Resurface of garage floor

[Garry]

Mine is also a new construction and I thought it would probably be better to do the floor first.


Love the hoist through the ceiling..lol  I had to completely redesign the roof trusses to gain the ceiling height.  Cost a bucket to get the engineering all redone.

[thelews]

The architect mismeasured for placement of the lift (more concrete depth at pads).  Fortunately, the post could go into the ceiling and the lift height was unaffected.

[RAY]

It does really depend on the moisture content of your garage floor as Bill pointed out, which comes down to wether the concrete slab has a damp proof membrane ( DPM ) within the concrete, which is usually a thick, non decomposable plastic sheet.

In the UK, if the garage is built within, as part of the house, it is more likely to have this membrane, if it is a detached garage it will be very likely that it does not, particularly if it is an older build.

You do not want to be laying any kind of plastic tile or rubber sheet on to a floor that does not have a membrane, it will result in a large amount of trapped water, much more than just moisture, here in th UK in the autumn / winter month's and moisture even in the spring / summer.

A good epoxy paint laid on a well prepared floor in the summer months is a good option or porcelain tile of which the choice of finish is endless would be another high end option depending on your budget. I have done both for customers / clients in the past with good results.

Ray

[yves]

+ 1 for Epoxy  but be aware it is a very very slipping surface   ( ask me why.... )
Here is what i have done in an old room for my new garage...

[yves]

other photos :

[yves]

I put the epoxy my self in 3 steptimes around 20 minutes each one  with a temp around 20 C° because the Epoxy becomes hard very quickly.
The concrete was a new one and need to be very well prepared with no humidity before painting. I live at the seaside and i use before epoxy and since the new floor a dehumudificator ...

[pj]

While we're on the topic of garage floors, would anyone care to comment on the idea of laying down a heated floor?

[thelews]

Have it in all my garages in the new house.  Love it.  60 degrees all winter no matter how cold.  And don't forget the drains under each car to catch the snow and water and leave the floor all around the car dry.  But in winter you'll need a dehumidifier, can get steamy with the melting snow.

[Shvegel]

Sorry to chime in late but my floor was done in Stonhard Epoxy.  I am HARD on my garage floor.  I do everything from Mechanical work to welding and machining.  Even dragged an 800 pound milling machine across it and it refuses to chip.  I need to re apply at some point because it is covered in overspray from my restoration but other than that it has been aces.

[hauser]

Here's mine.  It done by a father and son team from Connecticut. 

[RAY]

Underfloor heating is without dought the best and most economical way to heat a garage or anything else for that matter. Have installed it in a very large warehouse and the client still can't believe how cheap it is to run, same for houses. The floor only ever gets warm at best but will heat a very large area.
Ray

[Cees Klumper]

The floor in my 'garages' back in France is compacted dirt, from past centuries. Very dry, I just sweep off the dust from time to time. There used to be a very large fortress before our house + the stone barns were built on its remains, around 1806, and the floors are likely from the 1400's

[mdsalemi]

Underfloor heating is without dought the best and most economical way to heat a garage or anything else for that matter. Have installed it in a very large warehouse and the client still can't believe how cheap it is to run, same for houses. The floor only ever gets warm at best but will heat a very large area.
Ray

What you are talking about, Ray, is "radiant heat" and it isn't any more or less costly to run than anything else. BTU's is BTU's and the cost to generate those BTU's is what you need to know. Right now, in many places, a natural-gas fired system is going to be the least costly. Electrically fired systems will always be the costliest to run.

What thelews showed us is the start of a "hydronic radiant heat system". I used this at my car wash (when I owned one) in a snow-melt or de-icing system, and did the same residentially for my driveway. The former was heated by an 82% efficient, 500K BTU boiler; the latter by a 200K BTU on-demand tankless water heater. The heater for my driveway was twice the size of the furnace (in BTU capacity) and when in operation was in full fire mode for 8-36 hours at a pop. That's a lot of gas. My driveway had 60 tons of concrete in it, (over 54K kg) and NOTHING happens fast. It's slow to heat up. On my driveway (see photo in action) I would turn it on 6 hours prior to a snowfall prediction. Most of that weather forecasting was spot on accurate; we knew what was coming to the Detroit area by simply looking west. What's it doing in Chicago? Well, it will be doing that here in a few hours...

Used inside--a home, a garage or warehouse, is different. The heat is "low and slow" and provides a very soft comfortable heat; but it's slow to react to changes. But the amount of heat a home (or garage) will require is based on heat loss calculations, and in order to meet those needs, you will require a certain amount of BTU/hr in order to meet them. HOW you provide those BTUs isn't really relevant--a gas hot air furnace, an oil fired hydronic baseboard, electric, etc. The efficiency of these products combined with the cost/BTU was the determining factor.

The hydronic is great when you have concrete slab for a floor such as a garage. It's also great if you intend to keep it on a low temperature, and a constant temp as well. One thing to consider is the concept of "thermal mass"; if you keep your garage at say, 60 degrees F, well everything IN your garage over time, will settle to 60 degrees. If you have one of those gas fired hot air heaters--common in garages--and you decide your going to work in your garage one night, well it will be easy to heat the air to 60 degrees, but nothing else will be that temperature...the floor, the walls, the tool chest will all be cold. If you have the floor heat on at a constant temperature you'll get a good thermal mass going. Very comfortable!

