Garage question

[ajee622]

Time has come to clean up the garage. just going to finish it with paint and possibly tile the garage....

any opinions on color for the garage??

anyone have theirs tiled?

[14S4GWM]

100% personal preference here. Pick your color and go to town on it.

[getslideways]

Tackling the garage is my next step once the weather warms. I really like the styling of this garage, and will likely do some color 1/3 the way up, then the rest in something more neutral, and install a dick-ton of lighting. I will likely just epoxy the existing floor using one of those industrial kits and build a new work bench setup to match:





I am also relocating the air-compressor up above and adding plenty of access points for air connections at each corner of the garage so I dont have to thread a hose from one end to the other.

Sorry for rambling, your post has go be re excited for my own project lol

[ajee622]

Yeah I have a 2 car garage. Not as huge as the one in the picture. I want to use tile to do something different. Just want to hear and plus or minus of using it.


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[slowSfaux]

I painted mine with a semi gloss, so I could easily wipe off oily hand prints, in pure white so it would reflect the maximum amount of light possible. I used a light grey epoxy concrete paint, for similar reasons as above. Light colors will give you more reflection of existing light, thus less shadows when working at night, which is a huge plus if you wrench often.

[Yesmar]

Think of how easy things could slide on tile, say a jack stand, or how easy tile will break if something were to drop. I'd love the look, I just would think it limits it to pretty much not using it as a garage

[rani_aridi]

I would guess the down side of tile is that any oil or dirt will get the grout looking nasty fast. And it's usually thin so dropping tools can't be good.

[nefkntym]

I was going to epoxy my garage but decided to do Racedeck tile at the last moment. I thought about doing porcelain tile a few years ago. I'm glad I didn't, it would still be at our old house.

















The flooring has been awesome, free flow in the front has been good at keeping the water away with rain the summer and snow in the winter. The diamond is just a great surface to work on and as you can see, it does perfectly well leaving the columns on it and supporting the weight of the car.

Lighting was mentioned above as well, I added 4 hanging light fixtures from Home Depot and put Phillips LED bulbs in them. Here is a picture late at night, garage door closed, curtain and window closed and no flash. The LEDs are way better than my old Phillips Halogen bulbs.

[Cairo94507]

Look into porcelain tile. When installed properly it is harder than cement. I am about 1 year away from a garage remodel and it will be porcelain tiled.

[Audi9]

The shop I'm at is tiled and it's a great surface to work on

[sblair588]

I also did Racedeck tiles. I really like how it came out.


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[KeatS4]

Ours has battleship grey floors, works out well hiding oil

[MacDaddy]

I wouldnt tile, as others have said it will be a pain for jacks, creepers, etc and then oil clean up on top of that. I'd do blue epoxy floor and tile baseboards for easy clean up. lighting i would run fluorescent lights along the length of the car with "soft white" tubes, i had "daylight" tubes in my fluorescent lights before and i felt it was burning my eyes. For air i would put the compressor outside in a box (with enough ventilation of course) if i could and have a retractable air hose mounted on the ceiling in a central or convenient location.

[julex]

I like your ideas, this is a very timely post.

I am about to move into new house with attached 2 car garage with its own roof so I will be lifting the ceiling on half of the garage to make room for full sized portable lift in one bay. Upstairs of the other half of garage (currently inaccessible, space wasted for unusable attic!) with ceiling at normal height, will become a loft workshop area with stairs going up to it (probably spiral staircase to save room and make it look cool and functional, but maybe some kind of attic style pull down staircase, depends on options available but something sturdy and permanent would be much better). I will probably put compressor up there and dangle air hose on a boom or something to make it super easy to work with.

How is Racedeck and floor jacks/stands working out?

[nefkntym]

I like your ideas, this is a very timely post.

I am about to move into new house with attached 2 car garage with its own roof so I will be lifting the ceiling on half of the garage to make room for full sized portable lift in one bay. Upstairs of the other half of garage (currently inaccessible, space wasted for unusable attic!) with ceiling at normal height, will become a loft workshop area with stairs going up to it (probably spiral staircase to save room and make it look cool and functional, but maybe some kind of attic style pull down staircase, depends on options available but something sturdy and permanent would be much better). I will probably put compressor up there and dangle air hose on a boom or something to make it super easy to work with.

How is Racedeck and floor jacks/stands working out?

Sounds like a good plan. Floor jacks and jack stands on Racedeck are no problem. The wheels roll just fine on the jacks and the car skates and the flooring holds up fine to the stands.

