Decorative concrete coatings are increasingly becoming more popular in garages. Home owners have a number of “do it yourself” options but are generally unaware of problems related to epoxy garage floor options available.
A common problem with most garage coatings is what concrete contractors call the “Hot Tire Affect”. Some tires are more prone to cause problems then other tires because of the makeup of rubber in the tire. As a car with hot tires parks on the coating, material(s) in the tire creates a chemical bond with the coating. The tires cools with the coating bonded to it and when driven the next time it removes the coating from the concrete.
There are many options for the top coating, though the concrete industry recognizes the 2 component polyurethane as the best protection. The 2 component polys are not affected by hot tires and are resistant to most chemicals in the typical home owner’s garage. The only problem is that polyurethanes don’t bond with concrete so they can only be used as a durable, chemical resistant top coat over an epoxy garage floor or acrylic garage floor decorative coatings.
2 component epoxies provide the best bond to concrete as well as offering hot tire and chemical resistance. Epoxy garage floors are also used as a base for broadcasting decorative vinyl flakes as well as other decorative media depending on the look desired. The vinyl flake is widely used as the media of choice for garages then top coated by polyurethane for protection. Acrylics also provide an excellent bond to concrete but don’t offer the best protection against hot tires so they too would require polyurethane.
The full broadcast vinyl flake epoxy garage floor has been the staple in the industry for many years but come with a high cost of materials for this reason, at Tile & Stone Nerds we partnered with one of our manufacturers to create an acrylic system to resemble the vinyl flake epoxy garage floor with a more competitive price point. Both systems are top coated with the same 2 component polyurethane so they both offer the same hot tire and chemical resistant protection.