Epoxy Flooring Facts You Must Know & What To Avoid For The Best Results

Our epoxies are self priming but using a good quality primer is always a good idea. It creates a better job because it adds another layer of coating(thicker is always better)and can strengthen older floors in poor condition plus it adds impact resistance. Primers are usually a little thinner than epoxies(not 100% solids) so that they can soak into the concrete and lock in. There's a reason why you grind or acid etch your floor, it's so that a primer or your epoxy can soak into the pores and lock in like glue. A high quality primer will have a higher adhesion rating than a pure epoxy, a poor quality primer won't. You need 400psi adhesion rating or higher for total peace of mind against Hot Tire Pickup.

If you have any kind of high end sports car, heavy vehicle or forklift traffic, have lots of toys like boats, tractors or ATVs or your floor is exposed to lots of harsh weather conditions(large temperature swings) you should use a primer. If your floor is oil stained over a good portion of it you need a specialized primer such as our oil primer that will bond to the oil in your slab otherwise any epoxy coating you put on it will peel right up.

As with any other part of your epoxy floor installation the quality of the primer you use makes a big difference. Using a poor quality primer is worse than not using one at all. Our primers are better than 90% of actual epoxies being offered and can never be separated from your concrete unless you drop something very heavy and pointed that actually gouges your concrete out.

A primer is also great to use when you need to extend the coverage of the epoxy layer since the epoxy is now going over a sealed surface rather than porous concrete. So if your floor is close too or a little over the rated coverage of an epoxy floor kit you're purchasing don't buy more epoxy, use a primer! A good primer can extend your epoxy coverage by up to 20%. It's a win win deal, more coverage and a thicker floor finish.

We get asked that question everdy all day. See Why ArmorGarage Has The Best Garage Floor Coating. For a detailed explanation, it's a great page to read to learn about all the different epoxy floor coatings.

In short we use only the highest grade 100% military grade solids components to manufacture our epoxies. Know that just because a coating says it's 100% solids doesn't mean it's a quality coating! There are many marketing pitfalls to watch out for. Some coatings state they're 100% solids but are only 96% or less solids by volume. A true 100% solids coating must be 100% solids by weight and volume! Otherwise we consider it a primer. Some 100% solids are made as cyclioaliphatic components which is a hybrid type epoxy to lower the cost of materials. If you see a WB in the product part number it means it's water based and is best avoided.

Other 100% solids are just made with cheap components sort of like buying bread with preservatives, ingredients you can't pronounce and not made from 100% whole wheat versus pure organic whole wheat bread. Both are whole wheat breads but one is clearly better than the other.

Our topcoats are the best in the business, outperforming any polyurea or polyspartics which are more expensive and more difficult to work with. Our chemically hardened military grade topcoat is unrivaled for it's durability, wee the Case Study below for more information.

Durability & Performance while looking new the longest is our mantra to the point where are primers outperform and are better than the majority of actual epoxies being sold as heavy duty. The other thing that sets us apart is our great customer service and support. When you buy from a big box store or reseller you're buying from people who have no knowledge of the product or how to apply it. Who do you go to when there's a question or problem, the guy in the aisle that never even opened a can of epoxy? All our reps are experts in the industry and we provide support 7 days a week.

All epoxy coatings look great when first applied, that's one of the main features of epoxy paint. It's dramatic high gloss look is beautiful and at it's peak when first applied. Come talk to us when your epoxy coating is 10, 15, 20 years or more old and tell us it still looks good, most epoxy coatings won't get past the 3 year mark before looking shabby! See the Case Study below, that's all you need to see and know.

The two most common issues for epoxy floor coatings is that the coating simply wears out prematurely because it wasn't industrial grade even though it was advertised as such. Which by the way is not covered by the warranty for all other epoxies except ours. Then the other issue is when the epoxy simply starts peeling up. You'll most likely be told the floor wasn't prepped right when in most cases it's the quality of the epoxy you purchased.

The tires on your vehicle can reach up to 180 degrees in temperature. If you use any epoxy under 10 Mils of dried thickness it won't have sufficient mass to absorb the heat especially if you use color flakes which displace some of the epoxy under them leaving even thinner coverage. Lower quality epoxies don't have the proper chemical cross linking and thickness to prevent reactivation from high heat.

Once reactivated the epoxy turns back into liquid form and does what epoxies are made to do. They stick to things and they stick to your tires pretty good after it cools back down so that the next time you pull your car out of your garage part of your new epoxy floor coating goes along for the ride.

Armor Chip & Armor Granite garage epoxy floors can handle high impacts, in fact they only way to get our epoxy off your floor is to drop something heavy and sharp enough to gouge your concrete out with our epoxy stuck to it.

