1800 sf Epoxy Coat w/polyurea - LONG

The job
1800 sf residential garage. New concrete. No stains.
The Choice
After a lot of research I narrowed my choices to Sherwin Williams Armor seal (650 w/33 primer), Wolverine (Alpha Garage), Epoxy-Coat and Rocksolidfloors.com (polyurea). I thought that both Sherwin Williams and Wolverine had the Cadillacs of systems. Frankly the idea of a primer coat just made sense and they seem to have the dedicated scientific backing behind the product. However, for 1800 sf I was pushing $3,000 for Wolverine and even more for Sherwin Williams (with their 40% off sale!!). Rocksolidfloors.com has a very intriguing system and they were offering free shipping plus 25% off for my job. That would be about $2000 with supplies but that's for a light flake. To go heavier on the flake about doubles the cost. The Lowe's deal with Epoxy-Coat sealed the deal. It was in my local Lowe's and with a 10% off coupon I paid $152 a kit (4 kits). I did pay an additional $964 for 9 gallons of polyurea top coating from Epoxy-Coat. If I had been braver I would have considered the Wolverine Endurashield over the top of the Epoxy Coat. It would have saved about $150 but would have voided the warranty on the Epoxy-Coat.
The Process
30 hours grinding. In hindsight I should have skipped this with new concrete as it left grinder marks and still left low spots. Also loud and dusty and $200 for the concrete grinder rental. So I chemically prepped with the solution in the kits. Triple rinsed with baking soda each time (52 pounds total) and pressure washed it out. Then 240 linear feet of backer rod and sikaflex to fill the expansion joints. I wish I had spent more time on this but after some initial mess making with a putty knife (it's really gooey) we decided to just let self-level. Ten day delay due to weather and drying time for sikaflex and I could finally lay down the epoxy. I mixed, wife rolled and we both flaked. With 24" squeegee and 18" roller we did the whole 1800 sf in 5 hours and 15 minutes. Everything went smooth. No problems EXCEPT....I wanted taupe. I bought kits labeled taupe. The buckets inside the kits said taupe. They looked gray when I opened them but all four kits were the same color. I figured they must turn taupe when they mix or dry. It never occurred to me that the whole lot was mis-marked. The floor went down gray and stayed gray. I wanted taupe and chose flakes to match taupe. I absolutely did not want a gray floor and that's what I've got...with an odd color combination at that. But the process itself went smoothly. Only a handful of bubbles that were really minor. Based on advice from Epoxy-Coat I waited until near the end of the 18-24 hour window to put down the polyurea. At this point I wasn't in love with the gray but you have a narrow window to finish the job before you would have to sand the whole area. So down went the polyurea. With an 18" squeegee and 18" roller it went super fast and totally easy. We did double batches for coverage of 110 sf per batch. Easily applied in 6 minutes per batch which just about matched my time mixing the next batch. Total application time was 90 minutes. Weather was 57 degrees with humidity at 49% to 51%. I had no problems with pot life or the polyurea going off or any of the other terrible things I'd been warned about. It does stink and we wore OV masks but it still stunk up the house.
The result
See the photos
The summary
Although I did not use the Wolverine products I had two very long conversations with Fred at Alpha Garage and I am highly impressed with his customer service and honesty about the pros and cons of different products. A great guy with a great product that just was a little too much for my size of project. Christine and everyone else at Epoxy-Coat gave excellent customer service. I asked lots of questions and all were answered very quickly. Don't underestimate the value of having these resources available if you're a DIY guy. There's a lot to this epoxy stuff. Large squeegees and rollers save the day. Well worth a few extra bucks. I did not use the stick measuring system but individually measured out each component and used a fresh bucket for each batch. Well worth the additional $20 in buckets. Also, I used short buckets which left less on the side and were easier to mix and pour. I highly recommend this method as well. We skipped the stem walls and undoubtedly saved quite a few hours. I'll go back and just paint them. I can't see why they need to be epoxied anyway.
Would I do it again? Only on new concrete and I wouldn't do the grinding. If I had an old slab that was stained and needed grinding it would be a deal breaker. The prep took far far longer than the application and was not fun. The application was actually fun. Like rolling out sod it's instant results.

I sent you a PM about the color. We do define Taupe as a creamy Gray color. I think the floor looks great, I am very sorry you are not happier with the color.

Wow.

Great write up. Great info. Such a beautiful brand new space and you got the wrong color. Sorry to hear. Looks great still and looks like you did a thorough job. It's good to know that Epoxy Coats Toupe is actually grey, that should help a lot of people in the future anways.

P

Thanks for your post. I was going to grind my floor (I have a new slab) but your experience helped me realize that grinding would be overkill.

I think that your color combination looks great!

Just received the PM from Christine.
The mistake is MINE, NOT theirs. Taupe to me is closer to my wall color. Apparently everyone has a different opinion on taupe. The color shown in the photos is the taupe from Epoxy Coat. I should have looked into it a little more. The irony is that I was going for a color similar to the original color chips wine barrel blend http://www.originalcolorchips.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15&products_id=196but I had them remove the 45% taupe flakes because I thought it was pointless to pay for taupe flakes on a taupe floor.

