Decided to build a garage. Now the fun begins.

[Scooterwrench]

I was planning on using a concrete densifier a month or so after it’s poured. Is that too soon? Based on what I’ve read here, I’m not going to use epoxy.

For what it's worth I've worked on uncoated concrete floors pretty much my whole life. Painting floors started in the 80's when a bug got put into the publics head that if the shop you went to didn't look like a laboratory you were probably not getting good service. Shops were trying to squash the image of the big,fat guy with the stub cigar and and greasy white t-shirt standing there with big hammer saying "Yeah,I can fix your car". Oil is bad for concrete,I think it even rots it and smells terrible after years of soaking in. You could always tell a shop has been there for a long time by the smell of decomposing oil in the concrete floor. There is a way to combat that,it's called oil dry. The trick is to get it on there as soon as you have a spill. It won't take you long to figure out how to drain oil and coolants with a minimum of spillage using large catch pans but you're always gonna have a little so save your money on epoxy floor finishes and buy more oil dry.

You have been wondering how to heat your shop and I don't know why it didn't hit me right off the bat but one of the reason I quit cars in 06 was because of the EPA and all the BS and fees for waste oil,batteries and coolant. I discovered that if I was a motorcycle,outboard or small engine shop I qualified as a small quantity generator and no longer fell under EPA control AND I could burn the waste oil in a furnace for heat.

I never did,I just stored it in 55 gallon drums and had a waste oil company come pick it up and leave me empty drums to refill. Then all I had to do was keep the proof of receipt from the waste oil company if the EPA pr*k ever came back around.

 

[thinger2]

Just wait for awhile. Let it cure.
That also allows you to find out if they poured it correctley.
Epoxy will hide all of those sins but those sins are now glued to that top layer.
That heat cured top layer of the pour is now glued to the epoxy and not bonded to the conctrete pour.
That "smooth" surface is not a part of the the convcrete anymore.
Is is glued to the bottom of the epoxy.
That thin top layer that smooth surface of your pour gets cooked while the epoxy cures.
And you also need to take a look at what is actually 2 part epoxy or maybe air cured single stage urathane
The stuff they sell as garage floor coating is likely not 2 part epoxy.
No matter what you do.
Prep is everything.
And look real hard at the expiration dates on the product before you buy it.
Any type of anything that has a cure time will go bad.
Glue, fiberglass resin, whatever.
It is really commen to find 3 year old cans of crap garage floor paint on the shelf at home desperation or blows.
If you pay someone to do the job,
Demand to see the certs for the product.
There is a grey market for out of date uncertified epoxy that can no longer be used on a commercial project so that clumpy never gonna cure crap ends up in the residential construction world
.

Forgot to mention. You can save a bunch of money by doing the coating yourself.
It aint rocket surgery but it is labor intensive.
A couple of friends and some beers and burgers will be enough.
Leaf blow it, rent a floor scrubber, degrease it, rinse it.
Let it dry for a couple of days in the summer.
Scrub it again with a mild mix of swimming pool acid to etch the concrete.
Rinse the hell out of it.
Let it dry.
When you mix the epoxy, pay very close atrention to the mix ratio and the temparature charts and mix each batch the same way and mix each batch thouroghly.
The key to sucess in any type of resin or glue or boatbuilding or carbon fiber wrapping bridges is consistancy and predictabilty.
Every batch needs to be the same and have the same cure rate as the last mix.
Its all about the job flow and timing.
If you want a non-skid surface. Which i really recommend because epoxy floors are ass busting slick as snot spine killers
Get a pair of golf shoes. Metal spike shoes not plastic. Plastic cleats will glue to the floor.
With steel cleat shoes you can walk out into the wet epoxy and "broadcast" quartz sand on top of it as it cures.
The epoxy will self level back into the divots.
Buy way way more quartz than you think you need.
A cheap old school hand seed thrower works great for this.
Coat the crap out of it and back your way out.
Just walk like you are on high heels because slipping and busting your tailbone in wet epoxy sucks badly bad ****** up bad.
If you slip and fall in the epoxy you have about 2 minutes where isopropyl alchohol might remove it then you have about two minutes for acetone and maybe 60 seconds for MEK.
Be carefull. Epoxy can chemical burn you bad when it cures and when you get beyond the "solvent state"
Epoxy gets very hot as it cures.
Back before I figured out that my job was to keep everybody safe and alive I pushed a crew so beyond exhaustion that a guy passed out from the fumes and glued his head to the floor.
The only thing that saved him from chem burns was that this guy had the best hair ever put on a man.
My man had some well refined long thought out carefully taken care of hair.
And glued it to the friggen floor
We pried his head off of the floor and I hacked right through what was left of that really epic head piece with a buck knife and left him with a hacked off bright blue epoxied head.

