Waxing Philosophical - All Comments

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Daniel — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:15:51 GMT

Thank you for everything!

Daniel

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 04:39:56 GMT

Daniel, Sorry to hear your new garage floor has been so problematic. Unfortunately I don't have anything to add to what I wrote before. I'm not an expert in flooring products, so I can't comment in any general terms. I can tell you how well what I did worked for me, but since you did something different I really don't think there's anything else I can add.

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Daniel — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:05:46 GMT

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your reply.

Slide-Lok garage flooring features Flexmar coating system technology.

www.flexmarcoatings.com

I called the guy from the company and I complained. He brought me an industrial fan telling me that the air is not moving enough.

But I'm living in a hill and we have plenty of wind in here. I doubt that this is the problem.

I really don't know what should I do, and I'm really concerned abouth this because the car will stay inside for the whole winter...

If you have any ideea or you know someone who had a similar experience and he found a solution please let me know.

In your case, how much time you felt the smell?

Did you find the presence of the smell in the car too? If yes, was it gone or the odor is still present?

Thank you!

Daniel

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 05:38:51 GMT

Daniel, Glad to hear your floor looks great and sorry to hear about the fumes. I don't know anything about the slide-lok floor so I can't give you any kind of definitive advice about your situation. Their website says they're not using epoxy, but it doesn't say what they *are* using. In my attempts at my garage floor, the first year I did basically 4 coats of epoxy, and the smell lasted for several *months*. But it didn't come inside the house. The second time around I did 2 undercoats of epoxy and then 3 top coats of urethane. The urethane smelled strong for about a week or so, but by a month it was gone. Sorry I can't really help on this one.

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Daniel — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 05:02:00 GMT

Dear Steve,

I am so concerned about my problem that searching on the internet I found your page.

7 Days ago the guys from slide lok Calgary came into my house to do the floor in my garage.

www.slide-lokofcalgary.com

They made a nice work I must say and my garage floor is identical with yours.

They said that I can park my car after 3 days.

My problem are the fumes.

All this 7 days my garage door was open because of the fumes. We barrelly slept in the house in the first night because of the fumes.

Today it's a week since they finished the job (the job was done in 2 days - usually they need 1 day but the first coat wasn't dry so they came next day) and I still have bad fumes in the garage. My toy car is sitting in a friend's garage but I took already too much advantage of my friend hospitality so I need to do something.

The guys from slide-lok told me that I can not put a car in the garage because my car will smell awful if I will do that. And I'm sure about that too.

I paid over $3,000 for this job and I'm kinda desperate.

Last night I closed the garage door thinking that 2-4 C degrees (outside tempereture during the night in Calgary in this period)is probably too cold so it needs some heat.

Please give me an advice and tell me what should I do because I don't know what should I do.

many Thanks!

Daniel -Calgary

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:56:23 GMT

Chris, Yes I used a disposable paint brush -- the kind with bristles, not the foam kind -- the urethane dissolves the foam, I found out :-)

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Chris (again) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:36:04 GMT

Did you apply the urethane around the edges with a brush?

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:11:15 GMT

Dave, I did use a roller--a good quality 3/8" nap polyester roller.

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

dave — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:12:47 GMT

did you apply the urethane with a roller?

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:09:19 GMT

Chris, My floor's about 900 square feet, and I used 5 gallons of the top coat (the moisture cure urethane). That was enough for 2 thin coats. I could easily have put 6-7 gallons on instead by putting on 3 coats instead of 2. The top coat is so shiny and it seems to look better the more I put on it. The places where I put it on a little thicker look better than the places where I put it on very thin. The service rep I talked to at iPaint was very clear about it looking milky if it got too thick, so I wanted to avoid that. But based on what I saw, I could easily have put it on a tad thicker, and maybe done a third coat, too.

