May 24, 2023 • 11 mins
Gary Sullivan talks about ways to enhance the look of your garage. It is recommended to clean the floor and walls, remove old coatings, oil stains, and fix any cracks. After preparation, different coatings such as paint and epoxy can be used. Masonry stains and tiles can also be used for floors.
POTENTIAL ACTIONS:
POTENTIAL ACTIONS:
- Determine budget and desired look for garage floor (paint, epoxy, stain, tile).
- Prepare garage floor for coating or staining (remove clutter, clean oil stains, patch cracks).
- Read product directions carefully before applying coating or stain (especially for epoxy coatings).
- Consider using slip-resistant additives for safety on coated or painted floors.
- Organize garage after floor has been coated or stained.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Hi, everybody, This is GarySullivan. Thank you so much for joining
us on today's podcast. Today,i'd like to tackle the garage. Well,
i'll tell you what you like me. You've seen some nasty looking garages,
right, and maybe you're a personyou can't even get into your garage.
There's clutter everywhere. And you seeall the ads, you know,
(00:33):
the ad magazines that come out beautifullooking garages, which who wouldn't want that?
Right? You got all kinds ofslapboard up there. You got grids,
you got shelves, you got aworkbend, you got a refrigerator,
you got everything. But we don'thave to take it that far. And
those professional garages get pretty dug onexpensive. They're beautiful and you can afford
(00:57):
one, why not. But let'sjust work not so much on, you
know, organizing it, because you'regoing to do that anyway, especially with
what I'm about to talk about.You got to get the old stuff out
to really dress up the inside ofthe garage. And it can be done
with a little bit of work,just getting the clutter out of there,
(01:19):
getting things off the floor. Whatwe're gonna do is we're gonna address the
walls and the floor, because ifwe can get that cleaned up and get
that looking pretty good, when weput it all back together again, it's
gonna look pretty sharp. And I'dlike to talk about some of the things
that are really available to you.And we got to start on the floor
because you know, we've seen theads with the beautiful floors. You've been
(01:44):
in big box stores and seen paint. There's all kinds of things, so
i'd like to kind of walk youthrough the benefits and talk about different things
you can do to the garage floor. Of course, when you get all
the clutter out, your level offind some oil stains which you're gonna need
to be removed before you do anything, because we're gonna talk about coatings.
(02:08):
There's one. It's a oil andgrease remover by crud cutter. Follow the
directions, but you gotta get thatoil out of there. I'll tell you
right now, if you're going toclean and paint a garage floor, you're
probably going to invest twelve hours ofcleaning in maybe two hours of painting.
(02:28):
So it really is about the preparation. But if we get all the stuff
out, we started dressing, cleaningup the oil spots, scraping off the
chewing gum that's on the floor.Power washing it a good, regular,
good cleaner for a garage floor.It would be like an oxygenated bleach.
(02:50):
It is a high powering cleaner.Use that with a pressure washinger. It's
not gonna take up oil, butit'll get rid of dirt and you get
that really clean. That's a goodstart for our project, and that's gonna
take you some time. If there'sany old coating on there and we're gonna
put another coating on there, suchas a stain or a paint, you're
(03:13):
gonna have to get that old coatingoff, be it a pain or a
sementatious overlay. And in a lotof cases you'll have to rent a piece
of equipment from a rent of storeand literally grind that surface off. I
know it sounds like a lot ofwork, but the outcome is going to
be outstanding. After we get thatsurface all cleaned up, take a look
for any cracks. This is agreat time to go ahead and patch them.
(03:37):
You can patch them with some calkingrule of thumb, as if the
cracks are less than a quarter ofan inch, there's a lot of crack
seal products that are liquids come ina quart jug. You'll literally just pour
them into the crack. They're selfleveling over a quarter inch. I'd recommend
like an advanced resin crack patch andit's in a calking tube and you can
(04:00):
fill those cracks with that. Youdon't fill cracks with sementatious materials, So
that's kind of the rule of thumb. So once we get it cleaned and
once we get it patched up,then we got to decide what our budget
is and what we wanted to looklike. Of course, the first thing
(04:20):
people gravitate to is paint, andpaint's fine. I'm not going to knock
it. All. This is goodstuff. There is paints and then there
are epoxy paints. Epoxy paints area little harder. Apoxy paints will last
a little longer, and epoxy paintsare gonna cost a little bit more.