 

[South VA]

Forgot to mention. You can save a bunch of money by doing the coating yourself.
It aint rocket surgery but it is labor intensive.
A couple of friends and some beers and burgers will be enough.
Leaf blow it, rent a floor scrubber, degrease it, rinse it.
Let it dry for a couple of days in the summer.
Scrub it again with a mild mix of swimming pool acid to etch the concrete.
Rinse the hell out of it.
Let it dry.
When you mix the epoxy, pay very close atrention to the mix ratio and the temparature charts and mix each batch the same way and mix each batch thouroghly.
The key to sucess in any type of resin or glue or boatbuilding or carbon fiber wrapping bridges is consistancy and predictabilty.
Every batch needs to be the same and have the same cure rate as the last mix.
Its all about the job flow and timing.
If you want a non-skid surface. Which i really recommend because epoxy floors are ass busting slick as snot spine killers
Get a pair of golf shoes. Metal spike shoes not plastic. Plastic cleats will glue to the floor.
With steel cleat shoes you can walk out into the wet epoxy and "broadcast" quartz sand on top of it as it cures.
The epoxy will self level back into the divots.
Buy way way more quartz than you think you need.
A cheap old school hand seed thrower works great for this.
Coat the crap out of it and back your way out.
Just walk like you are on high heels because slipping and busting your tailbone in wet epoxy sucks badly bad ****** up bad.
If you slip and fall in the epoxy you have about 2 minutes where isopropyl alchohol might remove it then you have about two minutes for acetone and maybe 60 seconds for MEK.
Be carefull. Epoxy can chemical burn you bad when it cures and when you get beyond the "solvent state"
Epoxy gets very hot as it cures.
Back before I figured out that my job was to keep everybody safe and alive I pushed a crew so beyond exhaustion that a guy passed out from the fumes and glued his head to the floor.
The only thing that saved him from chem burns was that this guy had the best hair ever put on a man.
My man had some well refined long thought out carefully taken care of hair.
And glued it to the friggen floor
We pried his head off of the floor and I hacked right through what was left of that really epic head piece with a buck knife and left him with a hacked off bright blue epoxied head.

Thanks for sharing this.

I have to say, the more that I read about epoxy floor coatings, the less inclined I am to go that route.

As of now, my plan is to use a densifier followed by a sealer. I plan to do it myself.

It looks like the cost of materials will be around $2k. Expensive stuff!

 

[someotherguy]

Forgot to mention. You can save a bunch of money by doing the coating yourself.
It aint rocket surgery but it is labor intensive.
A couple of friends and some beers and burgers will be enough.
Leaf blow it, rent a floor scrubber, degrease it, rinse it.
Let it dry for a couple of days in the summer.
Scrub it again with a mild mix of swimming pool acid to etch the concrete.
Rinse the hell out of it.
Let it dry.
When you mix the epoxy, pay very close atrention to the mix ratio and the temparature charts and mix each batch the same way and mix each batch thouroghly.
The key to sucess in any type of resin or glue or boatbuilding or carbon fiber wrapping bridges is consistancy and predictabilty.
Every batch needs to be the same and have the same cure rate as the last mix.
Its all about the job flow and timing.
If you want a non-skid surface. Which i really recommend because epoxy floors are ass busting slick as snot spine killers
Get a pair of golf shoes. Metal spike shoes not plastic. Plastic cleats will glue to the floor.
With steel cleat shoes you can walk out into the wet epoxy and "broadcast" quartz sand on top of it as it cures.
The epoxy will self level back into the divots.
Buy way way more quartz than you think you need.
A cheap old school hand seed thrower works great for this.
Coat the crap out of it and back your way out.
Just walk like you are on high heels because slipping and busting your tailbone in wet epoxy sucks badly bad ****** up bad.
If you slip and fall in the epoxy you have about 2 minutes where isopropyl alchohol might remove it then you have about two minutes for acetone and maybe 60 seconds for MEK.
Be carefull. Epoxy can chemical burn you bad when it cures and when you get beyond the "solvent state"
Epoxy gets very hot as it cures.
Back before I figured out that my job was to keep everybody safe and alive I pushed a crew so beyond exhaustion that a guy passed out from the fumes and glued his head to the floor.
The only thing that saved him from chem burns was that this guy had the best hair ever put on a man.
My man had some well refined long thought out carefully taken care of hair.
And glued it to the friggen floor
We pried his head off of the floor and I hacked right through what was left of that really epic head piece with a buck knife and left him with a hacked off bright blue epoxied head.

