Concrete garage floor sealers / coatings

Darwins Child

I want to apply a coating that is waterproof to the lowest portion of our garage floor. This area collects melted road-snow/sand/salt during the winter and, consequently the salt water "spalled" several spots in the concrete in that area. I have now filled them in using QuiKrete sand topping mix and ground down their surfaces to level with the surrounding area of the floor.

The conditions on the floor from Edmonton's long, harsh winter are, again, the salt, but also the sand which of course acts like an abrasive on the concrete and will certainly do so on whatever great-looking coating / sealer is put on the floor. Occasionally it gets cold enough in the garage to freeze the puddle, so there's a freeze / thaw cycle to also consider.

The tires of our Outlander will of course grind the road sand into / onto whatever is on the floor. This is why I'm leaning more toward some kind of sealer / water-proofer that after application may not look any different than the concrete, but will prevent the salt water puddle that inevitably forms in that area from penetrating the surface of the concrete and once again causing spalling.

Because of its inherent resilience, proven ruggedness, as well as waterproofing ability, I'm even seriously considering coating the collection area with some kind of asphalt product, or, possibly, even a membrane that is somehow adhered to the floor.

I'd rather not have to re-coat every year, so this is also why I'm thinking more simple protection that's very easy to re-apply should I have to do that.

I'm also considering doing nothing but applying some kind of sealer to the surface of the individual patches themselves to protect the raw concrete and, in the future, simply repair any new spalls that appear.

So I have a questions only for you folks in the snow belt.

1. What do you have on the surface of your concrete floor?

2. How long has it been there?

3. Has it protected the concrete?

4. How did the floor-coating look after one or more winters?

5. If you had it to do over, would you apply the same coating again?

6. If not, what will you apply next time, if anything?

Thanks very much for any advice.

SouthArk370Z

Interesting question. Subbed to see what people come up with.

Edit: I've never coated my garage floor, but judging from what I've seen in industrial applications, epoxy will hold up to just about anything a homeowner will throw at it. With any coating, preparation is critical - if you don't get that right, the final product will be inferior.

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scottIN

Not to tout another forum, but head over to Garage Journal. There are hundreds of threads over there about floor coatings. There's a lot that goes into doing it right. A relative of mine did his with the crap you buy at big box retailers and it looked great...for about 2 weeks. Then the hot-tire pick up started and it was all over.

SouthArk370Z

I didn't dig very deep but, if nothing else, it looks like a real good place to start.

The Garage Journal Board - Flooring

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Darwins Child

That's the perfect web site for this thread's topic.

I'm 90% sure I'm going to use Rust Bullet (RB) for concrete. Because the vast majority of our garage's floor is in very good condition, I figure that I can coat the relatively small part of the floor under our wintertime Great Salt Lake with just one amazingly-expensive quart of RB.

I hesitate only because RB has only been around about 3 years, so long-term user experience is non-existent. But in this case our garage will probably act as an early-adopter RB torture-test for the snow-belt crowd.

If anyone reading this has used RB, I'd love to hear what you think of it so far.

Darwins Child

The job is done.

I first lightly ground all of the concrete surface to be coated. After removing all dust, I coated with Rust Bullet "High Performance Industrial Grade Protective Coating", which the local distributor claimed was the same formulation as the coating for concrete, but with another nameplate.

With 1 quart I was able to brush on 4 very heavy coats and, BTW, this stuff stinks! After drying for 3 days, there is no peeling whatsoever and, to my touch, I'd think only one heavy coat had been applied. The concrete must really soak up this stuff like a sponge.

It is amazingly difficult to discern details in the paint and the concrete underneath, even by eye, so it's even more difficult to take photos that show any detail. The rougher sand-mix that I used to fill in the spalling appears and feels rougher to the touch.

Next spring I'll report back how it performed under the sandy, salty lake of winter. If the stuff performs well, I may expand the coated area or even coat the whole floor, but the latter would require renting a large grinder and removing everything from the garage for several days. In short, it would be a real royal PIA to do.

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