The Biggest Complaint About Epoxy Garage Floors 

Corporate wanted our shop to install battleship gray epoxy floors, but didn't want to shut down long enough to let it cure and seal it properly, so they spent the money, bought the epoxy, had three of management paint it on, and then it peeled up the first time a car parked on it.

One thing to point out about a solid colour epoxy floor - the epoxy floor has a lot of sheen to it, so any blemishs or damage on the floor, scratches, scrapes etc will be very easily visible.

Thanks for illuminating the subtle balance of clean design vs hiding dust/dirt. This is an issue in all surface design, including tile and countertops. You want to be able to see dirt when cleaning but not be distracted by it when it’s a tiny amount. I prefer to err on the side of clean/clear design. It’s better to see dirt, so you can clean it more easily and it looks better when it has just been cleaned.

That is so funny…I hate the fact that you can’t see the dust or small parts dropped on the floor and I personally hate the look of flakes. I think they look cheap. And trashy. I worked in factories that have high vis floors and it makes it so great to keep it clean and find dropped items. As I get older I find I want this feature more and more.

We got StoneKote applied throughout our food production facility and forklifts drive over it 24/7 and this stuff resists every chemical we have in the plant. I wish it wasnt a company exclusive application/per quote basis cause Id love to use it in my garage.

2:45 no joke, you supporting people who want to learn is something I highly appreciate, and if you were near me I would pay for your service. I believe that transparent people believe in the quality of their work and are confident in their knowledge. Plus I want to support ethical businesses

Just a thought, are there any mono-color vinyl chips? Something that could match the epoxy color so you could put chips down for the texturing feature but not have such a busy color pattern? It seems like that could be a great middle ground!

Excellent tutorial, especially on how important it is to hit the recoat window. The time is not the only important variable, it is equally important to monitor ambient temperatures and relative humidity. Tim, you and your crew are truly mastering your craft. -Josh

I would want to use a better respirator since using epoxy is very bad for one's health. Epoxy resin artists are learning this the hard way, and I imagine the need for protection holds true for professional floor finishers.

I need the solid color in my garage. I wouldn't mind the dust showing because it's a garage that's always used and it's not going to be always 100% dust free but being able to clean the floor very easily and find any bolt that drops easily is a big plus.

Great video! I'm gonna share some of my non-literature-supported experience here. Not gonna say Epoxy is inferior to PUrea; it really depends on what you are using it for. Urea's best feature is anti-scratch (hardness, and that's why Line-X uses it as a truck bed liner), and if you are using aliphatic isocyanate to cure then it is UV resistant (and then anti-yellowing). But the biggest problem with Urea is worktime, it cures too fast, and is very very sensitive to water, this brings a delamination issue due to shrinkage of free volume during cross-linking. Another issue with Urea is it cracks if you don't pay attention to flexibility, especially with a concrete substrate, but this issue can be dodged by using a more flexible amine or chain extender (this is where the polyaspartic shines).

Beautiful work. If I ever get a larger shop I would love to have a pure white epoxy floor like aircraft hanger. This way when you drop tools and screws its super obvious where it went. I kid you not I lost 6 ball bearings this week and 1 bolt

I do flake garages full time with polyurea and i always recommend flake over no flake. I have done a few solid color floors with no flakes and it never comes out very nice because it shows so many flaws in the floor and damages very easily. one time i did a solid black floor in a brand new house, a few days later it was completely scratched and damaged from moving stuff around. the flake has a very nice texture if the top coat isnt too thick and helps hide blemishes and inconsistencies. it also is a layer of strength and protection, almost like fiber in fiberglass.

I loved my shop that had plain colour floors. BUT, as you said, we had a zamboni floor cleaner. Every thing was done so it was easy to move. Skirt some degreaser, add a water soaked mop. Then Zamboni time. Almost every person that entered would remark how you could eat off it. How it looked more like a surgery more than a car shop. On the chop front. It's not horrendous because I don't like clutter in a shop floor. The best thing to find wayward clips, pins, washers etc was to get your eyes at floor level and scan the floor. Everything sticks out above a well finished epoxy floor.

what product is the vapor barrier, and what shoes are those?

Ill give younsome insight into why a chipless floor is preferred by some customers. You can mop it. With the chips when you mop they tear apart the mop head and leave fiber bundles everywhere leaving the only cleaning method rinsing and squeegeeing. Chipless floors are just so much easier to clean.

