When someone is looking into options for finishing their garage floor, epoxy coatings are almost always mentioned. For years, epoxy has been the go-to solution for protecting concrete floors from water, damage, and staining.
However, now there's a much better option: polyaspartic floor coating. This new type of resinous coating was only first developed in the 1990s, and since then, it's been steadily gaining in popularity among private homeowners and commercial garage operators alike.
If you've been considering an epoxy floor, take a moment to consider the advantages that a polyaspartic floor coating would bring instead!
Four Big Benefits to Polyaspartic Garage Floor Coatings
1 - Faster and more convenient application
Polyaspartic coatings cure much more quickly than epoxy. You can completely finish your garage in a day when using a polyaspartic coating, while epoxy can take a full week to entirely cure. This makes installation more convenient, as well as reducing disruption to commercial operations.
2 - Cures in hot and cold temperatures
Another major difficulty with installing epoxy comes from the limited range of temperatures at which it will cure. If the weather is too hot OR too cold, it cannot be installed. Polyaspartic coatings are much more tolerant of temperature, and can generally be installed in any weather, allowing for installation year round.
3. Doesn’t peel from hot tires
Epoxy flooring is so susceptible to peeling under hot tires that the flooring industry even coined a term “hot tire pickup” as a result. Polyaspartic flooring is not susceptible to peeling under hot tires.
4 - Greater resilience
Epoxy is strong on the surface, but brittle. It stands up well against direct crushing damage, such as heavy machinery, but can be easily cracked by a falling sharp object. Polyaspartic coatings have a much higher level of strength than epoxy, so they're more resilient and harder to damage by regular use and hard impacts.
In other words, polyaspartic floor coatings are a better long term solution for your garage floor than old fashioned epoxy. Your garage floor will be fully protected against damage, stains, and chemical spills, with a product that's stronger and longer lasting than epoxy. The only downside is that polyaspartic coatings cost more than epoxy - but when you consider there is a much longer life involved with a polyaspartic floor coating compared to an epoxy coating, the polyapartic coating is actually much cheaper in the long run.
Polyaspartic Floor Coating Is Better for Your Garage
For most families, the garage is the main entryway to your home and the first thing everyone sees upon arriving. That’s why so many are turning to durable flooring systems that can stand the test of time, such as polyaspartic floor coating. At Garage Finisher, our polyaspartic Forever Floor is built to withstand nearly anything, and here we wanted to highlight some of the foremost reasons why it’s such a better alternative than epoxy flooring for your garage.
What Exactly is Polyaspartic Flooring?
First, it’s important to understand precisely what polyaspartic floor coating is and how it differs from epoxy. It’s a type of coating material made from polyaspartic ester, an aliphatic polyurea sealer with additional materials to make it much stronger than other flooring alternatives. Because of its durability, stain resistance, and UV light resistance, it makes the perfect coating to cover porous concrete floors. Epoxy coatings do not penetrate into the concrete and become brittle over time causing the coating to peel under hot vehicle tires.
Why Choose Polyaspartic Flooring Over Other Alternatives?
In addition to some of the benefits mentioned above, polyaspartic flooring can eliminate corrosion and also endure extremely high and low temperatures. Furthermore, correctly formulated polyaspartic seeps deeply into your concrete floor, drastically minimizing the chance of divots, chips, and scratches, as well as making it extremely salt and stain-resistant.
What is the Application Process?
Unlike DIY floor sealant methods or epoxy, which can take days to install and dry, polyaspartic flooring offers a much faster installation process. Employing a trained professional flooring company will provide the best results. One of the biggest benefits is that it only takes hours to cure instead of days. Additionally, its durability makes it perfect for both commercial and residential applications.
What Exactly is Epoxy Floor Coating?
Epoxy flooring is a polymer that’s chemical resistant, that helps protect garage flooring systems from scratches and spills. However, it’s not as durable and is susceptible to scratches and abrasion and very often peels away from the surface, so isn’t the best for high traffic applications.
What is the Epoxy Application Process?
To apply epoxy garage floor coating properly, professionals first need to ensure that your garage floor is clean and completely dry. This often requires many hours of preparation. After cleaning the garage floor, the epoxy is then applied and can take many days to cure. It also needs to be applied in temperatures that aren’t extensively cold or hot. One of the main drawbacks to epoxy flooring in addition to the curing time is that it can peel under the hot tires of vehicles (hot-tire pickup) and is more susceptible to fading from UV rays.
