Garage/workshop floor - paint or sealer?

I am having a garage and workshop built and am wondering what to do with the concrete floor. My original plan was to paint it with workshop floor paint but a google search turned up the possibility of sealing it with clear acrylic. Another thought was is there something that can be added to the concrete before the floors are poured that will save me having to do anything afterwards?

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks, Peter

Reply to
Peter
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Peter,

Some years ago, having used floor paint which is fine for a period then needs re-doing, I decided to fix 12mm OSB / Sterling Board down before re- painting. This has made a huge difference to the comfort of working in the workshop. All I did was to drill straight through it and plug&screw dirrectly into the concrete (making sure the screws weren't long enough to penetrate the damp membrane). The dust level is much reduced and as I say far nicer to stand on, and more friendly to dropped tools.

I'm currently building an extension to my garage / workshop in front of the existing one (this time REALLY for a car!) and will use the same approach..

Andrew Mawson

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

How did this stick wear & tear, particularly damp being tramped in from outside?

Peter

Reply to
Peter

You can buy prop. floow sealer for this purpose which is designed to penetrate a little and then stop all the dust problems. Usually, AFAIK, dust problems are caused by the concrete being over worked when installed, causing water to rise to the surface. I am no expert but some amy be able to give more advice about this.

Why not just throw down some old carpet over it. Depends what you are going to do in there I guess but I have found some old wool or polypropelene ones are best and give a nice comfort and warmth factor too

HTH Rob

Reply to
Kalico

Don't use the sealer, well you could try it but I did that then painted over it with International paint (grey). It lasts ok but the car tyres pull patches off due to being hot. 187miles in 2 hours they are anyway. ;-) so it has flaked off around those areas. The rest isn't too bad but I'd try a small patch before doing it all and see what you think or as someone suggested cover the concrete with something else. :-)

Mark S.

Reply to
mark

We used ordinary chipboard floorboards for our workshop and then painted the surface. No problems with water, it just sat on the paint surface and any scuffs and nicks were soon filled with a dollop of floorpaint or if deeper then a bit of filler. It got a lot of traffic and in the end we just settled for a yearly clean and repaint. When we moved we used the same principle but added a layer of polystyrene which made a hell of a difference to both comfort levels and warmth.

Reply to
James Hart

If you want something that will be effective and really last, then a 2 part epoxy floor paint is very effective.

I used a two stage system of a sealer followed by two coats of finish. Each of these is a two component material.

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for the sealer

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the paint.

This does have to be applied according to the directions and the sealer coverage in practice is closer to 5m^2 rather than the theoretical 8. The paint pretty much matches theoretical coverage.

The result is a very robust finish which is not a bit like regular single part floor paints. It will stand up to *very* hard commercial wear.

During the construction of the floor it is worth insulating it with

50mm or even 100mm Jablite (that's cheap) and of course a DPC.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

Peter,

I've walked a lot on it, but more to the point have moved two lathes out each weighing 3/4 ton, and one lathe back in (1 ton) and an EDM machine - mostly on rollers but a bit of pushing and levering and so far its fine. The OSB is semi waterproof as its intended for shuttering applications so water so far hasn't been a problem to it (and my personal door into the workshop does get rain blown in under it, and the suds tank on my power saw leaks etc etc !) No doubt it will need painting at irregular intervals but the surface stays good.

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

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