hey youtube i'm diy bry and in this
video i'm going to show you guys how i
completed my garage epoxy floor project
from start to finish
[Music]
all right guys so i've basically broken
this down into five steps also i want to
go over with you guys what product i
chose and why
all right guys so there's lots of brands
of epoxy coats you can go with out there
you've got the brands at home depot
you've got the brands at lowe's
you can actually buy this particular
brand off of lowe's website
but i've done a lot of research
at trying to find out what brand i
wanted to go with
and i found i stumbled onto this
epoxy dash coat online so
to get there you actually put in
epoxydashcoat.com and it gets you to
their website
i read a lot of reviews
from different sites and spent gosh
hours trying to find the right product
before i put it down on my garage floor
and stumbled across this epoxy coat now
i think they're all relatively close in
quality however i did find some bad
reviews on a lot of the products out
there and
i couldn't find anything but good on
this particular product so i ended up
going with them they have a really good
support system
if you call them they've got
technical support they're there to help
you and they specialize in doing garage
floor coatings
the other thing that i liked about this
epoxy coat
brand is
it actually comes with everything that
you need pretty much
all right so as far as the stuff that
comes inside the kit
you actually get these spiked
shoe adapters you hook these onto the
bottom of your shoes
and these are really really useful
because it allows you to walk on the
epoxy flooring as you're painting it and
it doesn't start up or mark it you can't
even tell that you're walking on it so
that you can
paint your entire project with these
spiked shoes on
those were really really helpful
it also comes with this mixing stick
it also comes with this squeegee
it also comes with some rubber gloves
it comes with
an instructional dvd
comes with
rollers
a paint brush
they come with the chips that you need
this aluminum oxide
this allows it to uh to throw this into
the epoxy or into the clear coat
to make the floor less slippery
it also comes with a cleaning solution
and of course the main epoxy color comes
in different colors
and then also the part b hardener allows
you to mix those two together
all right so additionally you're going
to need a few things that don't come
with the kit
and most of it's optional but there's
still things that you'll probably want
to consider getting above and beyond
what's in the kit
you need a coke gun for coking all the
cracks i also use this particular floor
etching here as well all right in
addition to a paint roller you're going
to need you know a longer stick like
this one here to apply the epoxy so
other helpful things
that i used to do my project was a
pressure washer
actually used an air compressor to blow
out some of the dust
i also used some
to coke in the crack
a few drop cloths and some cleaning
brushes to scrub the floor really good
and a really good floor cleaner all
right guys so as far as the time that it
took me to do this project it took me
seven days now i didn't spend a ton of
hours each day but i broke this up
over seven days
now the first five days were cleaning
and prepping the floor every night when
i got home from work i would clean and
prep the floor and do another additional
step i would spend about two hours a
night
so i started this project on monday and
i had the floor
completely cleaned and prepped by friday
and then saturday i spent about five
hours
actually applying the epoxy
and the decorative chips down and then
sunday i finished up with another three
hours of
basically putting the clear coat down
and cleaning everything up in this video
you'll get complete instructions to
complete this project broken down into
five steps alright guys step number one
is to clean and prep the floor it's
probably the most important step into
getting a really good project it's
really important that you clean the
garage floor before you apply the epoxy
so that the epoxy doesn't peel off the
floor
okay so when cleaning the floor you just
grab a hose
and get the floor really wet
i picked up a zepp floor cleaner
from the home depot
and this allowed me to be able to pull
up some of the grease stains and a lot
of the oil buildup that was built on the
concrete
and basically you just take and you put
the cleaner down
and a scrub brush
hook to a pole and scrub all the oily
spots
dirty spots anything that's got a lot of
build up you want to get that all
cleaned off
all right guys so i've been scrubbing
the floor with uh with the brush
and the concrete floor cleaner and
although it might be fairly good on me
how oily residue that's off top the
concrete it doesn't really get the
stains too well or like a large buildup
i would definitely recommend spending
most of your time with the pressure
washer
i've got a pressure washer with this
turbo nozzle on it
so i scrubbed everything really good
with the brush
and then i took the pressure washer and
sprayed out all the build up that was
built anywhere on the concrete and also
pushed all the cleaner out of the garage
as well
all right guys step number two
so
in this step we're going to be covering