Polyaspartic vs. Epoxy Flooring
Although polyaspartic and epoxy flooring are both durable and long-lasting, polyaspartic has some additional benefits that epoxy doesn’t. Not only is it much stronger allowing it to hold up better when it comes to scratches and high impacts, but is much more resilient to Chemicals & UV exposure, and doesn’t become brittle over time like epoxy making it last a lifetime if properly cared for.
A Breakdown of the Benefits of Polyaspartic vs. Epoxy Flooring
Durability: As mentioned above, polyaspartic flooring is as much as 10 times more durable than epoxy. Since polyaspartic flooring not only penetrates more deeply than other alternatives but is also more flexible, it can hold up to nearly anything you can throw at it, whether it be oil stains, dropped tools, or regular vehicle traffic.
UV-Resistant: One of the most common problems when it comes to garage flooring, especially if you choose a colored or custom coating, is that it can fade over time. However, the UV resistance offered by polyaspartic flooring goes above and beyond epoxy coating. This is because it’s UV-stable, whereas the polymers in epoxy floor coating break down over time, making it much more susceptible to UV rays causing it to fade, dull and chalk.
Easy Maintenance: Since polyaspartic flooring is moisture and chemical-resistant, it’s also much easier to clean than other alternatives. The only maintenance that’s needed is hose with water and squeegee dry. Additionally, it also comes in various colors or decorative flaking that make spills and stains much harder to see between cleanings, meaning a clean appearance 24/7.
Longer Lasting Bond: When applying polyaspartic coating to your garage floor, it offers a longer-lasting bond than epoxy. In fact, over time, epoxy coating will peel due to the heat from tires moving in and out of your garage. However, polyaspartic coating penetrates and bonds to the concrete of your garage, meaning that it remains unaffected during extreme temperatures. Epoxy does not penetrate into the concrete at all and only sits on the surface waiting to peel off.
Enhanced Safety: One of the biggest benefits of polyaspartic floor coatings, like the Forever Floor from Garage Finisher, is that not only will it eliminate pitting, cracks and other issues that can be a hazard but can also be installed with a traction layer to minimize the chance of slip and falls.
High-Quality: Before being used as a floor coating, polyaspartics were used in high-stress applications for places like hospitals and airplane hangars. It was lauded for its durability and granite-like appearance, which gained the attention of the flooring industry. It also offers a smoother and more consistent finish than epoxy flooring.
Installation Time: The polyaspartic floor coating solutions from Garage Finisher require less than a day to install and cure. Additionally, unlike epoxy flooring, which requires a stable temperature during installation, polyaspartic flooring can be installed in temperatures below zero.
Why Choose Garage Finisher for Your Polyaspartic Floor Coating
The team of professionals from Garage Finisher boasts a wide range of experience and most of our staff have been with installing our proprietary flooring system for over 10 years. That means when you trust us with your flooring installation, or any other project, you can rest assured that you’ll be receiving the highest level of services by skilled professionals.
Our Forever Floor is a flooring solution unlike any other. The name says it all: with the proper maintenance, you won’t have to worry about your garage floor ever again. Unlike epoxy coatings, which often only contain three layers of flooring, our Forever Floor boasts five unique layers, as well as extra preparation to ensure a smooth installation. These extra layers add to the bond strength, durability and slip-resistance.
First, the Garage Finisher team will grind your floor to make certain it’s smooth then vacuum and remove all the dust in your garage, then fill in any imperfections such as pitting and cracks with a layer of polyurea resin. We then grind and vacuum the floor again then apply our first layer of polyaspartic-colored base coat, which penetrates deeply into the concrete (unlike epoxy that has zero penetration). Afterward, a clear coat of polyaspartic flooring is added followed by a layer of decorative chips in your color choice. The fourth coat of polyaspartic flooring, which contains clear beads for slip resistance, is then applied over the chip coat. Lastly, we top it all off with a clear coat of polyaspartic flooring material to leave it with an impeccable shine and extremely durable finish.
Contact us to learn more about our polyaspartic floor coating solutions!
If you’re in need of new garage flooring solutions, orgarage storageandnature stone removal,contact us online todayor call (216) 831-4500 for a FREE estimate!
