What Is The Best Floor Paint To Use For My Concrete Garage?

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A good quality floor paint can drastically improve the appearance and durability of a concrete garage floor. Painting your garage floor is cheap, fast and goes a long way to maintaining your flooring by reducing the effect of wear and tear. Painting your garage can also partially correct an uneven floor surface, as well as providing valuable anti-slip properties. There are several types of concrete floor paint available for garages, the main ones being latex acrylic paint, and 1-part epoxy paint. How do you know which is the best type to use?

Single Pack PU Floor Paint

Single pack PU floor paint is a cheap and attractive choice of floor paint for low traffic domestic garages. If you use your garage just occasionally and you don’t store/work on a vehicle there, consider this as an option. However, latex acrylic paint does wear out quickly, so in heavy use areas you may find yourself needing to recoat your paint once a year or more.

1) Two Part Epoxy Paint

In our opinion, 2-part epoxy paint is the best choice for concrete garage floors, because of the natural resistant qualities of the epoxy. The epoxy resin, when mixed with the paint, makes the paint more resistant to:

  • Mould, mildew and damp
  • Abrasive chemicals
  • Cleaning products
  • Oil and grease spills
  • Scuffing and chipping
When you combine this with epoxy paint’s hard wearing finish, you get a paint coat that lasts more than twice as long as a standard latex acrylic paint. In addition, one part epoxy paint is better at bonding to concrete than paint on its own, reducing the risk of blistering, flaking and tyre damage, caused when hot vehicle tyres cool down on the paint surface. One part epoxy paint will cost a few pounds more per can than latex acrylic paint, but the price differential is well worth it in terms of increased resistance to wear and tear.

Application Guidelines

The following application tips will help you get the best results from your epoxy floor paint:
  • Mix the epoxy catalyst with the floor paint at a ratio of about 4 kg of floor paint to 0.7 kg of catalyst.
  • Mix the catalyst thoroughly and gradually into the paint, using a slow running drill to mix for 3 or 4 minutes.
  • Thoroughly prepare your concrete surface area, abrading any former paint coating and filling holes and cracks.
  • Clean and prime the concrete surface. This will encourage the new coat to bond with the concrete and provide better inter-coat adhesion.
  • Apply paint using high-quality brushes or mohair rollers, or with a spray paint gun following the manufacturer’s instructions. (If you’re using an air powered paint gun, thin the paint with a mixture of about 10% white spirit by volume). Depending on the application method, each litre of paint should cover up to 4 m² of concrete.
  • Aim for a minimum ambient temperature of around 10°C to encourage rapid curing.
  • Apply in two coats, 24 hours apart.

Two Pack Epoxy Solvent-Free Garage Floor Paint

As far as specific products go, our two pack epoxy solvent free paint is one of the best available to use on concrete surfaces with heavy traffic. This specially formulated garage floor paint provides a hard wearing and highly protective coating, along with exceptional chemical resistance. The paint can be used on concrete floors as a dust sealer and may also be used in warehouses, industrial facilities, shop floors and commercial kitchens. The product provides an attractive gloss finish to concrete floors, and can also be mixed with a texturing agent for an anti-slip finish. Two pack epoxy has a minimal odour, making it perfect for domestic garages. After application, it is touch dry in between 2 to 4 hours, and light traffic can resume after 12 to 24 hours. Do not subject the floor to heavy traffic or replace furniture until 7 days have passed.

High-Quality Floor Paints For Concrete Garages

At TA Paints we supply a range of high quality two part epoxy floor paints suitable for commercial and domestic garages. To find out more about our range, please visit our online store. If you are unsure of the best type of paint to use for your garage, please download our free Ultimate Floor Paint Guide by clicking here.

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