When my brother and I did his shop, we did it in pieces because the shop was HUGE and already in full swing. So we had to move a bunch of big, heavy stuff, clean really well, then coat. This was after already working 12-16 hrs in the shop. Yeah we were dumb as hell but we were the only ones going to get it done; everyone else already went home. Employees vs. people with the real investment, ya know? Anyway I was dead tired and we were likely out of our heads from the fumes, I went to clean out the sprayer and shot epoxy and solvent into the half full bucket which immediately kicked right back up at me. Painted my shirt, arms, face, hat, etc. Really unpleasant and I'm lucky I can still see. The reward for all that work and suffering of course was the super-slippery floor that showed ALL the dust. **** that floor.

Richard

 

[thinger2]

When my brother and I did his shop, we did it in pieces because the shop was HUGE and already in full swing. So we had to move a bunch of big, heavy stuff, clean really well, then coat. This was after already working 12-16 hrs in the shop. Yeah we were dumb as hell but we were the only ones going to get it done; everyone else already went home. Employees vs. people with the real investment, ya know? Anyway I was dead tired and we were likely out of our heads from the fumes, I went to clean out the sprayer and shot epoxy and solvent into the half full bucket which immediately kicked right back up at me. Painted my shirt, arms, face, hat, etc. Really unpleasant and I'm lucky I can still see. The reward for all that work and suffering of course was the super-slippery floor that showed ALL the dust. **** that floor.

Richard

The worst job ever. The Revlon purfume factory in Arizona.
That place smells for a couple of blocks before you even get there.
They market this stuff like some dude with a beret is hand pressing rose buds .
It is big vats of chemicals being sprayed in by bubba and bubba dont give a ****.
They had settled a lawsuit because of a high rate of testicular cancer.
Part of the settlement was that they had to post signs above each urinal describing how to ***** your nuts and look for lumps.
For us, this was rather unexpected.
Even though we were young and thought that we had pretty mapped out our ballsacks it handt even occured to us
that lawyers had determined that we need to ***** further.
Heres the deal. Balls can be bumpy.
Get it checked out
If your wife or your mom or your sister or your friend has breast cancer you will face a ******* wall where you decide if you have enough courage and the ******* balls to even keep moving today.
And how can I possibly umderstand what she is going through?
How do I wrap my mind around that?
How do you not be a ******* idiot.
What can you do or say .
In my mind it is an easy thing for me.
I will check out in my own way on my own terms and my plan.
But, I cant do that while she is alive and needs me.
The friggen plan was that because Im ten years older I would set her up for life and then drop dead.
Done, over gone thats it.
I will not die in a hospital bed laying in my own crusty dried out turds.
I will not grasp onto life with chemo pumping through my viens.
That will not happen.
I settled my deal with the world when I was born.
And that is how it is.
What the **** happens if she goes before me?
Im a pretty tough man.
But I dont know how I could myself back together if I loose her.
Thats what you start thinking about when you get old.
People, friends, family,
Nothing else matters at all

 

[Trio]

That's a hat I'd wear if my head weren't so small, hats make me look goofy!

In fairness, it might be the small head that makes you look goofy...

 

[Scooterwrench]

In fairness, it might be the small head that makes you look goofy...

Touch'e

 

[South VA]

Due to the excavator not being available last week, stump removal has been rescheduled to happen this Wednesday, October 11.

On Monday the 9th the Subdivision goes into the shop for electronic diagnosis and repair.

And goat breeding season is now in full swing. My role as goat wrangler involves helping to move the does and bucks from their respective pastures, one pair at a time, to the breeding pen, where the action takes place. And then back to their respective pastures. The boys are pretty bulked up this time of year, with two of them probably weighing 150 pounds each, and full of attitude. They make noises that you normally don’t hear out of them. It sounds like they have all lost their minds. And, in a way, I suppose they have.

It can also be dangerous if one is not paying attention, because they are quite focused on one thing. And they fight a lot, to establish and maintain dominance. I was in the boys’ pasture trying to get one lucky buck out of there and headed for the breeding pen, and somehow wound up between two large bucks that were jostling each other with their horns. I caught a glancing blow in my abdomen and it hurt. No punctures though; it easily could have been ugly.

Looks like a busy week ahead.

 

[Scooterwrench]

Hey you ol goat roper,you can remove stumps with ANFO! A little fertilizer and off road diesel fuel goes a looooong way,stumps to too.

 

[GrimsterGMC]

Hey you ol goat roper,you can remove stumps with ANFO! A little fertilizer and off road diesel fuel goes a looooong way,stumps to too.

That would just be too much fun. You know they will go up, you just don't know where they are going to land.