Why You Should Choose a Polyaspartic Garage Floor Coating

When it comes to giving your garage new life with a spruced-up floor, you have a variety of options that range from floor paints and tiles to polymer coatings such as epoxies, polyurethanes, and polyaspartics.

Each option has its advantages, whether it be price, ease of installation or look and durability. But upon closer inspection, some of those advantages might not be all that advantageous. So, let’s dive right in and have a look.

Garage floor paints bubble and peel pretty quickly. They simply don’t have the abrasion and chemical resistance that a polymer coating can offer. Tiles are easy to install, but they can often exhibit an annoying hollow sound when you walk on them, plus water and chemicals can seep in-between the joints and cause mold and other problems down the road.

Your best bet for a beautiful, long-lasting garage floor is a polymer coating of some kind. So, let’s take a closer look.

First, there’s epoxy. Epoxy coatings usually consist of two parts: a polymer resin and a hardener. Initially applied in liquid form, when combined, they result in a hard, smooth surface. However, epoxy coatings are not UV-resistant and will yellow over time. They also require three-to-four days to cure, which means you’ll be without the use of your garage for quite a while. In addition, epoxies can be difficult to install due to a narrow installable temperature range and extremely short pot life.

Polyurethane coatings offer the advantages of epoxy coatings but are UV-stable, which means they won’t yellow over time. They also offer improved abrasion resistance over epoxy coatings. Unfortunately, they also bring the same major disadvantage: a long wait before return to service. That’s because polyurethane coatings can take up to two days to install and another four or five days to cure. This means even more downtime than you’ll get with an epoxy floor installation.

Lastly, there are polyaspartic coatings. As with epoxy and polyurethane, polyaspartic technology provides a hard, durable surface. It offers superior abrasion and chemical resistance to other coatings, plus it resists hot-tire peel. They can be installed in just a day for a typical garage and only take 24 hours to cure. That means you get to use your garage much sooner than you would with an epoxy or polyurethane coating.

The only disadvantage of a polyaspartic coating is that it requires expert surface preparation to adhere properly. This goes beyond the usual sweeping or hosing down to include scarification with a walk-behind industrial grinder.

So, if you want a beautiful garage surface that lasts for many years to come, your best bet is a professionally applied polyaspartic garage floor coating like SparTek. Sure, you may pay a little more per square foot, but only polyaspartic technology offers the granite-like look and durability you want and can be installed in just a day.