“Do I need to paint my garage floor?”
It’s a question we see a lot, and we get it. It does seem a bit…superfluous, right? Coating the floor of a room that, more than any other in your home, is destined for a lifetime of dirt and general abuse? But actually, that’s exactly the reason why you should do it.
More than just being aesthetically boring to look at, concrete flooring presents some cleaning challenges. First of all, it tends to absorb liquids, leaving it susceptible to staining and making it more difficult to clean with chemical solvents. Beyond that, concrete also breaks down over time into dust particles that can end up all over your vehicles and workbenches and get tracked into your home.
Specially designed garage floor coatings—such as Rust-Oleum’s popular RockSolid and EpoxyShield coatings, available from our friends at Summit Racing—serve as a cost-effective alternative to garage floor tiles that make your garage floor easier to clean and increase resistance to oil and chemical stains. Not to mention, they just looks good.
There’s more than one path to a showroom-worthy garage floor surface. Using a more traditional epoxy coating like EpoxyShield is a low-cost way to improve wear, impact, and abrasion resistance. Today, you also can find more advanced polyurethane and polyurea compounds that benefit from better resistance to color fading and increased flexibility, making your floor less likely to crack and peel as the coating ages. The trade-off is that they cure faster, which gives you less time to complete the job.
The newer Rust-Oleum RockSolid product line is designated as a polycuramine compound, which Rust-Oleum said combines the best benefits of polyurea, polyurethane, and epoxy in a single solution. Rust-Oleum said RockSolid “combines these three chemistries and their key attributes into ONE indestructible, self-leveling, flexible, fast curing, high gloss coating system” with wetting characteristics similar to epoxy.
According to Rust-Oleum, RockSolid polycuramine coating is 20 times stronger than epoxy, VOC-free, eco-safe, and highly resistant to salt, oil, gas, and other harsh chemicals. The company offers floor coating kits in a variety of colors for 1- and 2.5-car garages.
Whatever product you choose, proper floor prep is key. You’ll want to remove stains, fill cracks, and eliminate moisture and dirt before proceeding. Rust-Oleum offers some helpful videos to give you a better idea of how to prep your garage floor:
And apply your finish:
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