the tips on etching the floor to get it
ready for the epoxy all right to etch
the floor what i did is i got a weed
killer spray bucket and mixed up the
solution inside the bucket and sprayed
it on the floor and scrubbed it in
really good
okay so now i've got the uh
you know the first coat of the acid
etching
and uh you just want to rinse it off get
my driveway already wet
with water
so i can just kind of uh
rinse this diluted
solution
in the driveway
the idea behind this is to give it a
little bit of a rough surface
and they tell me to test it
you put a little bit of water down on
the concrete there and if it absorbs
into the concrete real good or fast
then that here's the adhesion of the the
paint
is going to be good but if the water
kind of stays on top of the concrete
bubbles up then that's what your paint's
going to do and the paint's not going to
uh soak into the concrete
all right so now i'm using the acid that
comes in the epoxy coat kit
and i'm just mixing it following the
directions that they gave me
it takes about
five quarts of water
per full kit packet
and so you just mix the two together and
make sure you get some rubber gloves and
rubber boots and
safety glasses and i like this little
dust collector respirator whatever you
want to call it so you don't breathe in
as much fumes
and they say to just kind of wet down
the the area
before you
spray the acid or apply the acid uh
etching to the area
um and i've kind of i've done it both
ways i've sprayed it lightly with water
and then i've
done in areas where i've just sprayed
the solution directly to it seems to be
about the
same um but you seem to go through a
little bit more of the product
if you don't put a little bit of water
down first so
i guess if you got extra product you're
probably okay to not wet it down first
you just got to make sure you rinse it
really good and get any residue out
before you start applying pots
then what i do is just take a little bit
of a little bit of water and sprinkle it
lightly
just take the solution and spray it into
the area
and scrub the area really good
[Music]
so i just work an area about like that
and then i just spray another area and
just uh repeat until you get all the way
through the floor
triple rings that
get any uh loose dust particles and uh
any of the solution out
all right guys so i've pressure washed
this floor twice i've cleaned it once
with a degreaser and i've also
etched it twice with uh some type of
acid
so i feel like short of you know renting
a diamond grinder i've done everything i
can to clean and prep this floor as best
i could
um each night uh you know a total of uh
four nights now uh cleaning and prepping
the floor
and then every night uh one thing i've
done is i've turned this fan on just to
kind of dry things out i've also left uh
you know that window open there
to you know bring in some fresh air and
let that fan circulate it out and
dry out the air a little bit
because one thing you want is you want
the floor pretty uh dry or completely
dry when you go to epoxy it so
you know i've washed it every night this
week and then friday uh tomorrow um i'm
not going to wash it at all so
uh all day tomorrow and then into
saturday it's
gonna have time to dry so it'll have
well over 24 hours
uh since i've last got wet before i put
the epoxy down
all right guys so now we're on to step
number three
in this step we'll be covering the
products i used to feel the cracks
and also fill some of the holes in the
concrete all right guys i've got the
concrete all uh prepared
with the acid hatching and cleaned it
now i'm going to go through and
caulk up
all these joint seeds here
just to kind of prevent dirt and bugs
and stuff and coming up in there and
also i think it's going to look a little
bit better
with
with the coke in there
this is specifically designed for
concrete
so i'm going to go along all the edges
and these joints here
and then also there's a couple holes and
a couple of cracks
that i'm just going to feel
with this ready-mix
patch
and let all that cure overnight and then
get ready to do the epoxy part
just push it into the crack
fairly thick you don't need to uh smooth
it out with your finger necessarily
just put it in there pretty thick
kind of an
excess of
the crack there
[Music]
all right guys so i've gone through and
used a self leveling
uh culk
in the main cracks
and then along there i used
a little bit more of a thicker cult that
does itself level
seemed to work a little bit better on
the
stairs there
and around all the uh
you know bottom of the the walls there
and i do think that it looks a little
bit better than just having a
basic crack there plus i think it's
gonna going to keep the
ants down a little bit possibly and just
uh
give an overall
a little bit better finished look
all right guys step number four
so in this step we're going to be
covering the process of actually
applying the epoxy down and spreading it
out
we're going to be covering the mixing to
get the the epoxy properly mixed and
we're also going to be covering the
decorative chips
okay keaton's my helper today
he's got the air blower
he's blowing out all the dust
from the corners and along all the areas
you can't have any dust
on the concrete floor because your
epoxy paint won't adhere to the concrete
