EPOXY FLOORS
Why Choose Epoxy Floors – Charlie Southpoint
DIY Epoxy Floors – Charlie Southpoint
Many residential home owners or business owners love the idea of epoxy floors, but not many people can afford them to be installed by a professional. This information is by no means to deter you from hiring someone to do the job the right way the first time, but if you can’t afford their price you may find this information useful.
Here are some ideas on how you can make your dream epoxy floor come true:
1. Inspect the concrete area and make sure to take notes of cracks, holes, spalls, or other unlevel areas. You’ll need to add some extra materials for these areas for your floor to turn out just right. Make sure to take a measurement of the entire area to get the total sq ft. We recommend to install at least one gallon of product for every 120 sq ft.
2. Prep the concrete with a floor machine, hand grinder or last resort use an acid etching product to clean the floor. We recommend grinding the floor, you’d be surprised what a $200 hand grinder and vacuum can do to get a floor roughed up enough for an epoxy coating. You want to make sure if you are grinding the floor to go over the concrete smoothly and evenly, try to avoid gouging the floor.
3. Clean the floor thoroughly, I personally like to vacuum up the concrete dust from the floor and then use a leaf blower to make sure all the concrete dust has been blown out of the garage. Make sure to use a flat mop system with an applicator to clean the floor even after you vacuum, when you grind the floor there are a lot of smaller particles in the concrete that can cause bonding issues with your newly laid epoxy. Go over the floor with water and a flat mop to get those particles up.
4. Tape all the edges, and setup a mix station. Use plastic or a tarp to mix your epoxy on.. Once you mix your epoxy you’ll want to squeegee or dip n roll the product onto the floor. Be sure to read the manufacturers instructions on how long you can leave the epoxy in a bucket, most epoxies will harden in 10-20 minutes in the bucket so you’ll want to work quickly.
5. Apply flakes, and then install the top coat. Epoxy is great but the varnish over them will make them last for years. Make sure you don’t just use a regular epoxy on a floor without a top coat, ever heard of chipping or peeling epoxy? That can happen to your floor if you don’t use a polyaspartic top coat.