Finishing A Concrete Garage Floor

This can go on clear or a tinted sealer will give you a shade of color.

Finishing a concrete garage floor.

Cleaning and resurfacing the floor usually takes one day on the other hand clearing out your garage so you can work may take weeks. Concrete floor paints can be either latex or oil based products and they are formulated with a satin non slip finish designed to be especially durable under hard traffic and to resist damage from solvents salts and. Building codes used to stipulate that the floor of an attached garage be four inches lower than the floor level of the house. Whether translucent or solid stains seal the concrete and provide a more finished look but car tires may mar the finish.

Finishing a raw concrete floor generally means grinding it down to a smooth level surface and then polishing it with a series of increasingly fine abrasives until it achieves a lustrous sheen. Old habits die hard. Spreading the resurfacer smoothly is the trickiest part of the project so it helps to have some experience with concrete or drywall finishing. Sweep the entire space and apply a phosphoric acid wash to the floor following the manufacturer s instructions.

To do this mix concrete powder with water until it has a mashed potato like consistency. Cool weather with temps in the 60s also helps. The rationale for requiring this little step was that it would prevent spilled gasoline gasoline vapors and carbon monoxide from getting inside the house. Today s residential building code does not include this requirement.

Garage floor finish options. This gives you the ability to expose concrete floor slabs hidden by other floor coverings such as carpet or vinyl tile or add a finish to a concrete basement floor. If you don t do anything else you should apply a concrete sealer to your garage floor. Many floor finishes including staining dyeing polishing and decorative coatings can be applied to existing concrete as well as new concrete.

Once set smooth any bumps with a grinder and flat disk. If your garage floor is stained with oil grease and rust you can easily give it new life by applying concrete floor paint. Typically if you are beginning with a raw concrete floor you will need to fill in any holes or cracks with an expanding epoxy. Allow to dry overnight.

Applying a latex concrete stain is the least expensive way to finish a garage floor.