It's hard to find things you dropped on the floor? Grap a flashlight or your phone with the light on, turn the room lights off if they're very bright, get on your knees, shine your handheld light along the floor and it gets reaaaally easy to spot even tiny screws as they'll cast a long shadow :)

The rv park where I live at had the floors coated in assuming it was epoxy when they built the office(concrete slab floor), just some type of clear coating…I think it’s just clear epoxy or sumn Don’t know what the “installer”(some old friend or “a guy” they know did the job…like everything else they have done, that keeps coming apart) didn’t do right, but it’s been peeling and flaking for 4 years now ever since they had it done. We had to vacuum the floor several times a day just so the floors didn’t look like they had a major case of dandruff. Anymore a vac or sweep every few days takes care of the flakes but you can clearly see probably 80-90% of the coating is gone They still want some kind of floor coating but also don’t want carpeting or the same thing to happen again And most of all they don’t wanna pay for the job again…much less at a pro’s price

I have noticed you guys are very good to where you don’t tape off walls or anything!

The main purpose of the chips is to reduce slipping when wet not to hide dust or dirt. That said you can buy paint chips that match the color of the floor color so its easy to spot dropped items.

No matter how well you explain something, people will have a hateful opinion. Thank you for your video. Great advice from someone with a lot of experience.

So what will happen to the floor when one has a gravel driveway? There are rocks stuck in the tires. Will these rocks 🪨 damage the coating?

Got epoxy floor with flakes in our mall. My biggest complaint is the fact it wears really poorly. People are sliding their feet over it, warehouse keepers slide goods over it, and the flakes are just gone to hell leaving empty ground off spots. In the meantime the 30 years old tile with a similar pattern next to it still looks the same as in the first year of use.

Great efforts... What is the lifetime expectation for epoxy?!

I never use epoxy - use a concrete densifier that sets up the second hydration. Dust proof - never chips and is so cheap compared to an epoxy. The minute you put a paint on your concrete - whether it be epoxy or whatever - you have a maintenance issue -one day it will fail. I showed a large food manufacturer what to use (and NO - I had nothing to do with doing the job). They were going to put down an epoxy, after I told them about the densifier, guess what they chose - the densifier, and it is there until the day they pull up the slab. Another person I know with a large packaging business used epoxy (he wanted a 'pretty' color on his floor). HA - he now regrets it as it is a maintenance issue from chipping and flaking in some areas. Use epoxy if you think your floor is an art piece, use the densifier if you want a better performing and much much cheaper outcome. And the densifier - no waiting - you can drive on it minutes after applying it. Do some research. In a commercial application - the cost difference can be 10's - 100's of thousands.

I don't like the heavy application of chips - I've found a leaf blower works great to randomize chips and leave an even distribution. The original basecoat the customer chose is more prominent and the chips should accent not cover. No hate, just retired from doing these floors and worked for Axo Nobel epoxy (chemical engineering) for 17 years.

What type of two-part epoxy did you use? What type of urethane topcoat did you use?

I understand that in this case the MVB was applied because of a moisture issue, but how do you determine when to apply a MVB without having to do a job twice?

Thank you for this excellent and informative video! However, I would want to use a better respirator since using epoxy is very bad for one's health. Epoxy resin artists are learning this the hard way, and I imagine the need for protection holds true for professional floor finishers. Tim, what is your opinion on this?

53,000 subscribers and you have 1 million views in a year? Amazing! As a fellow coating expert I am extremely impressed.

I’ll need a light solid color for my Quonset hut shop where I can brown recluse or scorpions walking around when I’m in there. I’m out here in the sticks of Texas and I’ve had a few of those crawl beside me when I’m laying under my tractor.

Great video and great point about vinyl chip floors. I have a tri-color (White, black, & blue) vinyl chip floor and God forbid if I drop something. I have searched for over an hour trying to find things and have only recovered about 50% of the things I've lost. Looks great, but don't drop any screws, nuts, or washers.

Yeah still haven't sold me on the flakes. I prefer a solid color. Easier to know if its dirty.

I worked in a shop that had one of those amazing poly floors. Every time a vehicle parked on it with wet tires, that section of coating left with the vehicle

Thanks so much @TimDCVA appreciate you linking me here from your other video. This explanation was very helpful. Really appreciate you taking the time. Great work!

I agree that I hate the multi color chips look. It Looks cheap. I would prefer one color or tones that are only SLIGHTLY different.

Watched a bunch of your videos and was wonder what brand products do you use?

