Moving to Spain and (of course) taking the baby with me.
I Will have to build a garage-starting soon but wonder what would be the best floor.Tiles (my favourite-40x40,white or greyish),rubber or pvc tiles,paint?
Anyone with experience?

Phil

 

Bare concrete for me. Painted or coated is deadly when wet. Tiles just means you lose stuff easier when dropped.

 

I can't tell you exactly what TO do, but I would suggest DON'T do what I did. In 2002, I had a large shop building constructed in my back yard. After other cost overruns, I decided I could save some money by coating the garage floor with epoxy myself. I used several of those "kits" sold at the local home improvement store. After figuring out that I needed to put the mixed epoxy in a bucket of ice to keep it from hardening faster than I could roll it out, the process went smoothly and for the first few years I was very happy with it. However, after sixteen years, I can say it just hasn't been very durable. Every tool that drops, every caster that rolls, etc takes little tiny flakes out of it and it all eventually adds up to looking terrible. I've mixed more epoxy and patched it here and there, but everywhere its patched looks obvious.
A friend of mine had a "professional" coat his garage floor with epoxy for $1,600 when he built a new home with a four-car garage in about 2006. In hindsight, I wish I had gone ahead and paid a professional to do mine. The problem with not doing a high quality floor coating when the building was new is that now, its a working shop full of tools and cars. To redo the floor properly now, I'd have to arrange a week of alternate indoor parking for four cars, shelves and shelves of spare parts, three cabinets of tools, a four post lift, etc, etc. Unfortunately because of the logistics its just NOT going to get done over again.

I suppose if all you're gonna do is "park" on it, the amateur epoxy coating might hold up pretty well for 10 years or so, but if working on your car is your hobby, then pay the professional.

 

+1 for a professional finished concrete slab. The current vogue material is polyasphoric coatings. They are awesome. In the DC area it’s about $5-$6 a square foot with diamond grind prep.

Also, if building a garage do you want a lift or will you ever? Slab depth matters and some 4 posts require 11” deep slabs. Just something to think about.

 

About 7 or 8 years ago, I did a customer's three car garage with Race Deck plastic interlocking tiles, and it turned out beautifully. I saw it recently and still looks great. I've attached the one picture I took minutes after we finished but before we swept it down or cleaned it. The material was about $3.00/sf, and is an easy do it yourself project. My suggestion to anyone who wants to do a pattern in it, is to do an actual scaled drawing labeling each 12" square and then following that roadmap without wavering. There is no prep work to your concrete floor, this just snaps together and sits on top.

 

Thank you for all the replies!
Various options and to resist the diy coating then!
I still have tiles on my mind but the ceramic ones as Spain is a large producer of them.
I guess that if I persist that way I have to make sure the tiles will be the right colour (any suggestion?) and most importantly highly resistant to weight and impact...
Any comment welcome!

 

+1 on the snap together modular floor tiles.

My tired (pun intended) old, dirty, cracked and uneven concrete 30-year old 2-car garage floor looked as bad as it gets. Surface prep was to use my leaf blower to blow all the trash out and that was it - done in one minute. I bought 5 boxes of MotoFloor Modular Garage Flooring Tiles from Costco when they were on special for $99 per box of 44 sq. ft., They're currently $139.99 per box delivered, and appear to be identical to fhe Race Deck tiles.

I've had the MotoFloor tiles in my garage for more than 5 years and am very pleased with their design and how well they've held up. It's a floating floor that has about 1/2 of open space against each wall, which means that the floor will move around slightly. Tiles are 1 foot square and the half-inch thickness lets water drain underneath and eventually evaporate. They're PVC and clean easily with Simply Green or other household cleaner. Because I had several leftover brand new tiles, I replaced the ones that were under the tires that looked a bit worn compared to the rest of the floor. It was easy to pry them up with a screwdriver and pull them out, and snap in the new ones by lining up the tabs and stomping on the new tiles.

Check out the MotoFloor tiles on Costco's website.

 

I would not use regular tiles. Race Deck, pro Epoxy, or bare concrete would be the only choices for me. If you drop something on a ceramic tile and it cracks it's a total pain.

 

Point taken Stuart S and mosesbotbol and giving me second thought.
I guess it is to know what synthetic tiles the Spanish have to offer...

 

Another option that many of the big box store do now is polish their concrete floors before setting up the interior. The process is akin to using a huge disc sander to grind away the top layer of concrete and leaves a very nice smooth finish. Again, it becomes a slip hazard when wet but looks great.

 

Some of my friends have gone the Polyaspartic route with fabulous results. It's the best wearing and the most professional looking floor coating I've ever seen. It's not to be confused with Epoxy, whether the Epoxy is applied DIY or professionally. My friends say their floor is not the least bit slippery even when wet. Here's the company they used. Their price was $4 per sq. ft. As always, I am in no way affiliated with the company, I don't own any of it's stock, I have no family or friends employed there, etc.




