Questions on your tile floor?
Where are you located, ie. does freezing temps affect the tile?
Did you prepare the floor in any fashion prior to the tile?
I assume you glued the tile and it wasn't a self-stick?
Any problems with it being slick?
Any problems cracking or chipping as the tile aged?

Thanks

 

If your pouring a new floor it would be better to have coloring added to the cement. That way you can use your floor jacks, jack stands, cutting torch and welder.
I wish i had done this when i poured by shop floor.
The cost of doing this would probably be equil to all the work and supplies of painting. And the finish would last a lot longer with no maintenance other than washing.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-May-02 AT 02:25 PM (EST)]Yes,It is better in some ways.
The Best way though is still painting it.
To be able to sweep up on a slightly smoother surface is much better.

The problem with having it coloured is if the finisher DOESN'T know what they are doing ,It is a Wasted expense.

The concrete company will usually charge an extra premium
just because it is coloured and the driver has to completely clean the mixer for the next Un-coloured load.
Colour-crete is normally used for decorative purposes.

The reason I mention the finisher is :
Before you have a job done,MAKE SURE your finisher knows that under NO circumstances that water sprayed on the surface of the concrete to get a better finish.
This practise is the cause of many "Shaling surfaes of " garage floors,driveways,& sidewalks.
They shopuld make sure the slump of the concrete is of the proper slump at the beginning of the pour and they have enough men to carry out the job.

I don't know how many times in 23 years that i had to help out a contractor because he didn't have enough people to do the job.

Be careful out there.

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Another alternative it to have your floor sprayed with Concrete-Technologies products. The skim coat can be colored to almost any color on the Sherwin Williams piant charts and is harder than the concrete you are applying it to.
Check out the website [link:http://cti-corp.com/faqs.html|Concrete Technologies Inc.] if your interested or contact me via e-mail at
Krosati(No Email Addresses In Posts!) I can hook you up with a dealer in your area.

 

Something I havent really noticed here is the reccomendation of Vortex liner. It was originally made to be a spray in bedliner, but with proper preperation, it can easily be used on floors. It's installed by some professional people, and I think you can be back in your garage in two to three days. Truckin Magazine's October 01 issue has a full article on the material and installation. The whole issue is dedicated to garages, tools every do-it-yourselfer should have, both an Affordable garage, and the "Ultimate" garage. Check with www.primedia.com to get a back issue. Oh, and a friend of mine tiled his floor with the commercial grade checkerboard pattern for his cherry restored 64.5 'Stang, and it looks awesome. Anyway, hope this helps.

 

Okay, I am a Union Painter and have been coating concrete floors for years and acid etching never works unless the floor is darn near new or unused. The best way is to shotblast the surface, kind of like a sandblaster but with steel shot. I did a 6000 square foot mechanic shop for my buddy 7 years ago with outdated material and it still looks great. He started parking cars on it the next day. It's all in the prep, if the floor has had a lot of solvents on it, you must prep the surface and let it breathe for a couple days before painting. I did a floor in a spray booth at McDD where they painted F-18's and my boss only let the floor breathe for 1 day and the whole thing peeled up in sheets. Most of what I did was 2 coats epoxy and polyeurethene top coat. White is hard to keep clean, but it really lights up the underside of whatever you're working on. The two most popular non-skid additives are sugar sand, or polyethelene spheres (plastic beads). These can be put in the top coat then backrolled so that the textured surface is easier to clean. So remember, PREP! and if any of that failed attemp happens to stick like it's supposed to, good friggin luck getting it up!

John

 

What about just using a concrete sealer? Anyone have any experiences or thoughts about that? I'm cleaning my garage floor a little at a time with simple green. I'm just working at the spots with the really bad stains before I empty the garage completely and scrub the whole thing once and for all. After it's clean, I was just going to seal it.

 

Hey, Guys.....If I paint the floor in the garage, then I'll have to get new rugs in the house. The wife says the garage already looks better than our family room.

 

A question:
Although I would like to paint/seal my garage floor, what am I to do with all the @#$* that has collected? ie; welder, torches, beer fridge, pizza oven, shelves, tool bench, table saw, innumerable kids toys, and such. Any advice, other than a sale!, would be appreciated!

 

I painted my garage a few years ago with a quality epoxy based paint. I unloaded everything out of the garage into the driveway for large items, and onto the back deck for anything that wasn't too hard to carry. (weather forecasts called for no rain). Covered everything with tarps just to make things less visible, and parked the cars in front of all my gear (less visible & less accessable) in the driveway.

Pressure washed the garage, solvents where needed, and a fan & plenty of time to dry. Haven't had any problems. Then again, as far as garages go, mine sees very little abuse. Even used the same paint on my basement floor (without as much prep). A few spots have peeled slightly, but nothing some quick touch-up can't address. And as far as leaving things ouside, I live in a good neighborhood, on a dead-end sidestreet that only local residents & cops patrolling town travel. Wouldn't recommend this procedure for anyone who isn't as fortunate as far as location is concerned.

The only advice I can give SPFDRum is to put your stuff outside, and built an impromptu shed with some plywood & 2x4's. Make the shed size such that you can use full sheets of plywood & full lenght 2x4's without cutting down, and you can re-use the lumber for later projects. A quick cheap shed like this can be put together in about 2 hours if you know how to swing your tools and have a competent helper. Just remember that it's not a permanent structure & only needs to stay up for about a week, and you can get by with minimal expense. Use drywall screws instead of nails for quicker disassembly and less ruined lumber caused by crowbars.

I never had to put one of these together yet, but I once did a BBQ during turrential downpoars. I built a quick lean-to using my scrap lumber & plywood in half an hour -- covered over the back double-doors to the deck, the grill, and plenty of room to keep the grill away from the door. Took it apart the next day & used the lumber for another project. The BBQ was great, I stayed dry, and even had some company outside as the guys really liked my setup and preferred standing out near the grill while swilling their beers. I could tell you more BBQ stories about 110 degree weather, snow storms, weather below zero, BBQ in the garage, BBQ in the fireplace, etc. but I'm trying to keep my post on the topic... can you tell I love my BBQ's?

 

I'm going the black/white 18in tile route eventually, but seeing as it's 1000sqft it's not exactly cheap. Last time I priced it out using tiles from Lowes it came to about $700 just in tiles, then ya add in adhesive etc... & paying someone to do it because if there's one thing I know about tiling its that I'm bloody hopeless at it.

Right now half of it is carpeted owing to a friend who does trade shows dropping off a van load of *ahem.. unwanted* 10x20 pieces of bright blue carpet... Makes working on the ZRX1100 a pleasure.

 

I found some castrol super clean and used it with a scrub brush. I didn't have much luck. I then went to my bench and grabbed a wire brush. Much more success. It's going to take a long time. I think that I got the worst of the stans out, but there are large darkened patches. The spots that I hit with the wire brush look like new.....