My 2 post lift is bolted to the floor directly on top of the Racedeck.No issues with the flooring at all.

[getslideways]

I few shops I have been in with tile, I really hated as the floor could become really slick. Then there are the issues with grout staining and such. Perhaps not much of an issue if you dont do a lot of your own wrenching in there.

I like tile for looks, but for easy cleanup I would personally prefer something else.

With the interlocking tiles, what happens when fluids get spilled on them, can it get trapped in the groves or seep beneath them via the edges and get trapped? I have liked the idea of the interlocking tiles but that worry has been a deterrent for me. Perhaps you can shed some light and calm some fears lol

[Austonwerner4]

We added wainscoting to our walls rather than painting them. It gives the drywall a nice layer of protection and then painted the walls with a nice light grey to match the epoxied floors.

[QuinnsterKID]

That garage is amazing. Wow! I used the epoxy as mentioned above and have been very impressed with the durability. I went with white gloss paint to reflect light like slowSfaux mentioned.

[nefkntym]

I few shops I have been in with tile, I really hated as the floor could become really slick. Then there are the issues with grout staining and such. Perhaps not much of an issue if you dont do a lot of your own wrenching in there.

I like tile for looks, but for easy cleanup I would personally prefer something else.

With the interlocking tiles, what happens when fluids get spilled on them, can it get trapped in the groves or seep beneath them via the edges and get trapped? I have liked the idea of the interlocking tiles but that worry has been a deterrent for me. Perhaps you can shed some light and calm some fears lol

The back 5' are solid diamond tiles for work area, the front 21' are free flow so that the water and crap can flow out.



For oil changes, I bought one of these. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-77057.../dp/B002R89GPS

For cleaning the heavy snow grime crap or anything else, I will pop the tiles and use my pressure washer over the holiday break to clean it.

[julex]

Seeing that video set me straight on wanting free-flow floor... Clean up is just too much work considering. I think I will just leave it concrete and never clean it like I never do my current garage

[getslideways]

/\ same.

Looks cool, but I think I will still go the epoxy route, especially considering I do some wood/metal working from time to time. So i would imagine that would reduce the amount of time between cleanings.

[nefkntym]

That is something you do maybe once a year. I have always just used my shop vac and vacuumed up the dirt. One of the real nice things about the free flow is that water always drains beneath the flooring. You can have snow or rain from your car dripping on top the free flow and it will run out. You can puddles of water on your garage floor from melted snow but the top of the tiles are still dry.

[MacDaddy]

Worth mentioning is petroleum products wreck concrete. Some of these ideas are OK, but if your building it to work on cars, build it like a car shop. I won't say what I really think about tile and plastic flooring but if it made it easier to wrench I would have seen it in a shop by now.

[14S4GWM]

^ My state uses salt on the roads during the winter months and that will kill the concrete under tiles too. I usualy get the pressure washer out a couple days after it snows and rinse the garage and the concrete driveway down.

[julex]

The house I live in in CT sees a lot of salt every year and TBH I never clean the garage floor, maybe I hose it down every two years or so... when there are mounds of salt and dirt on it. Concrete seen numerous oil dumps on it while doing engine swaps, car drips stuff all the time, that's been the case for last 8 years and concrete is just fine except for it not being some shiny cleanas tiled surface. It is completely maintenance free.

Now, I would go tiles over epoxy especially considering that to install epoxy on anything but very new concrete is an exercise in patience as you you to grind the whole floor for the epoxy to have any kind of lifespan and definitely use something better than HD kit. You have to then wash, etch and prime the surface. It gets expensive and time consuming very quick to do it right.

At the end, all floors need to be cleaned frequently to look nice and that's simply I don't have time or energy to do so gray concrete is as good as anything else I guess... And why most shops have just that anyway. Once you get a "patina" of contaminants on it, nothing else can soak into it, haha.

[MacDaddy]

The house I live in in CT sees a lot of salt every year and TBH I never clean the garage floor, maybe I hose it down every two years or so... when there are mounds of salt and dirt on it. Concrete seen numerous oil dumps on it while doing engine swaps, car drips stuff all the time, that's been the case for last 8 years and concrete is just fine except for it not being some shiny cleanas tiled surface. It is completely maintenance free.

Now, I would go tiles over epoxy especially considering that to install epoxy on anything but very new concrete is an exercise in patience as you you to grind the whole floor for the epoxy to have any kind of lifespan and definitely use something better than HD kit. You have to then wash, etch and prime the surface. It gets expensive and time consuming very quick to do it right.