Heavy tool chests, rolling creeper, jack stands, floor jacks are no issue for any of our floor coatings. If you do a lot of work in your garage we usually recommend going with the military grade topcoat instead of the standard heavy duty one.

In sum avoid water based products and any non aliphatic, non fully 100% solids epoxy(See More About Under Why ArmoGarage Epoxy Is Best). Prep your floor so it looks like the images on this page and on our How To Prep & Paint Your Floor Page(located on our Home Page). If you have an older floor(more than 20 years old) make sure it has a vapor barrier. Tape some plastic down with duct tape and let sit for 48 hours and see if there is any moisture underneath. Always acid etch a new floor twice! And be sure to neutralize after etching.

A good primer adds additional thickness and adhesion which adds additional Hot Tire Pickup and high impact protection especially on less than perfect floors.

The answer is yes you must always use a topcoat. It's where all the action on your floor occurs. Without a topcoat your epoxy will wear out and dull very quickly. It's important to know that an epoxy is not a topcoat, two different products. A topcoat is primarily a Urethane epoxy which is not the same as an epoxy with urethane additives like some of our competition likes to do. How do you know you have a good topcoat? Look at the abrasion loss rating> we have the best Taber Loss ratings in the industry. Our standard heavy duty garage floor topcoat has a loss rating of 20mgs. Our Industrial and Military Grade Garage Floor topcoat has a loss rating of 4 mgs. Our Commercial Epoxy has a loss rating of 8 mgs. Most companies don't even publish their loss ratings they're so high and most are 25mgs and higher which is like applying semi gloss enamel to your floor. Keep in mind that each milligram higher in loss rating yields exponentially less durability and protection. A good rule of thumb is 20mgs or lower for garage duty, 10mgs or less for commercial duty and 5 mgs or less for heavy duty/industrial use.

Notice the difference between the Gray Armor Chip Floor and the Blue Arrow which was done with a competitor's lifetime guarantee polyurea epoxy to save a few dollars after the Armor Chip Epoxy floor was done. The arrow wore out after 2 years(not covered by lifetime guarantee!). The blue arrow is repainted every year or so while the Armor Chip floor looks like the day day it was applied and still looks new after 15+ years! Which epoxy is the better value?

Degreasers are notorious for leaving residues that interfere with adhesion and don't do a good job removing oil stains even though they're very expensive. The best way to remove oil stains when doing an epoxy floor coatings is with Liquid Tide and Muriatic Acid. Cheap and super effective! We explain how to do on our How To Page. Some floors simply can't be cleaned no matter what you do they're so heavily stained with oil in which case you need our proprietary oil stain primer to bond with the oil in the floor. Once primed with our oil primer you can then coat over it with any of our epoxy products.

We strongly recommend that you do not shot blast your floor unless you've done it before. Shot blasting can leave lawn mower lines if you don't know what your doing. If your floor needs shot blasting have a professional do it for you otherwise use the Floor Prep Machine you can rent from Home Depot. It's cheap, quick and effective in getting your floor cleaned and profiled.

Epoxy coatings can be used just about anywhere regular paint can be used even on walls. Just be sure to use the right epoxy for your application. If you're unsure about your application please contact us. We have seen and provided coatings for just about every type of floor.

We do not recommend epoxy if you have a very high water table and no moisture barrier under your slab. If your slab is in very poor structural condition you might be better off with Mats or Interlocking Tiles. If you have exposed aggregate type of concrete(where you can see gravel or pebbles).They can very difficult to get any coating to stick, call us to discuss. We have done and seen just about everything there is when it comes to flooring applications so we can guide you in the right direction which may even be to another brand or even to do nothing at all. The truth is every now and then some floors are better off left as bare concrete due to their unique circumstances.

The difference between Armor Chip & Armor Granite is that Armor Granite uses a thicker epoxy to hold the additional color flakes 20lbs versus 8lbs, with the Granite Kit we supply a calibrated squeegee to ensure the extra thick epoxy is apread evenly over the entire floor and the granite kit comes with 4 layers of topcoat versus 2 layers for Armor Chip. Armor Granite is our top of the line floor coating that yields 95% flake coverage giving you a realistic granite finish with unequaled durability and gloss. Armor Chip is more of a terrazzo look with about 75% flake coverage. There's a third option for those of you who don't like the color flake look or if you do work in your garage involving small parts. You can use the Commercial Epoxy System which is a pigmented base coat and a pigmented topcoat in the same color. No flakes, just solid high gloss porcelain looking epoxy. With this floor if you drop a small screw you can find it unlike with a flake floor. We all learned the hard way about not doing small parts work on a flake floor.

