multiple times in order to ensure the floor is as clean as possible.
Create a lightly-textured surface
If you’ve ever refinished a deck or worked with fiberglass, you know that coatings adhere better to surfaces that are slightly roughed with sandpaper. The same idea is true when it comes to garage floor painting — that’s why part of prepping your garage floor for epoxy involves creating a porous surface. This is done using an industrial grinder fitted with a specialized grinding pad.
Once all the repairs, grinding, vacuuming and sanding are done, it’s time to complete your garage floor painting project by applying a quality garage floor epoxy.
To learn more about painting your garage floor, including prepping for garage floor epoxy, drop us a line here at Garage Floorz. Our innovative garage floor coatings are made right here in Nashville, and all of our products are backed with our lifetime warrantee.