And by the way, thanks to EVERYONE for such a great array of photos of garage projects. Very cool. Who knew there were so many choices?

[thelews]

Did that driveway work in a heavy snowstorm?  We considered doing it for our courtyard 45 x 45 but didn't.  Not sure if I regret it or not.  Don't know if it would have worked.  We will get heavy drifting in areas because of the swirling wind in the courtyard. In light snow the aprons at the garages which retain radiant heat will melt the snow, in heavier snow it's useless.

[Merc_Girl]

Ok, so I’m now very jealous of the garages that you all have, makes mine look very inferior!
And the one with an inspection pit, WOW! Could also be used as a wine cellar.

Thanks again to everyone for all the helpful tips and advice

Katie

[wwheeler]

One more example. This is my "car condo" and it has the Polyaspartic coating. Kind of a garage away from home if you will. I do not have much square footage at our house for a nice roomy garage, so this takes its place.

Choosing the color of the floor is harder than you may think regardless what system you use. Trying guess what a color on a 600 square foot floor is going to look like given a 6" square sample, is difficult at best. Just like choosing a house interior color, you have to consider all of the colors that will be in there. Most go for more of a dramatic color but can overwhelm the space. I went with a more subtle color and wanted the other colors to show and not just the floor.

Good luck.

[guyke]

we used polished concreet , 7 cm , first remove the old concrete floor , new metal reinforcement in , new concrete filled in , polished it , let it dry out verry longtime , concrete filler first layer , concrete filler second layer , clear coat epoxy filler , 2 layers also , 4 jears later stil going strong

[guyke]

verry happy with this floor , and we clean it once a week with a small automatic cleaning machine , just using water and a little soap

[JamesL]

I keep wine in my garage. And the motorbike, 4 bikes, a woodworking bench, a rowing machine, the hardtop and assorted household detritus
No room for the car though.

[RobSirg]

I went with epoxy paint in my Mancave but l opted for polishing the existing (50y.o) concrete floor in my garage at home.
Wasn’t the best floor to polish but so much easier to keep clean.

[RobSirg]

Dark epoxy floor - still prefer polished concrete.

[thelews]

bigger flake in epoxy makes it harder to find smaller, dropped objects.

[RobSirg]

….also hard to find on polished concrete floors. Hides dirt well but also hides other things well.

[mdsalemi]

Did that driveway work in a heavy snowstorm?

Yes and no. One can design a system to work in ANY conditions, but you set your parameters to work with constraints. In my case, the limit was the source of the heat: a 199K BTU tankless water heater, Takagi TK-3 to be exact. At the time of build, this was the ONLY model available that was certified for use in a recirculation system; so all the other brands out there (Rinnai, Bosch, etc.) wouldn't warranty a system used in hydronic heat with recirculation; had to do with the robustness of the heat exchanger.  But, the biggest limiting factor was the AGA considers anything 200K and above to be a boiler; boilers are much larger, have special licensing requirements for the installers, and certification by the state. A Pandora's box of trouble I wasn't going to dive into. So, I stuck with my 199K unit. By proper design, I should have had about 300K BTU. I had no room for a floor mounted boiler; the Takagi was wall mount and small. All of the plumbing for the system was the same regardless of the heat source, so if at some point I wanted to up my gas usage I could have cascaded these units, and the pumps and plumbing remain the same. An additional heater would have caused an upsize in the gas service which I didn't want to do. I was also severely limited in where these could be vented. The photo shows the heater and some of the plumbing required. There was about 2,000 feet of ⅝" PEX tubing in the 5" thick insulated concrete, divided into 7 zones and it used about 28 gallons of glycol in a sealed system.

Now, most of the time it worked very well. If the snowfall was light, and not falling furiously, it melted as it fell. If a bit heavier, it took time to catch up. Sometimes we helped it with a shovel. Where it fell down was those two winters some years back when we had those "polar vortex" situations. Normally in Michigan, snow fell when it was between 25-35 degrees; you need clouds for snow and when the clouds are present they hold the earth's heat, and the temps stay between that range. With the polar vortex however, we had significant snowfalls when it was near zero degrees. Don't even TRY to melt that with the driveway, it's just burning gas.

Even when the driveway was having trouble keeping up with a heavy snowfall, eventually the snow stops, and the sun comes out. Even in the dead of winter, with a little radiant heat from the sun on the driveway and the driveway going, in short order the driveway was clear AND DRY. I compared that to most people in my neighborhood, who when they had to go to work before they could clear the driveway packed that snow down and ice formed. It created dangerous conditions for driving and walking. My driveway in the winter generally looked like it was July--and it wasn't uncommon to see 2-3' piles of snow on the edges but the concrete surface clean and dry. Often people driving by stopped and stared and said "What the F?"

[thelews]

Thanks

The lighter snows are a non-issue for us to clean (1000 ft + courtyard).  The heavier snows are problematic, and as you noted can be followed by extreme cold.  The warmer, wet, heavy snows are a problem too.  So, I don't think the radiant would have helped much, not with drifting or 1" an hour storms.  Also, the courtyard is on the north side of the house and doesn't get a whole lot of sun.

But it would have helped with ice that forms when we can't blow before driving on the snow.