very well if there's dust on it
so grab your helper maybe a
leaf blower and or compressed air like
keaton's got there and
go ahead and blow the air blow the dust
off there keaton
good
keep doing it dude
get all that dust out of here
all right guys so i'm right in the
middle of uh epoxy in this floor
um i've got this section uh done so far
so you apply the epoxy down you smooth
it out
and then you put the
flake
into it if if you want
so at this point
i'm just
uh rolling out the epoxy over here
and then um on the
stairs there i pretty much did most of
that with a brush
i mean you just kind of put the epoxy on
real heavy
and use your brush and smooth it out now
the epoxy is kind of self-leveling
so it um
you know if it's not real smooth at
first it starts to smooth itself out
but one thing that happens is if you
start to get these little bubbles
on these little uh fish eyes they call
them there
so
after about 10 minutes you'll see those
bubbles in there and you got to go
through and roll over it again to get
those fish eyes
out of the epoxy
and once you put on the flake
you can't really go and roll over it
again so
my suggestion is is uh wait to put that
flake on as
as long as you can when you're doing
this epoxy you only mix the amount that
you're going to be cut covered um you
don't mix the part a and the part b for
the entire floor
just the actual section that you're
working in you mix that little section
and then you pour that onto the concrete
and then
you smooth it out and then you mix
another section
so depending on your desired thickness
will depend on how far you spread that
amount out now on the epoxy coat kit
it has you mix a specific amount
amount for each
section
and so if you want to spread that over
like a 10 by 10
section it's going to be thinner
than spreading it out let's say a 10 by
5.
so what i've personally been trying to
do to get the desired thickness of the
epoxy that i'm looking for
is
the amount that they tell you to mix has
a little uh premix stick
what i do is
i factor about 60 square feet
per
uh
amount that they have in mix and that
seems to get the desired thickness that
i'm looking for
so you can tell
right there i've already got the flake
down and i've got a little fish eye so
what i've been doing
is i've just been taking my my brush
and just kind of dabbing it a little bit
put a little epoxy in there and it seems
to smooth back out so if you see those
go ahead and take your brush and
kind of uh
dab and pop the bubble
all right so as far as mixing this stuff
up you've got the little stick that
comes in the kit now the kit
tells you to put the hardener up to this
line here
you just put it in the bucket until it
fills up to that line and then you put
in
the actual color
the part a
up to that one so basically you just
take
the part b first
and pour that in there until
you're at the line
and it's best to do this on a level
surface
now of course
if you're not using this brand you want
to use the
instructions that come with the brand
that you're using
and then you just take the
part a which is a
taupe color
and you fill it up to the second one
and this amount of mix
for me i am covering it about 60 square
feet
to get the desired thickness
so it comes with a drill attachment in
the kit
and you want to mix this up really good
it says to mix it for about three
minutes
all right so now what you do is you take
the mix
and you just pour it onto the concrete
now since i've got to go fairly high up
the wall over here
i pour a fair amount by the wall
so that i can work it up the wall there
so i'll put you know a fairly good
amount there
and then you just kind of
pour it along the concrete
so what you do is you just take this
squeegee
and i first kind of squeeze it i just
kind of
pull the squeegee and pull some of the
product
up along the side of the wall here first
and you just take your squeegee and just
kind of
just like you're rolling it
all right so you basically just take the
squeegee and push the product
out over the desired working area that
you want to go with
in my case for the desired thickness
that i was trying to get the product to
spread across
was basically about 60 square feet
covering it evenly over that particular
area
i went over it a couple times in each
direction just to try to get the epoxy
coat covered fairly smoothly
now once you've uh you know got the
the product just kind of smoothed out a
little bit
i take and just kind of run it up along
the wall
and i put kind of some extra product
right by the wall so i can
use my brush to get it up there
right now so what i'm doing is just
taking all the epoxy and brushing it
along the walls where the roller is not
going to reach
that just take the squeegee just kind of
squeeze the product out again one more
time to kind of smooth it out maybe
extend
how far that it goes
then what you do is you take the roller
and you're basically just smoothing it
out at this point
so you just keep smoothing out the
product
evenly over the working area now i go
one direction with the roller and then i
go the opposite direction
just to get a real good smooth even
coverage of the epoxy coat
and i'll go over it a couple times
in this crack area i just recommend
using the brush
to brush the epoxy
into the crack and smooth it down
