We blogged about cleaning garage floors prior to applying special stains, paints, or coatings to keep them looking good. However, before your apply these products, there are a couple other preparation steps you should take to make sure they work the way you want.
Sealing cracks
As this article points out, you should seal any cracks in the concrete, and that starts by determining what caused the cracks. Some superficial cracks are caused by settlement or multiple freeze/thaw cycles and aren’t a problem. Other cracks caused by tree roots or standing water under the concrete are more serious and require eliminating the cause. Once you’re ready to fix the crack, thoroughly clean the area, apply regular cement (you may need to use latex cement for larger cracks) with a putty knife, and smooth the surface to make it level. After it dries a little, cover it and sprinkle a few drops of water on it every day until it dries.
Roughen the surface
Whatever coating you use to seal the floor, it will adhere better to the concrete if the surface is rough. As we outline here, you can roughen your floor’s surface by applying a special acid solution to it or by using a walk-behind grinding machine. We recommend the machine method because the acid can work against your coating if not fully cleaned up.
As you can see, there are multiple steps for properly cleaning and coating a garage floor, every stage must be carefully completed or all your hard work will be for naught. The other option you have is putting your project in the hands of a professional contractor such as TLC Garage Works. We handle every part of the process from cleaning to prepping to finishing and take the time to make sure the job’s done right. Contact us to learn more about our floor services.