Garage Floor Coating - Slide-Lok


http://www.slide-lok.com/garage-floor-coatings


Slide-LokGarage Interiors, USA Headquarters

2035 W. McDowell Rd. Phoenix, AZ 85009

Office: 480-222-9720Toll free: 1-800-835-1759


Garage Flooring by Slide-Lok is second tonone in the garage floor coating industry. Slide-Lok pioneered the one daygarage floor install with their proprietary polyaspartic formulation that canbe applied in temperatures as low as -20°F with a 24 hour cure before drivingback onto the floor. The top tier polyaspartic coatings are still offered forgarage floor coatings, however Slide-Lok has now developed newer mid-rangeproducts that are much more affordable for every homeowner. Utilizing in-housechemists, Slide-Lok custom formulates all of its floor coatings to ensure thatevery product meets and exceeds our quality standards for your garage. See our Polyasparticvs. Epoxy comparison. All of our coating formulations are custom formulated in house andtested rigorously before being released. Slide-Lok pioneered the garage floorcoating industry over a decade ago with the one day garage floor coatinginstall, using a custom polyaspartic formulation that allowed for fast curingand application in extreme temperatures. Since offering just one floor coatingproduct, we've seen the need for differing levels of flooring protection anddurability based on what homeowners needs are. Our garage floor coating lineupnow includes epoxy and acrylic coatings to better cater to specific flooringapplications.

• Custom Coating Formulations
• Unlimited Pigment Color Options
• Unlimited Chip and Flake Blends
• Choose The Performance You Need
• 24/7 Technical Support - Contact us

 

Wish I could get $4/sqft polyasphoric in DC.

My garage has the Rustoleum DIY epoxy. The key is prep. I acid etched on a new floor and it’s held up well for 14 years. Not perfect. It is much better than bare concrete which is dusty, so I would do it even if you plan to RaceDeck the garage.

Again, I wish I went the pro route but I’m too cheap now.

 

I know I'm biased because I have the Costco MotoFloor modular PVC tiles, but IMHO it's the best choice based on ease of surface preparation, ease of installation, appearance and custom designs, functionality, durability, ease of maintenance and making repairs, and last but not least... cost. A great value.

And I would recommend this product even if I didn't own Costco stock, which I'm also glad I bought!

Floor Tiles
https://m.costco.com/MotoFloor-Modular-Garage-Flooring-Tiles-48-square-feet-per-Box-1'-x-1'-Tiles-.product.100009181.html

Completer Kit
https://m.costco.com/MotoFloor-Modul....11038311.html

 

Great thread as I want to do something with my garage floor this summer!

 

For what I can see now,there is a few synthetic tiles on the market...To keep it short:anyone to avoid?

 

Snap tiles look great and wear fantastically.... but NEVER get oil, antifreeze, brake fluid, tranny fluid, etc, etc on them, as it all drips down between and sits on the floor beneath. Add a wet car, be it from rain or snow, and you'll have a gooey, messy muck that may get to the point of gooshing up between the tiles when you walk/drive on them. Yes, it takes quite a bit to get this bad, but a few heavy rains or a couple park-jobs with a snowy car and you'll be in for a nasty mess.

 

Cee Jay,

You can put down a MotoFloor when you move to Georgia and leave all that snow behind in Utah. When I want snow, I'll go there. But I still have an antique snow shovel in my garage that I rarely use. It's a nice wall decoration.

My garage floor was pretty bad before I put down the MotoFloor, so whatever is on that concrete now doesn't bother me. Probably couldn't see the new oil stains on top of the old ones. To paraphrase that legendary young philosopher: "If I can't see it, it never happened." Thanks, Bart!

Stuart

P.S. Three days ago we had maybe 2-3 inches of snow in metro Atlanta. Schools closed for 3 days! When I lived in Vermont that would have been a non-event.

 

Stuart, How is the MotoFloor when using a jack and stands? I'm concerned about compression breaking through the surface. Maybe it would require some plywood under the jact to distribute load?

I like the idea that I wouldn't have to move the entire contents out to finish the floor.

 

Good question papacy...how do those tiles resist to compression?Would a shelf storage leave a permanent mark if you would decide to move them?Ok,perhaps smart to have some spares for that reason...

 

The bottom of the MotoFloor tiles are reinforced, which makes them very strong. A few months ago, I jacked up my XKR and put it on jack stands to remove all 4 wheels and have them refurbished. There are no marks or impressions from the jack or jack stands.

Below are photos of 4 of my left over brand new MotoFloor tiles that I snapped together so you could see how it works.The top surface has a raised pattern and the bottom has multiple ladder-shaped reinforcements. That makes each tile very rigid and strong. If you want a softer floor, this isn't for you. How do they snap together? Look closely at the top surface photo and along the edges you will see semi-circular rings. Place those rings over the very small corresponding tabs that you can see on the bottom surface photo and stomp down. It's that simple.

Top surface.



Bottom surface.



My floor is solid black, and I used the finishing kit to make a transition edge at the garage entrance. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Stuart