(04:41):
And we've all seen them. It'sgot the little speckles in it. Epoxy
paints, I think are good.Epoxy paints really require their preparation work that
I went through. When you getyou're epoxy paint, read their directions because
they're all not the same. Someepoxy specification require you to use a meratic
acid to etch the floor. Youwould not need to do that. If
(05:05):
you used a grinder, you willalready kind of etch that floor so that
whatever we put on there's gonna stick. But if you did not, you
just cleaned it and patched it.Follow the direction. Some a very high
detergent cleaner is enough. Some you'regoing to be required to etch it,
(05:26):
so read the directions. It's usuallyparts A and parts B. They are
mixed together. You can roll iton while wet, you can distribute to
flakes. And if you want tokeep it slip resistant, I would recommend
getting a product called shark Bite,and it's a little crystals you can just
(05:48):
throw in there and give you alittle bit attraction because in a POxy or
painted floor can be a little slippery. Negatives on a POxy a little bit
more expensive. No problem there,because it's gonna last a little bit longer.
But I have found that epoxy floorsthey were really good, but over
(06:08):
time they ugly out. My opinion, only when you're pulling your car in
and out a lot. I hesa tendency to create some tire marks on
the epoxy. Some scuffs if youwill. Uh. Some companies now have
a clear epoxy that can go overthe paint of the epoxy, so it's
(06:30):
like a two code system. Seemsto do pretty good at diminishing that.
I'd say the lifespan of the epoxyfour to ten years. And that's that's
not only wearability, but also minimizingthe scuffs. So that's the paint and
the things. Whether it's epoxy.If you just get regular floor plaint,
(06:53):
that's not going to work on agarage floor. It's got to have a
garage floor paint that is a nonepoxy. That's the easiest way to go.
It's probably the least durable. Itcan be applied by a roller,
but it must say resist hot tirepickup. And think about it. If
you use a regular acrylic floor paintand you've been out on the Expressway for
(07:16):
a half hour driving at seventy milesan hour, those tires are hot.
You pull in the garage. It'slike putting an iron on a paint coating.
If it doesn't it isn't designed andengineered to avoid hot tire pickup,
it will pick up the paint rightoff the surface. So you know,
put in factor that in the nextthing is not a coating at all,
(07:39):
it's a stain. There's masonry stains, there are masonry dyes. There's usually
a semitransparent, a solid and anacid stain or acid dye. So those
are good your solid color masonry stainskind of like paint, so I would
(08:01):
use the same analogy on that.That would also have to have a sealer
over it. It can be asolid color. The semi transparent is kind
of cool. You again follow thedirections on the preparation. It is kind
of like a semi transparent deck stain. It penetrates into the concrete just like
(08:24):
an oil stain, kind of changesthe color and the acid stain along those
same lines. It's not a paintedlook at all. It adds color,
but it is a semi transparent almostlooks like marbling. And then again you
put a clear sealer over there toprotect that floor, protect that stain,
(08:45):
maybe resealed it about every three yearsor so. I really like that because
it is a built in finish ratherthan just a coating. Now, if
you're going into coatings unlike paint,there's some really really really good stuff,
and so is the budget for thatit's a little bit higher. One of
(09:05):
them is the ones you see inthe ad magazines. You know, all
the garage floor coatings you're outstanding.They're also very expensive, so bear that
in mind. You can certainly getpeople to bid the price out for you.
You can also get a product calledroller rock, which is a stone
in an acrylic resin coating. Youcan put two coats of that on with
(09:28):
a roller and then a slip resistantclear seilant. Again not cheap, but
the lifespan on those about fifteen years. Yes, you have to put a
clear sealer on that also, andi'd say every three to five years,
but a beautiful look and a veryvery durable. One last thing to mention
(09:52):
is there are tiles for garage floors, not stick on tiles. They kind
of snap together create a little voidunderneath the tile. But it's you know,
it's kind of nice. You canhide up all the problems. You
wouldn't even have to patch the cracks, you wouldn't have to really clean it.
You can just snap that together.It's gonna probably cost you just under
(10:15):
a thousand bucks for a double cargarage, but you might want to check
that out. There's a one calledracetrack comes in different colors, old diamond
patterns, and that might be adirection you want to go. So many
of us enter our houses now throughthe garage, and that's one of the
reasons why we're always dressing it upand getting an organized Of course, why
don't you got the floor looking reallygood, You can then start organizing.