You have two options to achieve your required coverage. You can purchase the Add On Half Kit or if your floor is just slightly larger than the stated coverage of the full kit you can purchase the primer. The primer will provide three benefits, it provides additional adhesion, it yields in a thicker overall coating(thicker is better!) and it extends the coverage of the epoxy by up to 25% since the epoxy is now going over a sealed surface rather than a porous one. If the budget allows for it we always recommend using the primer. For poor condition floors or even better performance use our High Solids Primer.

You can easily patch any pitted areas with either our Inastan Crack reapir compound for small areas or our Crack & Joint Compound for larger areas like the floor below.

If you neglected your floor and let it get to looking like this here's what you can do. Hopefully you read this first and protect your floor or you caught it while your floor was only slightly pitted. We don't like using a self leveling slurry, they never seem to last and tend to chip and crack prematurely. We like what this customer did and when we followed up with a year later he said there were absolutely no issues. For large commercial or industrial floors with a large protion of the floor pitted we recommend having a professional concrete company do the repairs. It's not for the DIYer.

This customer used our Crack & Joint Repair Compound. Our customer was very happy with the results as you will see below. Also do not use an Underlayment slurry product as it will not hold up to vehicle traffic! So here's a picture after he patched and is grinding it down smooth. Another method that customers have used is using our High Solids Primer mixed with playground sand until it becomes like a grout and then using an 18" or larger flat squeegee you squeegee in the slurry trying to leave as little material as possible on the surface. With either method be sure to acid etch the floor thoroughly even id you have to do it 2-3 times since even grinding will not get down to the bottom of the pits.

This is the finished product using the Armor Granite Kit Pattern # 2 with added Functional Gray flakes, primer and military grade topcoat.

Every year there seems to be some new magic formula that hits the market with outlandish promises. Recently it has been "High Solids Epoxy are good enough", Polyureas are 10 times better than epoxy floor coatings. No they're not! Again most of these products don't even equal the performance of our primers. If you need a fast dry or outdoor application go with a Polyurea or Polyspartic but know that you are getting a trade off in performance for getting the other attributes. We manufacture and sell Polureas & Polyspartics so if you require one we're happy to sell you one, just give us a call. Are polyureas and polyspartics good coatings? Short answer is yes they are for specific applications. Are they the best for your garage floor, we would strongly argue that they are not.

Anyone thinking of using a one part epoxy coating on their floor is not doing their homework and will be redoing their floor much quicker than they think or like. Don't fall for marketing hype, We've made and installed every epoxy ever created so we know what works best and what doesn't. It's why we use what we use in our Armor Chip & Armor Granite Garage Floor Epoxy kits, they have stood the test of time over and over again while being user friendly.

Apply one of our garage floor epoxy kits is very easy and straight forward. We design and package the whole kit so any body can do it and get professional looking results with no prior experience. If you don't want to do yourself you can hire any local painter or handyman to install our product. We work with cstomer installers all the time.

You should allow 2 days if grinding your floor or 3 days if acid etching. The actual labor hours involved is only about 5-8 hours but since you need to wait for your floor to dry after acid etching and then you need to let each layer of coating to dry. So it stretches the total time out to 2-3 days. On the last day you will applying the topcoat in the morning and after about 6 hours you can put all your stuff back in, just keep vehicles off your new floor for a couple of days.

Our military grade epoxy has no odor, if using our primer and or our military grade topcoat they both will have an odor. You can use water based primers and topcoats for no odors but then they really don't work well at all.

As far cleaning and maintaining an epoxy floor it couldn't be easier. It's a main reason to do an epoxy floor, cleaning is rinsing off with a garden hose and maintenance is cleaning the floor once and a while.

Ok so this is sort of a tricky question, like asking how much does a car cost. So with some caveats we will answer the question. If you go to a Big Box store or go to a mega online retailer you can buy epoxy coatings for your garage for under $100.00. In between that and us are the various other types of epoxies you can purchase such as water based, polyurea, cycloaliphatics that were all discussed above with their various drawbacks. Then you have our military grade epoxy systems for various applications, we don't do the one epoxy fit all thing like most of our competition. On average a DIY military grade epoxy floor kit from us will cost between $1.15-2.225/sf depending on whether you use a primer, what type of topcoat you use, if you use color flakes or not and what type of epoxy system you want to install ie: industrial, commercial, residential, acid resistant and even some colors impact the cost such as white, bright red and black.

Another way to look at it is which epoxy floor is less expensive? The one you need to continuously grind off and redo or the one that lasts 20 years and just needs a new clear topcoat.