I have a friend who is always out in the garage. If you were to drive by his house, and he was not at work, you would see the garage door open and he would be tinkering on some project that he came up with while he was pondering life on one of his many yearly hunting trips. There have been a couple times where he seemed to build a one-man assembly line, and he was busy working on an item that he could perfect and eventually make into a business.
This friend is a little bit of a clean freak, at least when it comes to his workspace, so I mentioned on a few occasions about epoxying his garage floor to help speed up the cleaning process. My recommendations never seemed to pierce through, and he went about his normal garage behavior.
Last year I threw a surprise party for my wife, and we invited several friends, including this guy and his wife to join in the festivities. This was the first time he had seen the new house and when we went out to the garage so he could see what I had been up to, the lightbulb seemed to have finally light up.
Garage floor epoxy is eye-catching in any garage, but the benefits go way beyond simply looking great. Garage floor epoxy can protect your floors, help with easy cleanup, eliminate concrete dust in your garage, and give it a clean finish. It is also very customizable and can be a DIY project that can be completed in a weekend. The long life of epoxy floors also makes it an upgrade and an investment that can boost the resale value of your home.
1. Garage Floor Epoxy Protects Your Floor
Everyone has seen stained concrete from years of spills, overspray, and slips of the hand. Even for the most careful person, accidents can happen, and the garage floor can end up with questionable substances seeping into the porous surface. Once some of these chemicals, paints, or oils come in contact with the concrete it can be nearly impossible to get the floor clean again. Most chemicals might be harmless, others, not so much.
2. Garage Floor Epoxy Helps With Easy Cleanup
Using a garage floor epoxy will help protect your concrete floor from spills, stains, and moisture. It also provides a durable finish so can help protect against chips and cracks. It will seal up the porous concrete and will keep chemicals, dust, dirt, and other substances from embedding into the floor – setting up shop, and not being able to be evicted, so to speak. The protective layer of garage floor epoxy will help with cleanup, which is another benefit we will discuss later.
As mentioned in our first point – while it seems solid, concrete is porous. Those gaps in the concrete can collect a lot of dirt, oil, and grease over time. This makes it difficult to truly have a clean concrete garage floor since you are never able to get rid of the dirt and dust, or the liquid or oil that is accidentally spilled. You are most likely cursed with a forever stain on the concrete floor.
Garage floor epoxy provides a sealed surface that can be swept, scrubbed, and squeegeed clean in the event of an untimely spill with little to no residue or staining.
In most cases, general cleaning will only require a broom. But a good deep cleaning with a pressure washer and scrubbing with soap and a floor broom can clean up nearly anything you get on the floor in no time. For more information on getting your garage floor squeaky clean, check out our article “How to Clean A Garage Floor.”
3. Garage Floor Epoxy Can Eliminate Concrete Dust
Concrete, especially new concrete can be very dusty. And while tracking dust into the house is never ideal, there can also be health concerns with having too much dust in the air. Using an epoxy will seal the concrete and will minimize dust. This seal also provides a flat, smooth surface that will keep dust, debris, grime, and the like on the surface of the floor. Since the epoxy has a smooth finish, it allows for easy cleanup and maintenance since the dirt has nowhere to hide and liquids cannot seep down into the concrete. This keeps the air more breather friendly, your cars and tools cleaner, and takes away some of the headaches of dusty footprints through the hallway.
4. Garage Floor Epoxy Gives a Clean Finish to your Floor (Hiding Imperfections)
For those of you with an older garage slab, there may be some unsightly nicks and cracks in your concrete. For those smaller divots, garage floor epoxy can be the smooth finish that makes all of those disappear under its shiny new surface.
If you have larger cracks in your floor, this isn’t a deal-breaker for epoxy. After you follow some additional steps to fill and seal the cracks themselves, the epoxy can be applied following the directions with the kit you purchase. You can learn more in our article “How to Fix Garage Floor Cracks.”