(10:39):
Maybe you paint the walls and thenorganize all the tools and bikes and everything
else that we store in our garage. By the way, you can ask
me any home improvement question nine tonoons Saturday and Sunday. I'll give you
the number. Give me a call. It's eight hundred A two three eight
two five five. Thanks for joiningus today on the podcast.
Hi, everybody, This is GarySullivan. Thank you so much for joining
us on today's podcast. Today,i'd like to tackle the garage. Well,
i'll tell you what you like me. You've seen some nasty looking garages,
right, and maybe you're a personyou can't even get into your garage.
There's clutter everywhere. And you seeall the ads, you know,
(00:33):
the ad magazines that come out beautifullooking garages, which who wouldn't want that?
Right? You got all kinds ofslapboard up there. You got grids,
you got shelves, you got aworkbend, you got a refrigerator,
you got everything. But we don'thave to take it that far. And
those professional garages get pretty dug onexpensive. They're beautiful and you can afford
(00:57):
one, why not. But let'sjust work not so much on, you
know, organizing it, because you'regoing to do that anyway, especially with
what I'm about to talk about.You got to get the old stuff out
to really dress up the inside ofthe garage. And it can be done
with a little bit of work,just getting the clutter out of there,
(01:19):
getting things off the floor. Whatwe're gonna do is we're gonna address the
walls and the floor, because ifwe can get that cleaned up and get
that looking pretty good, when weput it all back together again, it's
gonna look pretty sharp. And I'dlike to talk about some of the things
that are really available to you.And we got to start on the floor
because you know, we've seen theads with the beautiful floors. You've been
(01:44):
in big box stores and seen paint. There's all kinds of things, so
i'd like to kind of walk youthrough the benefits and talk about different things
you can do to the garage floor. Of course, when you get all
the clutter out, your level offind some oil stains which you're gonna need
to be removed before you do anything, because we're gonna talk about coatings.
(02:08):
There's one. It's a oil andgrease remover by crud cutter. Follow the
directions, but you gotta get thatoil out of there. I'll tell you
right now, if you're going toclean and paint a garage floor, you're
probably going to invest twelve hours ofcleaning in maybe two hours of painting.
(02:28):
So it really is about the preparation. But if we get all the stuff
out, we started dressing, cleaningup the oil spots, scraping off the
chewing gum that's on the floor.Power washing it a good, regular,
good cleaner for a garage floor.It would be like an oxygenated bleach.
(02:50):
It is a high powering cleaner.Use that with a pressure washinger. It's
not gonna take up oil, butit'll get rid of dirt and you get
that really clean. That's a goodstart for our project, and that's gonna
take you some time. If there'sany old coating on there and we're gonna
put another coating on there, suchas a stain or a paint, you're
(03:13):
gonna have to get that old coatingoff, be it a pain or a
sementatious overlay. And in a lotof cases you'll have to rent a piece
of equipment from a rent of storeand literally grind that surface off. I
know it sounds like a lot ofwork, but the outcome is going to
be outstanding. After we get thatsurface all cleaned up, take a look
for any cracks. This is agreat time to go ahead and patch them.
(03:37):
You can patch them with some calkingrule of thumb, as if the
cracks are less than a quarter ofan inch, there's a lot of crack
seal products that are liquids come ina quart jug. You'll literally just pour
them into the crack. They're selfleveling over a quarter inch. I'd recommend
like an advanced resin crack patch andit's in a calking tube and you can
(04:00):
fill those cracks with that. Youdon't fill cracks with sementatious materials, So
that's kind of the rule of thumb. So once we get it cleaned and
once we get it patched up,then we got to decide what our budget
is and what we wanted to looklike. Of course, the first thing
(04:20):
people gravitate to is paint, andpaint's fine. I'm not going to knock
it. All. This is goodstuff. There is paints and then there
are epoxy paints. Epoxy paints area little harder. Apoxy paints will last
a little longer, and epoxy paintsare gonna cost a little bit more.
