What Is the Best Garage Floor Refinishing Material?
Is your garage floor just a simple slab of concrete? If so, it's going to be very prone to damage and staining over time. Plain concrete is strong, but extremely brittle and easy to crack. Moreover, because concrete is porous, it absolutely soaks up stains. Spill oil on a plain concrete garage floor, and it may never entirely come out. A bare concrete garage floor is quickly deteriorated by road salt unless there is a protective barrier between the concrete and the road salt.
That's why more and more people are turning to garage floor refinishing options to enhance their flooring. Resinous self-hardening liquids can bind tightly to the concrete, giving it a surface, which is much more resistant to damage, as well as being far easier to clean. However, there are some different options in concrete coatings, so let's take a look at some of your choices.
The Most Common Garage Floor Refinishing Options
Polishing
The cheapest option is to simply polish the concrete surface. By hitting it with high-powered grinders, it can be smoothed into a nearly seamless polished surface. However, this does nothing to enhance the concrete's strength, and it remains porous. This tends to be more of an aesthetic option than a serious way to improve a floor's long lasting durability and can also be very slippery when wet.
Epoxy
Epoxy has been the default concrete coating choice for decades, and it is 'good enough' in many situations. Epoxy is usually the cheapest coating.
Unfortunately, epoxy is brittle, and can be cracked by falling objects. It's also reactive to UV, causing it to discolor and weaken when exposed to sunlight. This could be a big problem for people who tend to leave their garage doors open. In addition, it's slow and difficult to install. Also, it should not be applied in the colder months we have in the Cleveland, Ohio area.
Polyurea
Polyurea has been a popular alternative to epoxy. It's based around a type of plastic and is often used for waterproofing many different types of surfaces. When used on a garage floor, it creates a surface which is a bit weaker than epoxy, but less vulnerable to chemicals.
However, polyurea is becoming less common because of a new option:
Polyaspartic
Polyaspartic garage floor coatings are the newest option, a reformulation of the same basic materials used for polyurea flooring.
Polyaspartic garage flooring is a best-of-all-worlds solution. It's much stronger than epoxy, and as resistant to chemicals and falling damage as polyurea, while providing an even longer overall lifespan.
Garage Finisher Can Perfect Your Ohio Garage!
Our custom "Forever Floor" polyaspartic garage floor refinishing system produces the best garage floors you'll find in Ohio, or anywhere else. With five layers of coating, it's incredibly strong and durable - capable of standing up to even the worst abuse.
Contact us to learn more about the benefits of polyaspartic coatings
