There are several types of Houston TX garage flooring you can use to deck out your garage. Perhaps you want to spruce up the inside of your garage, but you’re not sure where to start. Why not the floor?
You’ll be placing everything on it, so you want to make sure that it’ll complement your other decor ideas. But, you’ll also want it to stay resilient against whatever you’ll be using your garage for.
And since you’re thinking about changing your garage from the bottom up, you’ll also want to think about your garage flooring from the bottom up. Before you layer anything on top of your garage floor, you’ll want to assess your floor for any cracked or broken slabs.
Unless you properly prepare or repair your damaged floor, it’ll cause problems with the finishes you apply. Not to mention, existing oil and grease stains will almost always bleed through your garage coating of choice. And no amount of coating or covering will eliminate moisture problems.
All of these issues should be dealt with before you install any garage covering or coating.
Spruce up how your garage with our Houston TX Garage Flooring options.
Houston TX Garage Flooring
Once you’re done taking care of the issues that may plague your garage floor, you can start changing it up to suit your tastes. There are many options to make your garage your own, from choosing tiles or mats to applying paint or an epoxy coating. You can loosely categorize them as either a covering or coating.
Floor Coverings
Floor coverings are essentially building materials that you set on top of your garage floor. If it’s necessary, you can remove them.
Of course, nothing is stopping you if you want to cover your garage floor with carpet. But usually, you’ll want a surface that can resist the severity of what your garage endures. You have two main choices: tiles or mats.
Make sure you choose tiles designed for garage use. The typical choices are rigid or semi-rigid plastic, rubber, or wood composite tiles. Most of them have interlocking edges and form a slightly raised floor that’ll support most vehicles’ weight.
If you have a portion of your flooring that is hard to repair or badly stained, a floor covering is a good option. Not to mention, the tiles can level out any unevenness in the slabs beneath them.
Of course, the more effortless method for covering your garage is to roll out mats. These are usually made of either rubber or polyvinyl plastic. Some mats are similar to rugs; others are textured or padded like gym mats. Regardless, a mat made of easy-to-clean materials with the right thickness to be resilient is a good choice.
Like garage tiles, you can install mats over concrete floors that are lightly cracked or stained. You won’t even need to do any prep work.
Floor Coatings
Now another type of Houston TX garage flooring has to do with coatings. Coatings, in this case, mean those finishes you can apply with a roller or brush directly to your flooring. Your two main options are paint or an epoxy coating.
There’s nothing wrong with giving your garage a fresh look with a new coat of paint. Floor paint can be an excellent choice if your garage is stained with grease, oil, or rust.
When choosing your paint color of choice, make sure you select one for concrete. Most other paints won’t last or stick as long as those made for this sort of thing. There are several choices in concrete floor paints that you can use.
They can either be latex or oil-based, and they’re usually formulated with a satin, non-slip finished. Designed to be durable, most of your options can endure heavy traffic, damage from solvents, salts, and other caustic materials.
Some of the latex paints contain a small amount of epoxy resin. That’s so the paint will dry hard and be resistant to new stains.
Epoxy Flooring
Contact Epoxy Tech Houston for questions about epoxy coatings.
Don’t confuse epoxy coatings as another form of paint. There are “epoxy paints” out there, but those are one-part latex paints with a small amount of epoxy added. Although both are usually applied with paint rollers and brushes, they work in chemically different ways.
Paint hardens with its solvent evaporating, usually water or an oil-based liquid. On the other hand, proper epoxy coatings harden through a chemical reaction between the resin and catalyst. This reaction creates a durable and long-lasting coating for your garage. Not to mention, it’s slip-resistant and abrasion-resistant.
There are a few types of epoxy coating styles you can choose from. There are, more or less, main choices: two-part epoxy with 100% solids, two-part water-based epoxy, or one-part coating.
The Types of Epoxy Coatings
A one-part epoxy coating isn’t technically an epoxy coating at all. It’s almost another form of paint. These types of coating don’t take too long to dry, usually within a few hours. It’ll offer better performance than other floor paints, but you’ll need to reapply it more often.
Freshen up your garage with epoxy flooring.
Water-based epoxy is a hybrid of sorts. They have the resin and catalyst but also include a water solvent. Often, they emit fewer fumes than proper epoxy coatings do. They take longer to dry, going up to a couple of days so that the water can evaporate.
An actual epoxy coating is a two-part process. These coatings offer the best surfaces for concrete with no traditional solvents mixed in. They add a thick, hard, attractive finish on top of your flooring, making your garage shine brighter than before. These coatings will last the longest, and but lasting, it means still look new.
Granted, of the three options, it’s usually the most expensive option. It’s also usually more demanding to install compared to the other types of coating. Not to mention, they emit fumes when applied, so you’ll need thorough ventilation while doing so.
Finding the Right Solution for your Garage Flooring
If you have any questions regarding epoxy flooring, contact an epoxy expert. They can offer solutions and help you with transforming your garage. Contact Epoxy Technology Coatings today to see what options they can give you concerning your Houston TX garage flooring choices.
Houston, TX Fun Facts:
- Despite rough waters early on, today Houston is one of the busiest port cities in the nation.
- From 1837 to 1839, Houston was the capital of Texas.
- Despite popular belief, Sam Houston did not found the city—two real estate entrepreneurs named the city in honor of his military achievements.
- For more information, visit the official Houston website.