Sweet Garage Flooring

Quikrete is a name that many have heard, but didn’t really have a product to put with the word.  It’s one of those household names that most of the people in the household are pretty clueless about.  This article aims to clarify exactly what Quikrete is, and is mainly aimed at Quikrete garage floor coating.

So, What Is Quikrete?

First and foremost, Quikrete is a brand name.  They’ve been around since 1940, and produce a lot more than just concrete repair products, which is what they are best known for.  In addition to Quikrete garage floor coatings, they also make tile setting products, blacktop mixes, floor underlayments, stucco, sand and aggregates, as well as many other items.  They make numerous products that could be used on your garage floor as well.

Quikrete Garage Floor Preparation Products

These products are intended to be used before you apply any epoxy garage floor paint.  They include the Bond-Loc concrete cleaner, as well as an oil stain remover.  Although the oil stain remover can be used at any time, and probably should be used early since stubborn stains may require multiple treatments, the floor will have to be cleaned just before applying the epoxy garage floor coating, unless the directions for the coating say otherwise.  Both of these actions will have to be taken before any epoxy paint is applied, Quikrete or not.

Quikrete Garage Floor Clear Coating Products

If you simply want to add a clear coating to your concrete garage floor, Quikrete offers two products.  They have an stain sealer that will add a high gloss to your stained garage floor and protect it to some degree, and they also have a high gloss clear coating for garage floors that are not stained.  If all you are looking for is some protection against oil and other chemicals, then this might be your best choice, though it will not be as durable as an epoxy coating.  The regular clear coating can be used for painted floors, though, so that may be a good idea if you have an older epoxy paint job that is starting to fade.

Quikrete Epoxy Garage Floor Coating Products

Three different products are available from Quikrete when it comes to epoxy.  Their one part epoxy, which can be had in 16 different colors other than gray, is a resin based product.  They also have a clear water based product to coat any type of garage flooring.  The big daddy, though, is their epoxy garage floor coating kit.  It comes with their cleaner as well as color flakes, and is available in 64 different colors in addition to tan and gray.  There are even different color options for the color flakes.

Quikrete Concrete Stain

If the goal is to give your garage floor some color, but not necessarily add protection, then Quikrete Concrete Stain may be for you.  Applying it is quick and easy, it’s relatively cheap, and you’ll certainly end up with unique looking flooring.  Just keep in mind that you will need to apply a seal afterward, and that Quikrete Concrete Stain will not protect your garage floor on its own.

When it comes time to choose your garage flooring, there are many different options from which to decide.

Garage floor paint will provide you with an excellent garage floor coating, and will also give you some nice color as well.  This paint is designed to keep your garage floors nice looking, in addition to protecting it from chemical stains and other damage.  There are quite a few brand names and types of garage floor paint out there, so we’ll quickly take a look at a few of them.

Rust-Oleum EPOXYShield Epoxy Garage Floor Coating

Rust-Oleum’s EPOXYShield garage floor coating is available mostly in browns and other tans.  To some, this may be a deterrent, since many people purchase paint because they want to add some colors to their garage floors.  However, if brown is okay, or you simply do not care what color your garage floor is, than this Rust-Oleum might be good for you.  It comes available in a kit that is designed for a one car garage, and even includes an instructional DVD for installation.  It is, like most garage floor coating, waterproof and stain resistant as well.  The reviews on this particular product are great, which really speaks for the ease of install.

Weatherbeater Epoxy Garage Floor Coating

Generally available for a little less than Rust-Oleum’s product, the Weatherbeater Epoxy Garage Floor Coating offers most of the same promises, minus the instructional DVD.  It’s not rated as well, but does come with decorative chips to accent your garage floor.  Without the instructional DVD, it’s very likely that the poor reviews are coming from people’s inexperience at installing garage flooring, so you may want to take those reviews with a grain of salt.  Speaking of salt, Weatherbeater claims that their garage floor paint is resistant to salt, as well as other chemicals such as gasoline and oil.

Quikrete Epoxy Garage Floor Coating

Quikrete is probably the most popular garage flooring paint, and is available in over 40 colors.  They also include color flakes, like the Weatherbeater, if you would like to add such accents to your garage floor.    Their formula is twice as strong as concrete, and they claim that it is the toughest garage floor finish available.  It is a bit more expensive than the other two, however, and reviews are hard to come by.  Sometimes no news is good news, though, and you can bet if this hadn’t worked on many garage floors for whatever reason, there would be plenty of negative reviews.

Although probably the hardest to install, especially correctly, garage floor paint is definitely the cheapest option of all.  If you are willing to do the work yourself, you can easily coat an entire single car garage for under $75.  Considering the money you’ll be saving on repairing concrete in the future, that’s a heck of a deal.  There’s no doubt that there are many other reasons to choose an epoxy garage floor coating.  Just make sure you check out all your options first, before deciding, since it would be rather difficult to undo.

Why is it that there’s always something wrong with the house?  First the dishwasher, then the refrigerator, then the furnace and, now your garage floor has developed cracks.  Great.  I bet you never thought about garage flooring as something you needed to maintain, did you?  It’s cement.  It’s on the ground.  It’s simply not something you thought about.  Until it started cracking.

Hopefully you did this search well before the cracks started, but if you didn’t, Quikrete can be used for both a garage floor coating and a repair substance, depending on the situation, of course.  The best part is, as far as epoxy garage floor coatings go, Quikrete is both cheap and easy to work with, making some things a do-it-yourself process that you really didn’t think you could do.

First, before you can begin your epoxy garage floor coating, and before you can understand what Quikrete is, it’s important to understand exactly what concrete is.  Concrete is a blend of water, cement, and some sort of aggregate, such as sand or gravel.  It’s used for building material in so many places because the components are everywhere and, more importantly, cheap.  It’s also moldable and can even come in different colors, which makes it very versatile and useful in all sorts of projects.  It’s also very tough; resistant to rot, decay, fire, wind, water, extreme temperatures, and wear-down by animal traffic.  Unfortunately, though, it’s hard to work with and very slow to fully dry.  That’s where Quikrete improves upon traditional concrete.

The biggest advantage for Quikrete when it comes to choosing an epoxy garage floor coating is that, depending on how much is used, it can set in as little as ten minutes.  Even the average job is dry between 20 and 40 minutes.  It’s available in small packages for repairing either a garage floor, or even a sidewalk or driveway.  It’s also easy to find in bulk in case you want to use it for larger jobs, such as a garage floor coating.  Once you get it home, you can prepare, set, and finish your job all in one day.  This stuff removes a lot of the cost and time associated with home repairs, and if you don’t want or can’t afford heavy equipment or a contractor, then Quikrete is a godsend.

Quikrete is much easier to mix than traditional cement.  That being said, there are still some challenges when it comes to mixing quikrete, and you’d be wise to do some research on the matter before you start.  If you’re no stranger to home repair, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the product instructions, while helpful, aren’t always everything you need to get the job done.  Either way, whether you’re using it as a repair substance or a garage floor coating, Quikrete just might be what you’re looking for to simplify that nightmare of a project.