Custom Garage Interiors offers a variety of options for your garage floor. About Garage Flooring Covering Options
Polymer Hybrid Flooring
Our custom flooring is the top of the line in epoxy style flooring. The application methods and proprietary epoxy blends make our custom garage floors a more durable product than traditional epoxies, which are prone to bubbling and cracking over time. We grind every cocnrete slab before applying our system. It is the only way to get good adhesion to the slab and making the floor last. Beware of others who claim to be able to apply their floor with an acid wash, or to put it down in one day for $2 per square foot. Yes, ours costs a little more but it will last and look great. How long have they been installing floors in the Seattle area? The amount of moisture here makes our installation process critical to the success of the floor.
Roll Flooring
BLT G-Floor is a roll flooring made out of high quality polyvinyl. It is available in a coin shaped, diamond tread, levant or ribbed pattern. It is easy to install easily tranportable. Choose from Midnight Black, Sandstone Royal, Blue Forest, Green Slate, Grey Brick, or Brick Red to give your garage the custom look.Garage Flooring Options
If your garage floor is cracked, dirty or damaged there are three main types of flooring for garages that will fix or hide your problem:
- plastic tiles
- vinyl roll out
- epoxy style
All flooring options have their pros on cons and different price points. Some options are more of a short term fix while others can last you many happy years. In this article I will explain the advantages of each flooring option.
Plastic tiles offer a temporary and/or long term flooring option. The tiles are not bonded to the floor and can be removed or replaced at any time. There are many different colors and designs available to suit the buyer's needs. Most of the tile manufacturers produce the tiles 12"x12" in size although some larger tiles are available. Generally, these tiles cost around $3.00 a square foot for the material. Typically these tiles are 3/8" in height and edging pieces are needed for the front of the garage.
Advantages: Most tiles are easy to cut on a table saw and chop saw to fit the nooks and crannies and can be installed by the DIY type. If you decide you want to move or try something different you can easily pull up the tile flooring and take it with you. This type of floor looks very good when clean.
Disadvantages: Plastic flooring is the loudest flooring to walk on. The tile's sound seems to magnify off the concrete. Kids love this, bad effect for parents. This type of flooring tends to show the dirt more than any other type of flooring. The tiles typically have a textured surface which holds dirt and if the floor is swept the dirt tends to sit in all connection points in between the tiles. These gaps around the tiles collect the dirt and these gaps differ in size from manufacturer to manufacturer. These gaps are intentionally added into this flooring for expansion purposes, which brings us to the largest con of this type of flooring. Most plastic products will expand when they are heated. Plastic tiles are no different. In warm climates or if the sun hits directly on the tiles the flooring will expand. Tiles with large gaps in the tile connections allow this process to be less noticeable and conversely tiles with smaller connection seams will expand much more noticeably. Manufacturers recommend leaving a half inch or so around all edges to minimize the expansion. Although, if you have a car parked on the floor and a work bench or shelving unit, then it doesn't matter how much of a gap you left around the edges as the floor will not be allowed to move. If this is the case then the floor will rise in waves, and could buckle if a car is driven on it. Moisture can also be a problem. Moisture can arrive in 3 ways. From the top when dripping off cars or a spill in the garage, from the ground below the concrete when you concrete is not sealed properly, and from condensation. Most floor tiles are made for airflow underneath to promote evaporation. In wet climates we have found that moisture will stay under the tiles. This can promote mold growth and odors.
Vinyl roll out flooring is another way to cover your garage floor. Like tiles you have many colors and patterns to choose from. Prices for vinyl flooring vary from about $2 to $2.50 a square foot for the material. Vinyl rolls usually come in "car stall" sizes so if you have a three car garage you would need to purchase 3 rolls. Typically these rolls are 10'x24' in size.
Advantages: This floor covering method is probably the quickest and easiest to install by your self. All you need is a box knife to trim off excess flooring, double sided tape for the front edge and a strong back as these rolls can be quite heavy. You don't need to adhere the vinyl flooring completely to the garage floor although some customers have been known to do it. This type of flooring is easy to clean with a light cleaner. This flooring option can also be rolled up and taken with you to a new location at any time.
Disadvantages: There are some similarities between the disadvantages of plastic tiles and the vinyl flooring. Vinyl flooring can expand when direct sunlight shines into your garage. The good news is that this problem is much less of a factor than the plastic tile expansion problem. It is recommended to leave a quarter inch around all edges for expansion purposes when trimming the flooring. Moisture can certainly collect under the flooring if the garage floor and can create a mold and mildew problem. There is no airflow under the vinyl to remove the moisture. Obviously this issue is greatly determined by your climate.
Epoxy style coating. The flooring of this style that we use is an Epoxy Urethane Polyaspartic coating. This system works well for us and has an excellent MVE (moisture vapor emission) rating meaning that it seals the concrete very well. Epoxy coatings typically have about 10 different color schemes. Install can take 1 to 3 days depending on which system is used for the garage floor. Cost per square foot is usually $4.50 to $5 a square foot installed. This type of flooring, if done correctly, tends to look the best for the longest time relative to the previous two flooring types already discussed.
Advantages: This type of floor when installed correctly will last a long time. You should be looking at a quality looking garage floor for a good ten years. The floor is extremely easy to clean by sweeping or using a blower. Light to medium cleaners can also be used to clean spills and stuck on messes. Stem walls in the garage can also be coated to enhance the garage look as well. The main difference between the epoxy and the plastic tiles/vinyl roll out flooring options is the epoxy option is permanent and is in a sense improving the concrete floor versus temporarily covering the problem. Typically all cracks and imperfection are filled so the floor will look better than new when completed. Moisture is not an issue when done correctly as there is no space between the flooring and the concrete.
Disadvantages: Cost. The initial cost per square foot stings a bit, but the floor should last you at least twice a long as other alternatives with far less maintenance. The big thing for an epoxy floor is that the floor
In summary the three types of flooring discussed have their advantages and can solve the consumer's needs. The big question is how long are you looking for this flooring option to last and how much can you afford to spend on it?
| Price sq ft | Moisture issues? | DIY install | Last 10 years? | cleaning | Aesthetics | |
| Plastic tiles | $3.00 | maybe | yes | no | ok | good |
| PVC roll flooring | $2.50 | yes | yes | no | good | good |
| Epoxy style coating | $4.50 | no | no | yes | excellent | excellent |
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