(04:41):
And we've all seen them. It'sgot the little speckles in it. Epoxy
paints, I think are good.Epoxy paints really require their preparation work that
I went through. When you getyou're epoxy paint, read their directions because
they're all not the same. Someepoxy specification require you to use a meratic
acid to etch the floor. Youwould not need to do that. If
(05:05):
you used a grinder, you willalready kind of etch that floor so that
whatever we put on there's gonna stick. But if you did not, you
just cleaned it and patched it.Follow the direction. Some a very high
detergent cleaner is enough. Some you'regoing to be required to etch it,
(05:26):
so read the directions. It's usuallyparts A and parts B. They are
mixed together. You can roll iton while wet, you can distribute to
flakes. And if you want tokeep it slip resistant, I would recommend
getting a product called shark Bite,and it's a little crystals you can just
(05:48):
throw in there and give you alittle bit attraction because in a POxy or
painted floor can be a little slippery. Negatives on a POxy a little bit
more expensive. No problem there,because it's gonna last a little bit longer.
But I have found that epoxy floorsthey were really good, but over
(06:08):
time they ugly out. My opinion, only when you're pulling your car in
and out a lot. I hesa tendency to create some tire marks on
the epoxy. Some scuffs if youwill. Uh. Some companies now have
a clear epoxy that can go overthe paint of the epoxy, so it's
(06:30):
like a two code system. Seemsto do pretty good at diminishing that.
I'd say the lifespan of the epoxyfour to ten years. And that's that's
not only wearability, but also minimizingthe scuffs. So that's the paint and
the things. Whether it's epoxy.If you just get regular floor plaint,
(06:53):
that's not going to work on agarage floor. It's got to have a
garage floor paint that is a nonepoxy. That's the easiest way to go.
It's probably the least durable. Itcan be applied by a roller,
but it must say resist hot tirepickup. And think about it. If
you use a regular acrylic floor paintand you've been out on the Expressway for
(07:16):
a half hour driving at seventy milesan hour, those tires are hot.
You pull in the garage. It'slike putting an iron on a paint coating.
If it doesn't it isn't designed andengineered to avoid hot tire pickup,
it will pick up the paint rightoff the surface. So you know,
put in factor that in the nextthing is not a coating at all,
(07:39):
it's a stain. There's masonry stains, there are masonry dyes. There's usually
a semitransparent, a solid and anacid stain or acid dye. So those
are good your solid color masonry stainskind of like paint, so I would
(08:01):
use the same analogy on that.That would also have to have a sealer
over it. It can be asolid color. The semi transparent is kind
of cool. You again follow thedirections on the preparation. It is kind
of like a semi transparent deck stain. It penetrates into the concrete just like
(08:24):
an oil stain, kind of changesthe color and the acid stain along those
same lines. It's not a paintedlook at all. It adds color,
but it is a semi transparent almostlooks like marbling. And then again you
put a clear sealer over there toprotect that floor, protect that stain,
(08:45):
maybe resealed it about every three yearsor so. I really like that because
it is a built in finish ratherthan just a coating. Now, if
you're going into coatings unlike paint,there's some really really really good stuff,
and so is the budget for thatit's a little bit higher. One of
(09:05):
them is the ones you see inthe ad magazines. You know, all
the garage floor coatings you're outstanding.They're also very expensive, so bear that
in mind. You can certainly getpeople to bid the price out for you.
You can also get a product calledroller rock, which is a stone
in an acrylic resin coating. Youcan put two coats of that on with
(09:28):
a roller and then a slip resistantclear seilant. Again not cheap, but
the lifespan on those about fifteen years. Yes, you have to put a
clear sealer on that also, andi'd say every three to five years,
but a beautiful look and a veryvery durable. One last thing to mention
(09:52):
is there are tiles for garage floors, not stick on tiles. They kind
of snap together create a little voidunderneath the tile. But it's you know,
it's kind of nice. You canhide up all the problems. You
wouldn't even have to patch the cracks, you wouldn't have to really clean it.
You can just snap that together.It's gonna probably cost you just under
(10:15):
a thousand bucks for a double cargarage, but you might want to check
that out. There's a one calledracetrack comes in different colors, old diamond
patterns, and that might be adirection you want to go. So many
of us enter our houses now throughthe garage, and that's one of the
reasons why we're always dressing it upand getting an organized Of course, why
don't you got the floor looking reallygood, You can then start organizing.
(10:39):
Maybe you paint the walls and thenorganize all the tools and bikes and everything
else that we store in our garage. By the way, you can ask
me any home improvement question nine tonoons Saturday and Sunday. I'll give you
the number. Give me a call. It's eight hundred A two three eight
two five five. Thanks for joiningus today on the podcast.
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