Beyond just having a smooth garage floor, epoxying your garage floor can help the overall garage space look more finished. It will either have a single, even color all throughout the garage, or it will have a color pattern, sprinkled paint chips, or design that was designed by you. This is far more appealing than with the random stains in the concrete, looking like your garage floor has dalmatian in its ancestry.
5. Garage Floor Epoxy is Customizable
The floor in your garage takes up a large percentage of the overall surface area in the room. If the garage floor looks bad, it can make the rest of the garage looks worse, just because of the proximity.
Using an epoxy coating can give the options to coordinate colors, look, and feel for one’s garage. This can even be the starting point for an overall theme for your space.
If using an epoxy-paint, you have the option to pick from a variety of colors. And if you utilize the paint chips option for texture and durability, you also have a variety of paint chip colors to accent the garage floor.
If you are going to spend the additional money and actually get a 2-part epoxy finish for your garage, the color and look combinations are nearly endless.
6. Garage Floor Epoxy Can Be a DIY Project You Can Complete in a Weekend
If you are looking to DIY your garage floor epoxy, I hope you are either moving into a new house, have a place to store the things normally found in your garage or you like the game of Jenga. You will need to have a clean area to work, along with a hurry up and wait mentality because you will be proceeding like a teenager with too much makeup; paint, apply, let dry…
If you find yourself playing Jenga, you will need to clear out one side of the garage, normally by stuffing and stacking everything on the other side. When you start epoxying your garage floor, it will require that the area be clear and clean for normally 24-48 hours. Obviously follow the manufacturer’s guidelines when it comes to the installation and drying timeline, but as a rule of thumb, we recommend that you add an additional 24 hours of dry time before you move heavy items on the newly epoxied floor.
7. Garage Floor Epoxy Lasts a Long Time
Some people will say that epoxying your garage floor is a temporary solution, but if installed correctly and you are not having to combat moisture coming up from underneath the garage floor slab, garage floor epoxy can last for a really long time. If you are interested in learning more on how to prepare your garage floor for epoxy, check out our article on the topic “How to Prep, Seal, and Epoxy Your Garage.”
If you have had any experience in working with epoxy, you know this material is extremely durable. There are two major types of epoxy for your garage, you have epoxy-paint and two-part epoxy. Epoxy-paint is the more common of the two for residential use, but both with last a long time with normal wear. If you know your floor is going to be seeing some abuse, you will probably want to use a two-part epoxy on your garage floor for the added durability.
8. Garage Floor Epoxy Can Increase the Resale Value of Your Home
Garage floor epoxy adds a nice finish to any garage. If you are looking to sell your home, you might want to consider a finished garage as something you have your realtor highlight. Normally, if you are selling your home, you focus on the major four (kitchen, bathrooms, floor, and paint). But if the house is being shown to a car nut, or the potential family needs additional storage, garage floor epoxy helping sell the house can be a major benefit. It can also give the feeling that the house extends into the garage, rather than stops abruptly at the unfinished area where the cars and extra things go.
Conclusion
Now you might have been presented with this idea, or you have thought about it on occasion, but never acted on having your garage floor epoxied. Well, the benefits speak for themselves and should be something that you consider.
Having an epoxy on the floor will provide a protective layer on your garage floor. Because of it being an epoxy-paint or a 2-part epoxy, either way, the floor covering will be durable and will last for a long time under normal use.
Having your garage floor epoxied will eliminate concrete dust since it will seal the concrete with a flat and durable surface. Also, the epoxy is interlocking, which will keep dirt, dust, grime, liquids, and oils from permeating into the concrete. Because of this, cleaning up will be much faster and easier, along with being more effective since there is no way for it to hide.
Garage floor epoxy will give your garage a more finished look since it will hide imperfections that otherwise would be visible on the concrete. There are several options and finishes between epoxy-paint and 2-part epoxy which will give you the option to customize the look and feel of your garage and will allow you to incorporate your garage floor in with the rest of your garage décor, look, and feel.
Lastly, garage floor epoxy is a project that you can DIY. You will need to account for application and dry time, but the process is not difficult. Beyond the other benefits, having an epoxied garage floor can increase the look, sales appeal, and overall resale value of your home.