At the end, all floors need to be cleaned frequently to look nice and that's simply I don't have time or energy to do so gray concrete is as good as anything else I guess... And why most shops have just that anyway. Once you get a "patina" of contaminants on it, nothing else can soak into it, haha.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and call BS on everything you just said there. I've seen first hand what oil does to concrete over time, I've talked with concrete guys about epoxy flooring, there is no grinding required. And how well do you think tile thinset is going to stick to concrete soaked in oil?

[julex]

I'm gonna have to go ahead and call BS on everything you just said there. I've seen first hand what oil does to concrete over time, I've talked with concrete guys about epoxy flooring, there is no grinding required. And how well do you think tile thinset is going to stick to concrete soaked in oil?

I didn't say anything about tiles but they would require the same prep work as epoxy if you want them to stick.

Grinding is required. Period. Unless you want to risk it peeling off. In addition, you MUST do a moisture test as well. If any moisture is coming through then don't epoxy or tile either as stuff will simply come off with time.

The appeal of race deck style stuff is that this is nothing else than a rug for your garage. It doesn't attach to the floor, just lays on top of it and doesn't care what's underneath and thus will never fail like epoxy or thinset tiles may/will.

[88ninety9]

Grinding is required. Period. Unless you want to risk it peeling off. In addition, you MUST do a moisture test as well. If any moisture is coming through then don't epoxy or tile either as stuff will simply come off with time.

This is necessary to properly epoxy a concrete floor. Can you just epoxy over the floor? Absolutely. Would you paint your car without prepping first? Absolutely not. Same principal applies

[nefkntym]

I didn't say anything about tiles but they would require the same prep work as epoxy if you want them to stick.

Grinding is required. Period. Unless you want to risk it peeling off. In addition, you MUST do a moisture test as well. If any moisture is coming through then don't epoxy or tile either as stuff will simply come off with time.

The appeal of race deck style stuff is that this is nothing else than a rug for your garage. It doesn't attach to the floor, just lays on top of it and doesn't care what's underneath and thus will never fail like epoxy or thinset tiles may/will.

This is necessary to properly epoxy a concrete floor. Can you just epoxy over the floor? Absolutely. Would you paint your car without prepping first? Absolutely not. Same principal applies

They speak the truth, this is why I switched to Racedeck at the last moment. This was a new garage for us, moving to a new house, but to do it right it still would have taken a few weeks to do the deed from start to finish. I didn't want to do the work, we still had to move the whole house and garage stuff, and I really didn't have the time to do it.

There are tons a threads on flooring at www.garagejournal.com

[Alejandro__]

I used epoxy. I've got a family connection that makes the stuff and sells it in large quantities. Epoxy is tricky stuff to get right and horrible stuff to deal with if you get it wrong.
My brother in law (on the other side) couldn't wait for me to help and tried it himself. It never really quite cured and we had to sand it off. That was a lousy job.

The other thing I've noticed with epoxy is that if you have a crack in your concrete that goes through you're not going to be able to keep the moisture out from under it.
I inherited a garage that was built by a weekend warrior (like myself). The pad was probably poured in 1974 with some 2x4's to mark out the pad. No reinforcement whatsoever. Throw in some 40 year old poplar's and pines and you've got yourself a bit of a dogs breakfast.

My garage floor once I finished the epoxy was a thing of beauty.

But the place where the crack was allowed moisture. I did grind and fill before the epoxy but they shifted again. Concrete is gonna crack. So its chipped now. Once you get a break in the seal, then moisture does its thing. I suspect in a few years I'll sand down and patch the damaged places and I'll be good for a few more years :)

I love the way it looks... I'll keep putting the epoxy down in all the garages I own I suspect. My last garage, I went without the paint flakes opting for a clean look. That was a mistake. No flakes/silicon, no grit... no grip!
On my last one, I could look at a puddle of water that I'd need to traverse.. .I'd say "okay... we know that's slipper. So go very very carefully". I'd still almost bail every time.

[getslideways]

/\ Any hookup on the epoxy products for your fellow Audizine friends then???

[MacDaddy]

How did this end up talking about moisture issues. It goes without saying if you have a moisure problem you have bigger things to worry about then floor coverings. And again, that moisture will be a problem for tile too.
So provided you dont have a shoddy slab with broken weeping tile, go epoxy or dont bother, use enough hardner degrease the floor with something like castrol superclean and acid etch the floor instead of "grinding" it.