Painting the Floor?

Rustoleum has a latex floor epoxy paint kit that comes with a citiric acid etching component. Bought mine at Home Depot. Painted my garage/shop floor with it about eight years ago and it looks as good as the day it was painted. Have not had any paint lifting and nothing I've spilled on it has caused damage, including gasoline, brake fluid, or acetone.

My 2 cents.

Tom S
 
All are good comments above. I also tossed around the “what do I do with my man garage concrete floor”. The epoxy stuff looks good at first, but after a while it will develop problems that will bug you. Wood, tile, vinyl and all of the floor coverings will look good at first. Then comes the maintenance issues or possibly total redo. A bare concrete floor will last your lifetime, but yes, it will stain and other problems. And for some people does not have an eye appeal. I chose to use Concrete Sealer X-1. It does not change the concretes natural color. It does seal up its porosity and will last the life of the concrete. If you spill anything on the floor, it’s an easy clean up and maybe without staining, I have no stains yet. I think prep is very important to. It all depends on how smooth the surface of your concrete is and was it trowelled well when laid (get that cream to the top)…Good Luck
 
The Cadillac way to go is to grind the concrete before finishing. I'm just glad none of the cracks in mine are large enough for my machines to fall into. Yet.
 
Due to having to quickly move my machinery into the new shop after the contractors were late in getting it finished,I was not able to paint my floor. However,it is polished concrete and I have not noticed any dust issues.

I was also hesitant to use an etchant and soon move my machinery in. Too late now.

Once you do paint your floors,you must realize it will be an ongoing maintenance keeping the worn out areas repainted.

In my woodworking machine area,which is in another room,I laid a plywood floor and sanded it with a belt sander. I applied 2 coats of gray,good wearing porch paint,and nothing has worn in 6 years.
 
After working in a large as Maintenance supv (30 plus years) I favor just sealing the concrete. Once you paint the floor you will constantly have to repaint. Sooner or later the paint is as thick as floor tile & you will hate it. The shops in the factory that had sealer on the concrete floors always looker good.

fixit
 
TomS said:
Rustoleum has a latex floor epoxy paint kit that comes with a citiric acid etching component. Bought mine at Home Depot. Painted my garage/shop floor with it about eight years ago and it looks as good as the day it was painted. Have not had any paint lifting and nothing I've spilled on it has caused damage, including gasoline, brake fluid, or acetone.

My 2 cents.

Tom S
Click to expand...

I used the Rustoleum 2 part on the floor about 10 years ago, it worked well, but I didn't get the best coverage the first time around. When I redid it a couple of years ago I got a floor buffer with an abrasive pad to clean it and and I filled in all the cracks, porous spots and divots with some epoxy made for that purpose. The recoat looks much better than the first time, and seems to be holding up well. You have to make sure you don't let welding slag drop on it, as this will burn it, and I find that Acetone tends to change the color, so that you can permanently see where acetone has droped on the floor, but it does not lift or blister the floor. I used a lighter grey with no grit or flake additive, it makes the floor smooth to sweep and easy to see things that you dropped.
 
The floors at Lowes and Home Depot were sealed,and have seemed to stand up well. Not as nice looking as a color of paint,but maybe more durable as mentioned.

My own floor is polished as mentioned,concrete with fiberglass binder 6" thick. I have not had a dust problem,though I know that dust is a common problem. Is mine not dusty because they went over the drying concrete and polished it with a rotary machine till it was quite smooth?

I am not experienced in this area. I had my concrete poured over plastic,so have not had a problem with humidity penetrating it. We had a very damp shop at work until they got around to sealing it. Then,much drier. This was before I became toolmaker.
 
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