Since this stuff cures based on the moisture in the air, I don't know what effect that had. The can says to put it on when the humidity is 50-75% (or something like that, I don't remember exactly). The first day I put it on the humidity was more like 95%, and my impression was that it was dry faster than the can said it would be. That made me think that the higher humidity might reduce the time you have to work with it.

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Chris — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:51:01 GMT

Thanks for the quick reply. Your info and pictures have been extremely helpful. Thanks for the links and ideas too. One more question: How did the topcoat spread? I guess a better question is how much did you use?

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:29:05 GMT

> What did you do to the original (1st attempt)Epoxy?

I rented a "scarifier" from Home Depot, which is a machine that's most commonly used for removing glue from under previous vinyl floors, as far as I could tell. I went over my old floor pretty thoroughly with that. It didn't pull up all the old epoxy -- maybe only 10% of it. I think I would have needed to rent a shot blaster to do that. Mainly I just wanted to rough up the surface enough that the new epoxy would adhere to the old epoxy, and this seemed to do the trick.

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Chris — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:23:59 GMT

What did you do to the original (1st attempt)Epoxy? I have existing epoxy, that peeled in some places and am wondering if I should take the entire coat off or try to place the better product ocver it? Any ideas

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:58:15 GMT

Dave, there were just a few spots I'd missed the first time around. I didn't get much the second time. If you do a good job the first time I imagine you could skip the second time.

Send me some pictures of how your work this weekend turns out!

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

dave — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:35:43 GMT

You mentioned that you scraped the excess color chips twice. First time was just before your first layer of urethane. But, then you said you scraped again before the second layer of urethane. What was there to scrape? I would think the urethane would have covered everything. did you put down even more chips after the first coat of urethane?

btw, i'm planning on trying to copy your fine work above this weekend.

thanks,

dave

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve McConnell — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:58:37 GMT

Dave, Yes the urethane is pretty slippery. I have lots of flakes under it, which makes it bumpy, otherwise it would be unsafe when it's wet. You need either to put flakes under it or to use a colorless grit that gets added to it to give it some grip.

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

dave — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:33:02 GMT

is the urethane slippery?

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Masoud Andarabi — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:57:02 GMT

Impressive and very interesting, I am talking about the blog and this whole idea of blogs, its great chance to know the person more beyond his profession,

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Steve — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:08:45 GMT

Behr and Quickcrete make the same kind of water base co-polymer paint also known as Water Base Epoxy. They are both pretty junky paint other than that they dry hard. Neither covers very well. The Behr brand had more solids to it than the Quickcrete. I used these two brands as a sealer primer on my wood floor and then followed with the Amerlock 400 from Ameron. This stuff is great. First Color Coat, Second Color Coat with Chips and then 3rd and 4th coats with a two part urethane from Ameron. I like the results.

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

Joe Martin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:44:10 GMT

I have tried the paints from ipaint, and the big box store paints and they are all junky. The only coating system that I found that works is the ArmorFleck System from www.armorpoxy.com

These guys know their stuff and sell mostly industrial grade products. Their prices are fair and they shipped the day I ordered. Its been 4 years and the floor looks like the day I put it down!

re: Garage Floor Epoxy, Attempt #2

krautman — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:18:02 GMT

Wow, that is beautiful. Looks like a professional job. I just did epoxied my garage with Behr garage floor paint. Jet sprayed, degreased, acid cleaned and etched, primer, and then two thin coats of the epoxy. Waited 2 days before putting on second coat, and then waited 8 days to drive on it after the second coat (directions said to wait 7). Last night was the first I parked in it. After I pulled the car out today, the painted melted where the tires were!#)(^Q! I'm glad you didn't get any hot tire lift, it is very frustrating after all the work you go through. Maybe it was the "cheap" Behr paint at $30 gallon (cheap compared to others).

re: Rain Gutters

SGershon — Fri, 25 May 2007 09:17:34 GMT

In-Depth teaching about Rain Gutters, just as with Software Development.

It's cool to read a blog by you! Thanks!