I really like your squeegee... where can I get the same kind? Thanks!

I hate the look of chips, either multicolor of solid. I had a solid light gray epoxy floor done in my last house, solid color chips applied it looked ok for the first year then started to turn yellow (even under a door mat) and the top clear coat wore off from our parked cars. It looked like absolute crap, never again. Contractor that I used when out of business and I don't recall the product he used but it was over hyped and garbage. I'll never use epoxy again, looking at polyura for our new house now but I want to see past installs and what it looks like after at least a year and see how it's held up.

so the answer here about certain complaints is to just dismiss them, ok then........... a good alternative for example would be to use a one color chip to address issues not this but to just say its a feature because you prefer it. theres an old saying "the customers always right," offer different styles and let them decide.

Every winter my car brings in mud and snow. I would be slipping and/or breaking my neck. Where did I love an Epoxy floor? Years ago I lived in a 4 level side split. The lowest level that was completely finished had this floor. It was a laundry room, held the furnace and water heater, I had closets and cupboards for storage, and a floor that was easy to mop up and keep clean.

What do you use for vapor barrier?

So many RU-vid tutorial videos suck. Bad audio, sped up too fast or not enough, etc. This isn't one of those videos. Nice work on the floor and the video. Thanks.

I did two part epoxy on 60 day old concrete which was power troweled finished, and now I see pinholes everywhere. Called the concrete supplier and he came out to look at it. All he says is, that concrete is porous, which I totally get but porous and pinholes is two different things.

Polyurea is an elastomeric coating designed to stretch in a marine setting epoxy is designed for durability and is 30 to 40 percent harder than most coatings

Which brand of 18” roller do you use, can you also use it to paint walls?

So what are you trying to say? You're laughing about polyurea at the beginning, and then you say your top coat for this project is urethane. The only epoxy you used was the moisture barrier, epoxy and urethane are two distinct groups of polymer. Polyurea, polyurethane, and urethane are all in the same group. When it comes to the flakes, the problem is that it looks garish in most cases.

Labor on 2 and 3 day application on a garage floor eats into your profits terribly. We use polyurea for the speed of it. We use epoxy when it's over about 2k sf

Nice work guys! Very educational! I’m on the fence about solid color or flake.

That's honorable work. Great way to spend the day

*I LOVE my solid color, epoxy floor. I’ve seen the vinyl chip floors, and don’t like them at all. You can drop something as big as hammer, and can’t find it amongst the visual turmoil.*

Can’t stand how thick they lay the chips down. You can’t even see the base coat. I asked for this to be with 1/4 of the chips. Turned out great.

The biggest complaint abt epoxy floors are from people in CA. You wont find a single company that warranties for surface cracking in CA. Post one if you do. Tiles, tiles, tiles, baby.

I need to find a company who does quality work like you guys down in Florida!!!

I have this in my 4 car garage and my only issue is that upon doing the quarterly garage cleaning, when water gets on the vinyl epoxy floor, it becomes very slippery

Only real question I have is given that one of my previous jobs kept insisting on these epoxy floors for washdown environments and they became incredibly slippery when wet. IE: used in a small 3 car garage for staging vehicles for customer delivery, where rain and wet leaves can easily get in; then in another location they had installed this same flooring in the wash bay for the detail department and it caused the same problem. Is there a way to add some kind of GRIT to epoxy flooring to make it safer when wet? This is literally the only reason I'm shying away from coating my garage floor at all over it's base concrete out of the fear of slipping and getting hurt from rain water intruding on the space.

I like your work very much. I have a question, please. Is there an online course to learn this profession? I live in Canada and I want to get the right experience

What type of squeegees You use for spread epoxy? Where they can be ordered? Great videos as usual

Why no sanding before applying the vapor barrier?

I just want to point out the main issue with epoxy is the sun exposure resistance. That's really about it. Most guys I watch suggest you even do a first coat like you've done then poly over the top. So, it's about doing what's right for the area, not your bias on materials.

Love your videos thanks for all the useful information! What brand of products do you use

Did a lot of epoxy back in the Chicago suburbs before moving to Col in '16. Nice video, looks thorough, looks nice. Also, most of my floors were quartz....Loved them Loved them.

Now, could I get a completely clear version?

So what's the biggest complaint? Slipping on dusty floors or missing small parts?

I think the biggest advantage of polyurea over epoxy is that it's UV resistant.

