A lot of homeowners want an epoxy coating for their garage floors—except a lot end up mistaking epoxy paint for it. If you’ve been having trouble understanding exact what an epoxy coating is, here’s a quick rundown of epoxy essentials:
Why the confusion?
Contrary to what you might have believed in the past, epoxy coating isn’t paint. However, marketing specialists found out that people used the term ‘epoxy coating’ to search for epoxy paint. So they basically decided to give the public what they wanted by epoxy coatings by epoxy paint. And the confusion was born. These days, you might go to the shop for coating and go home with epoxy paint instead. It’s not at all uncommon, with many paint companies calling their epoxy paint products ‘coating.’
Epoxy Coating
Epoxy is made up of two components: epoxy resin and polyamine hardener. Mix them together and what you get is epoxy coating. Just remember that, if you’re using this on your garage floors, don’t empty out the cans. Mix only small portions. The coating dries very quickly so applications needs to be swift. If you’re a bit slow, you’ll end up with a useless, hardened mixture. Also, epoxy tends to cure, so it doesn’t dry like paint does.
Ease of Application
You’ve got to be careful to strike the right balance when you add to the volume of solids epoxy in your mixture. 100 percent means you’ve got 100 percent of epoxy content which will be tougher to manipulate and work with. The less epoxy you put into the mix, though, the less thicker and viscous the resulting mixture so it’s easier to apply on your floors. However, less solid epoxy content also means a thinner coat so be careful about adding too little or too much.
DIY or Experts?
A lot of popular kits that are available in the market make it seem easy to use the kits. That’s because most of them contain an epoxy solid content of as little as 48 percent. That’s why they’re as easy as paint to apply. However, you do get what you pay for. So expect that to be a lesser quality in terms of coating for your floors. If you want that epoxy finish but don’t want to bother with all the hassle and work, you can ask companies like Granite Garage Floors in Atlanta for your garage flooring needs.
