I have a old concrete floor in my shed, I would like to put a sealer on it. I was wondering what other folks have used.
Happy 4th.
Fitz
Never thought about it myself, mostly because any of the sealer’s for garage floors take between 24 to 48 hours to cure. I usually just throw a couple of scoops of clay litter under anything that may leak.
Use Super Seal 30 concrete sealer. Fantastic product. Commercial grade sealer. Put on with roller. I get mine from a concrete supply company also a concrete mix plant here in Tennessee. I paid $93.00 for a 5 gallon pail. It is by far the best sealer/paint/curing agent for concrete I have ever used.
I have tried many different things.
The cheapest thing that was reasonably good was gray utility floor paint from Lowes. It is oil based and goes down on top of oil stained cement with minimal prep. I like using 3 coats. The biggest downside is a phenomena called hot tire pickup. If you park a car on top of it with hot tires when you drive away it will pull some paint up. If this is a shed that will not see cars in it right after driving, this is what I would do. It is slow to dry, but it is good stuff. Throw a little grit in the last coat for grip.
http://m.lowes.com/pd/Valspar-Utility-Gray-Gloss-Enamel-Interior-Exterior-Paint- Actual-Net-Contents-128-fl-oz/3343608
The next best coating for low prep is Rust Bullet. It is a product similar to por15, but grey and used on floors. It is much more expensive than regular paint, but it requires very little prep and gives a finish as durable as industrial epoxy. Google "rust bullet garage journal" and you can read more about it.
I have industrial epoxy in my house garage and it is my least favorite floor coating. Prep was horrible and although the coating is much more durable than regular paint it is coming up in a couple of places near expansion joints after 10 years.
There are other non traditional options as well. You could put down VCT tiles (what you see on the floor of a walmart or hospital or supermarket) the tiles are about 50 cents each and you have to buy the glue and a sealer / polish. You can lay and polish a VCT floor for about a dollar a square foot. Downsides are that it does not tolerate point loads like jack stands, it is slippery when wet, and tires will leave marks on it. I did it in my large barn in a black and white checkerboard and it looks great.
Probably the ultimate is a porcelain tile floor. That is what I did in my workshop. It is super durable and cheaper than industrial epoxy if you do it yourself. Lots of people assume the tiles will break if you drop something, but it isn't the case. Tiles break when they bend / flex. At home sitting on some plywood and durock they will flex and break if you drop something. Sitting on 4 inches of concrete they do not flex. Porcelain is actually stronger than concrete. My biggest mistake was grout choice. I should have went with black, or a dark epoxy grout. The grout is getting black anyway... Watch the video in the link below of a guy hitting his floor with a short sledge. I did the same to mine after install and nothing happened.
http://allgaragefloors.com/porcelain-garage
Joe
I use whatever commercial concrete sealer is the latest and greatest sold at my supplier.
Being in a snow zone, and seeing how my own shop floor gets abused, I am reluctant to sit
back and rely on that aging seal coat to keep the ice-melt stuff the City puts on the winter
roads from tracking into my shop and causing frost pops in my glass-like concrete surface.
As a result, I have no issues with oil spills and go out of my way to do that kind of work in
the areas where my vehicles parks after being on the street. A year's worth of spills will
hopefully keep those 3 months of ice-melt stuff from finding porous spots in the slab and
cause problems.
Another reason to embrace spills is that old shop smell. I can still smell my Grandfather's
shop, 50 years on, when I close my eyes and picture the sun, filtering through the dirty windows
like shafts of golden light upon the micro-floatie dust, peculiar to scenes like old shops filled
with all the right stuff.