and then another area i recommend
once you get it all rolled and smoothed
out is just take your brush along this
area
and remove some of that excess thickness
that's there and just kind of smooth
that out
so at this point you basically just wait
about 10 minutes and then you smooth
over it again
and you just kind of keep an eye
out for those fish eyes and smooth those
out as needed as well with the roller or
brush or whatever
but you give that about 10 minutes and
then you um
you know while you're mixing the other
your next section up you can um
mix that up and then roll over it uh you
know one more time
my roller's getting pretty dang hard so
i'm actually going to
change it
to a new one which will absorb
some of the epoxy up and i'll lose some
more epoxy but
it's getting pretty hard it's not
smoothing it out very well all right so
now i'm at the point where um
this is smoothed out enough i've gone
through and removed all the air bubbles
um in this section here
as i work along
when you get through another section you
get through another section
you want to go ahead and add the
decorative chips
which help with making the floor a
little bit
less
slippery a little bit of
slip resistance in these chips
so to get them evenly uh what you need
to do is you actually check them up
fairly high um above five feet five six
feet and just kind of let them dissipate
rather than shut them down
at the floor you want to throw them up
in the air you need to bounce them up
off the ceiling
and it just space them you know really
evenly so you just kind of throw them up
real high
and then you get a good even
texture instead of kind of throwing them
in spots
that kind of makes a little bit blotchy
all right so you can see i've got this
paper and tape down here so i can get it
you know a good sharp edge
with the epoxy
a few things that i'm glad that i had
[Music]
were a bucket of water
and plenty of extra rags i've got uh you
know painters rags
over here and obviously these um
these tarps here outside the garage
were a must so
a couple things i would definitely
suggest are
water rags and uh
a couple tarps all right so you can see
that's the first section i did there
and then this is the second section
and then i uh
went ahead and did this section here
now over here i haven't gotten to the
chips yet
so if you're wanting to look without the
chips
that's kind of what it's going to look
like
um
this has been smoothed back out
a couple times
this section over here
is still kind of curing i'll go through
and actually run the roller on that one
more time to just smooth it out
all right guys so i'm not sure how well
you guys can see the texture
or the flake
but something that i found out is it
works really really good
to bounce it up off of something like
the ceiling or like
on this last section here
i bounce pretty much the entire section
up off of the garage door
where areas that i didn't do that
it's a lot more blotchy and like there's
that one spot right there that's really
heavy flake
there's not really a whole lot you can
do about it once you have it on there
other than you know epoxy over it and do
it again
throw them at the wall or you throw them
at the ceiling
it really made a difference in
an even
coverage of the flakes another
suggestion would be
you know start in an area that
not as concerned about people seeing
until you get a hang of of how to get
the
correct amount of texture down
all right guys so we're in step number
five
step number five we're going to be
covering the tips in applying the clear
coat and also the aluminum oxide
anti-slip
all right guys so i've got the
coat of epoxy applied
it's dried
it's real smooth
i think it actually turned out really
good i'm just getting ready to put the
clear coat on there
they say to apply the clear coat within
10 to 24 hours
if you go over 24 hours i guess you have
to go through and sand it so
you want to make sure you get that
applied in the first
you know 10 to 24 hours
the other thing i've done is i've
applied a new barrier of tape there for
the clear coat i pulled the first bit of
tape off within the first couple hours
so that it
you know came off easily and i didn't
let it cure overnight and pull pull try
to pull the tape off after because then
it would be real hard to get the tape
off
you know it's it's pretty clear and it's
smooth
you know even if you didn't put a clear
coat down i think you'd be okay in this
case
you know i'm going to add another
coat of clear to it
i'm going to start on the stairs
and it comes with
uh in the epoxy coat kit it comes with
this um
aluminum oxide non-skid
stuff that you just throw on the stairs
there
or any area that you think might get
slippery when wet all right so i've got
the clear coat all mixed up
and i'm just going to pour along
the area
[Applause]
all right guys so as far as the clear
coat i spread the product a little bit
further because i've already got a
pretty thick coat of the base down i
went a little bit thinner on top just to
give it a little bit more depth and a
little bit more gloss to the floor i
decided to add the clear coat and you
basically just
apply it in the same way put it on the
squeegee smooth everything out and then
grab your roller and go through and roll
the whole thing just like you do the
base coat