Updated 4/5/22
Epoxy floor coating can change your outdated flooring, transform your space and strengthen your flooring. The floor protects concrete surfaces from heavy impact and maintains a glossy look. Most people use garage floor epoxy coating or auto shop epoxy coating to keep the floor safe from damage. Also, epoxy covers floor defects and hides other imperfections. You can choose any color or design to compliment your theme.
Epoxy is also resistant to hard impacts. Garages and basements are high-traffic areas, and since epoxy is hardy flooring, it prevents floor damage. Apart from heavy shock, epoxy is resistant to heat, chemicals, and water. It’s also a heavy duty flexible coating and the best coating for garages since vehicles can emit corrosive chemicals. Most people wonder, are resin and epoxy the same thing? Resin and epoxy differ in their intended use. However, you can ask your contractor for more information and resin coating meaning.
Epoxy is tough and resistant to shock. Heavy items toppling on the floor can cause wear and tear. Epoxy ensures the cars, tools, and equipment don’t leave a mark on the floor. After installing epoxy, you don’t need to redo the floor for a long time. If you use the best concrete epoxy paint, its appearance will also last for years.
Epoxy is a type of material that has applications in a wide variety of industries, from aerospace to paint and much more. It has a big market, valuing the industry at around $15 billion in the last few years. It is particularly used in the United States and in China, where manufacturing is a huge part of both countries.
Epoxies are generally made up of two parts: epoxy resin and the curing agent. Epoxy resins are known as polyepoxides and they are a reactive class of prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. Epoxies are generally cross-linked with another chemical agent, creating the curing agent that is useful in so many applications.
Epoxy has been used in metal coatings, electronics and electrical components such as LED, high tension electrical insulators, paint brush manufacturing, and and structural adhesives. But perhaps the most well-known use for epoxy comes from flooring; in particular, those garage floors in houses.
Garage floors, as part of the house, are often made with an epoxy coating that include epoxy resin and the curing agent. Epoxy flooring can increase an area’s brightness by 200% and in 2014, the market for epoxy coatings was estimated to be more than 800 kilo tons. There are characteristics about epoxy that could have applications for epoxy flooring:
- Curing time for epoxy can be increased or decreased by 100% if the temperature is raised lowered by 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Polymers have been used as overlays on concrete for more than 35 years (polymers part of larger group that contains epoxy).
- Epoxy formulations used to coat concrete are generally 100% non-volatile, are resistant to chemicals and abrasion, and adhere well.
- An depending on exposure to traffic, epoxy can last five to 10 years.
Garage surfaces are made out of epoxy because the surface is easy to maintain and easy to clean, while providing a nice polish that makes it easy to see spots that need to be cleaned up and because it looks extremely good. Epoxy coatings are useful at reducing the impact of stains and dirt, which can occur with car tires especially.
The main parts about cleaning the epoxy surface of the garage floor is simple. First you need to get yourself a wide mop, one that is capable of covering a good deal of the surface at once, but not like a sweeper, which just picks up the dirt and absorbs it into the thread.
A good mop can be purchased at a local hardware store as well as large retailers like Wal-Mart. It can also be purchased online at Amazon and other large online retailers where products are placed together and customer service reviews are often the make or break deal where customers then by products.
It is possible that this mop doesn’t have to be a “water” mop but could also be a dust mop. Try for a mop to be two to three feet in width and to have it have the ability cover large surfaces, like the mop mentioned in the previous paragraph. It can be either mop. The choice is up to the owner of the garage.
Spot cleaning is possible with a quick wipe from a paper towel for leaks form cars or spills from drink or the like. Heavy duty cleaning is a little bit different. That involves a heavier mop with a little more heft and the ability to soak up more liquid than the other mops.
For garage floors that receive a lot of traffic, a good heavy duty cleaning session is good every three to four months. The idea is to use a good cleaning solution and to dip the mop every so often into the cleaning solution while also rinsing the mop off to get the dirt off the mop.
When you’re looking for epoxy applications, consider searching for the following terms: floor resurfacing techniques, food and beverage flooring, hangar floor coating, helicopter hangar flooring, military installations hangar floor, polymer cement overlays, private aircraft hangar floors, types of floor resurfacing, and urethane cement.
Epoxy flooring is very useful for providing a hard to damage, hard to stain, hard to dent flooring that is easy to clean up, easy to maintain, easy to manage. Epoxy flooring is useful in many applications where high duty vehicles come through.