Is it advisable to do a concrete basement floor with epoxy, or would there be a problem with toxic gases?

2009, I was at a metal shop that had a glossy white floor coating, idk what chemical it was. Under the bench grinder, there was a big round area where the hot metal shavings were embedded in the coating and and it was a rusty mess. Later, a guy opened the garage door and dragged a piece of metal out to the black top driveway in the rain, he proceeded to cut it w a plasma cutter. I asked the boss why the guy was doing it in the rain, he said the plasma cutter damages the floor worse than the bench grinder.

I think I followed what you were saying but not sure. My garage floor has epoxy on it and it was done over 15 years ago. I would like to clean it really good and it seems like it would need another coat of epoxy with the flakes on it? Is that possible?

If you wanted to add insulation how would you do that here?

The chips also provide texture. Though I'm used to using and prefer sand.

Damn that concrete looked beautiful when wet from the moisture barrier. Damn

Did you shotblast this floor prior to applying the vapor barrier?

We live on a dirt road, so our cars drag in a lot of dirt into the garage. What is the best floor treatment in our situation?

i like the sanded finish better than the bubble finish

Very nicely put together video and very entertaining as well. Thanks for posting this.

Finding small objects on a chipped floor is as easy as laying a penlight down and rotating. Oblique lighting will find it fast. My garage floor is plain concrete and I still use the flashlight trick.

I have a m-in law 600 set house and it has a contrite bath and kitchern. never done. Wanted this is it okay for either or should I have softer?

Could u epoxy over tiled floors..

Great video, but the chips? Not for me. Did my own garage and woodworking shop floors following smart folks advice like yours. But the clips are absolutely maddening for seeing things dropped on the floor.

Im much less concern e about dust and dirt visibility than i am the visibility of dropped small objects. That said, i ro believe in texthred floors for stability with wet or slick spills.

Can that applied vapor barrier be used in basements?

Is it possible to do epoxy over old asbestos tile?

Can you epoxy the area under the bridge where I live?

"What is all that clackety-clack in the basement, dear?" "I bought some alpacas.... they dance... happy birthday!" "🤔?"

im quaryious to know how these epoxy and other resin based floors hold up with automotive chemicals being spilled on them? ie gasoline, brakleen, and SK parts wash.

3:00 - So by this logic, if you *are* working in your garage/workshop, and you are diligent about cleaning-up, it makes sense to avoid flakes so you don't have trouble finding small items dropped on the floor? Also, I think it makes touching up the floor a bit easier down the track if something happens (a single colour to fix vs multi-colour flakes and clear top-coat.) Thoughts?

Tim, Great topic and video. I enjoyed the watch. PS also thank you for including the Westcoat shirt!

So, if you actually work in your garage, go with solid color.

So the feature of these chips makes it harder to notice dust on the floor and also harder to clean the floor? harder to dust with a big floor duster harder to mop. Stuff wont slide across it as easy.

Is 220 grit okay to sand with then having to sand

Hey bud what did you sand with in-between coats ?

have not you fall on a floor still wet with a resin an that spited boots?

Great job!

What does the vapor barrier do? Isn't the epoxy non-water-permeable anyhow?

If you don't do any work in your "garage" then It's not a garage anymore. Don't call it garage, just a storage room. Being able to easily find dropped pieces in "real garages" more important than hiding dust. Guess what, "real garages" can get dirty with oil, burn marks etc.

you will always have a critic that wants to complain that is just the way life is great looking floor and being in the automotive industry yes those chips on the floor can be very hard to find something but if you use a bring flashlight on an angle it helps a ton to find it easier

0:56 Vapor Barrier Epoxy? Sounds like something similar to what I'm looking for... I'm thinking of Trying to Seal My Basement Concrete that has Odor that affects Me with Epoxy. But I Wanna know Will These Epoxy Cover/Eliminate The Bad/Strong Concrete Odor?

I have polyaspartic with blue flakes in my shop. Paid $4200, got a fuel stain about 12" diameter . Called out installation company they claim I should have cleaned it up in 20 minutes or less. This is an automotive shop floor. I now realize I have a floor I can't use for its intended purpose. The floor is 2 years old and installed on newly poured concrete. Could a new coat be applied over top and keep the chemicals from leaching through to flakes. Any help would be greatly appreciated Thank you Crying in Lakeland, Fl. This is my retirement garage 😢

I’m procrastinating again. I have no idea why I’m watching this but it looks cool.

Do u put down a mvb every time