A complete garage floor coating in just one day? Sounds fantastic.. in theory. After being in the floor coatings industry for twenty years, however, I can tell you that one day coatings aren't always practical or advised. Read on to find out why.
The Technology Behind One Day Garage Floor Coatings
The polymer technology that allows a garage floor coating to be completed in one day is called a polyaspartic coating. These types of coatings have very short working times to apply the material and extremely short cure times (time in which the coating goes from its liquid state to a solid state).
STRONGHOLD FLOORS utilizes polyaspartic coatings for all of its decorative chip and decorative quartz floors that are installed in residential garages (unless the associated odors are not tolerable). Polyaspartics are excellent top layers for a coatings system, as they provide very high UV resistance, chemical resistance, and scratch resistance.
However, a top coat is only one of the layers making up a good chemical system. What about the layers under the decorative chips or quartz?
Polyaspartic top coats are the gold standard in garage floor coatings, but they are only one layer of a functioning system.
Five Issues with One Day Garage Floor Coatings
Polyaspartics will bond to concrete. In fact, the bond strength can even rival that of epoxies. With that in mind, you may be wondering: Why not use polyaspartics instead of epoxy?
1. They Cure too Quickly
Polyaspartics cure so quickly that they often do not wet-out (“soak in”) the concrete surface as well as epoxies. This isn't because of differences in the viscosity (as both can be diluted with solvents), but because the epoxy takes 5-20 times as long to cure, allowing it to soak into the prepared concrete over a longer period of time.
2. Heat and Humidity Affect the Curing Process
Polyaspartics cure faster when it’s warm outside and EVEN FASTER when it’s humid. Installing these coatings in dry environments like Arizona and Nevada is not typically a problem. But, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, three of our seasons are characterized by warmer temperatures that are often accompanied by high humidity. Our humid days can make it impractical for applying polyaspartics to the concrete surface.
Typical decorative chip flake garage floor installations utilize epoxy as the base coat and polyaspartic as the top coat.
3. Moisture on the Concrete Interferes with the Bond
Polyaspartics have little to no tolerance for any moisture on the surface they are applied to. Many times of the year, the concrete is cold enough to cause minor to severe condensation to form on the surface (think dew point). This moisture can and will interfere with the bond of the first layer to the concrete.
4. Inter-Coat Adhesion is Weak
Most companies use a polyaspartic primer (first layer) followed by a polyaspartic binder (2nd layer that the decorative chips are broadcast into).
Due to the rapid curing of the chemicals, inter-coat adhesion (the bond created chemically or mechanically between coatings layers) is often much lower than what is required. Installers who don't respect the short window of time allowed between these layers will cause future delamination of the coatings when subjected to hot tires.
5. Corners are Cut to Finish Quickly
Unless the project really requires a one day turn-around, most companies see no benefit in forcing their installers to work so quickly. One day coatings give installers no time to deal with any issues that arise (such as bugs landing in the coatings and wind blowing in debris).
Because the one day installers would have to prep the concrete and apply 2-5 layers of polyaspartic in a period of less than ten hours, the installers are rushing and often have to cut corners, resulting in less quality in the final product.
In a one day coatings installation, the final product is often suffering in quality. The picture above features the finished floor of a typical two day install.
One Day Woes
Time and time again, STRONGHOLD FLOORS has seen start-up garage flooring companies get themselves in trouble doing one day floors. We have removed over a hundred of these floors for our customers, when the prior company stopped answering their calls for service and assistance.
We constantly see manufacturers tout their polyaspartics as “magic beans” that will transform a coatings installation company’s business model. Months later, they are back to recommending two day projects. Further, many of these manufacturers are located in climates with low humidity and more consistent year round temperatures!
These manufacturers often don't understand the impact of the climate on coatings. We fell prey to this in 2005, when the coatings franchise we belonged to tried to deploy these one day systems in all locations in North America. Needless to say, it had a detrimental impact on our businesses and was short-lived.
Do I need a One Day Garage Floor Coating?
If you truly require a one day floor, our company is capable of installing an all-polyaspartic coatings system. We do have commercial coatings projects that demand a rapid return-to-service. In over 7000 residential garage floors, however, we haven't had any homeowner under such pressures.
I continue to evangelize to my staff words from my father “Take your time and do it right the first time”. In this case, that time is only an extra half a day.
Request a free quote today to get started with your (two days, hopefully!) garage floor coatings project!
Mike Mincemoyer is the Founder & President of STRONGHOLD FLOORS and one member of the ownership team. Mike has been actively involved since the beginning in 2004.