Here's the bottom line. I was on the fence about whether to do epoxy or not and I really couldn't tell you for another 5-10 years whether it was worth it but the process is long and with a mixture of successes and failures on here I was extremely nervous about the whole deal and the prospect of having a catastrophic failure that had to be removed. In other words, gray or taupe or hell even pink at this point, I'm glad to be done with it so I can finally start moving things into the shop. After one ornamental iron project I'm glad the expansion joints are filled in and clean up will be much easier and our leaky 15 year old Camry won't be leaving stains in the new concrete so chalk it up to a learning experience. I am at $1.14 per square foot for 100% solids with a polyurea topcoat. Had I not ordered 15 pounds of additional flake and skipped the grinding it could have been done for under $1 a square foot. My goal was to be under $1.50 a foot and as close to $1.25 a foot as possible so overall Epoxy-Coat is a good product that is reasonably priced and goes down as advertised. Coverage was pretty close to "as advertised" for the epoxy but I found that I used more acid etch than expected but still did not have to buy extra. Obviously I can't speak to the durability yet.

Excellent write up and thank you for taking the time to share your experience.

Taupe is one of those colors that I never am sure what the heck it is. I have seen what I would call different colors, all called Taupe. I know you were going to a certain color and it fell short; having said that I think the floor looks great. I hope in time you will feel better about the overall look of your space. I would love to have it. Great Job!

Well I think it looks amazing. What products would you recommend for filling in the cement joints?

Sikaflex is pretty good and it does self-level. Originally I purchased a similar quickcrete product but the cure time was up to 14 days. Sikaflex was 3-5 days. Our expanstion joints were put in with a trowel and V shaped. Baker rod that was slightly wider than the base of the joint was really too tall. The smaller size and the V-shape meant the backer rod really wouldn't wedge in there too well and kept wanting to pop up when we tried to smooth the sikaflex with a putty knife. So hands messy, paper towels messy, backer rod popping up and dripping on the floor we decided we were better off to just let it settle. Your experience may vary depending on what shape your joints are in. After I did it I learned there is a product called Ardex that others have used with a 1 day cure. I don't know anything about it though. Epoxy-Coat recommends plain old acrylic caulk and Alpha Garage sells Integraflex. I actually would have bought the integraflex from Fred at Alpha but unfortunately I didn't plan ahead enough and I couldn't get it shipped in time without paying more than the product cost in expedited shipping. I'd say a product that can be dispensed from a tube like caulk and a rolling shop stool would go a long way toward making the process less frustrating.

Not to steal the thread, but one more question. So this old acrylic caulk or Alpha Garage Integraflex is just applied to the clean joints and then smoothed with a putty knife?

Congrats...I think the floor looks great. In fact I was thinking about going with a beigish/taupe color to go with my maple colored cabinets but I like yours so much I'm considering doing the same. The light gray is excellent for reflectivity and the chips do the color work for you. Great job and I hope you don't mind if I copy you!

GTOGreg said:

I hope you don't mind if I copy you!

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A small royalty would be in order. On second thought never mind.......I'd owe most of you a bunch of money for all the ideas I've "borrowed". Jack Olsen could probably retire if we had to start paying royalties.

First, the floor looks really good. In your first picture, the floor actually looks like it matches the walls just from the reflection. It's only in the close-ups that the gray basecoat makes itself clear.

Second, I think your flakes look good against the gray and actually tie in the gray with the walls. I don't think it's funky at all.

Third, I agree with you that your base is gray. When I hear taupe, I think tan, or at least more tan than any other color. Your base is nothing but gray. The color name is misleading.

Last, here's the Wiki definition of taupe:

Taupe is a vague, unscientific color term which may be used to refer to almost any grayish-brown, brownish-gray, or warm gray color. It often overlaps with tan and even people who use color professionally (such as designers and artists) frequently disagree as to what "taupe" means. There is no single, generally recognized authority for such terms.

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I don't know what "warm gray" is but I think even considering that there is no accepted definition of "taupe", there is an accepted definition of "gray" and that's what should have been on the outside of your cans.

Again, I reiterate, the floor looks great. Well done.

looks beige from a distance but up close it's obviously gray. Good luck with your floor. Let us know how it holds up

Beautiful looking floor, even if the color wasn't your ideal choice, it still looks great. I'll bet it feels real good to have all of that work behind you, I can't imagine doing the prep work on 1800 square feet.

The phrase "never again" was mentioned several times. Honestly it was my own stupid fault for dcoing the grinding. My mindset was "if grinding is better, then I'm grinding" and I didn't want to introduce water onto the floor. My recommendation for others with new concrete is just do the chemical etch and move on. Oh, and spend a lot more time smoothing the expansion joints.

Taupe is one of those colors nobody ever really knows. I have also had spirited conversations with a buddy on what PEWTER is supposed to be.

Floor looks awesome. You will love the durability and the ease of cleanup. I know I have.