Inter-Locking Tiles vs. Painting/Coating Garage Floor ?

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I have 850 sq ft to cover for the garage floor. I like the look of gray epoxy with color flecks throughout, but had not so good luck with a water based epoxy kit (Rustoleum) on my last house. Was great for a few yrs then hot tire pickup got out of control.

I would be inclined to do a professional grade coating for the floor in our place we just moved into, but it's not the trimming and rolling on that deflects me, it's the prep and the fact we're moved in and have stuff in there now. Why didn't your dumb arse do it before you moved in you ask? Good line of thinking, I absolutely would've but for the cold temps in the 20 F's I felt was too cold to foster a good job being laid in. And the wife was champing at the bit to move in asap, without regard to man things like doing the garage floor first before populating the garage with an array of stuff.

So, the prospect of prepping for an epoxy job, waiting for drying out of the concrete then applying the product, waiting another several days for final drying. Meh.

So I'm kicking around those interlocking pvc (or whatever they're made of) tiles and simply laying those down. There's a company that makes them in faux slate appearance and many other alternative looks to the usual coin or diamond patterns which I don't particularly care for. They can be had as large as 20 x 20" which is attractive when needing to cover the floor space I need to. However, I'm not that good at tile trimming and wonder how trimming them in along the walls would look.

Decisions decisions.
 
There is another active thread on this topic:

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/foru...44474/garage-floor-epoxy-your-experience

I think the tiles are cheaper than hiring a pro to do the epoxy garage floor but more than doing the epoxy garage floor yourself.

I think you would need a table or radial arm saw to trim the tiles. (But have never trimmed this kind of garage floor tiles.)Typically when you do tile properly you start from a center line and go from there. So trimming all sides.

You could buy one tile and see how easy it is to work with.
 
I used Racedeck tiles in my last garage. Gray diamondplate pattern. I would have much rather had an epoxy floor like you mention, but the time and expense made that much less attractive.

I got the tiles with a Garage journal discount and it did substantially save. This was probably 10 years ago now, not sure if they still offer that. With all that said, I laid the tile in less than a day and it came out beautifully. I got lots of compliments and really liked it myself. Cutting tiles was done with a small table saw with the blade backwards and was easy. Couple mistakes made but ordering a couple extras made that no big deal. You start in a front corner and work across and back so unless you have an odd shape it's common to only trim two sides. Prior to laying the tile I took one to sherwin Williams and had a concrete stain mixed in a matching color and cut in the edges of the concrete floor and the exposed foundation. Came out really slick.

Only "problem" I had was I left a shoplight with a 100w bulb (back in the day when you could get such an evil thing) laying on a tile while working and it out a small divot in it just the size of where the hot metal touched. Otherwise I used Jack's and worked on it fine. I did use a piece of plywood under jackstands with sharp legs. I had some pieces cut down just for that. I did normal garage stuff and never had issues. If I spilled oil or something I used brake cleaner or whatever on it and never had problems.

If you decide to go the tile route, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend racedeck. It still looked new when I sold that house years later.
 
Good info on racedeck, thx. Due to the area I have to cover, either route I choose isn't going to be cheap. But tiles sound very good to me right now. Do you know if they sell a product you can put down along the foundation walls that does same thing quarter round does for interior floor jobs-- cover up the gap between tile and wall.
 
Originally Posted by LoneRanger
Good info on racedeck, thx. Due to the area I have to cover, either route I choose isn't going to be cheap. But tiles sound very good to me right now. Do you know if they sell a product you can put down along the foundation walls that does same thing quarter round does for interior floor jobs-- cover up the gap between tile and wall.


I'm not aware of such a product- in fact they recommend a 3/4" gap for expansion if I remember right. I never noticed changes on mine but did it to follow directions. That was why I got the matching concrete stain and did around the edges before laying the tile. Once it was down it blended seamlessly.
 
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