Epoxy flooring was first invented in the 1930s and ever since then, it has often been used to coat garage floors. However, epoxy flooring may not be the right kind of coating for you and your garage floor. There are actually other options you can consider.
But what is so bad about epoxy floor installation and why should you avoid it? As it turns out, there are more downsides concerning this type of floor than you might think. Keep reading and learn more about this floor coating below and why you should avoid it.
Epoxy Floors Are Not Resistant to UV Rays
UV rays come directly from the sun and tend to damage everything they touch. The sun’s rays do this by affecting every object on a molecular basis. In particular, these UV rays are able to break the molecules in an object, effectively damaging that object.
You can see this in just about everything the sun touches. For example, when the sun hits your skin, especially for a prolonged period of time, your skin will burn and you might even develop skin cancer. If the sun beats down on the surface of your car, your car’s paint and clear coat will eventually start to fade and peel.
Similar damage can happen to epoxy floors. Epoxy floors come in all different kinds of colors, so you can choose which color might complement your garage best. However, if you often leave your garage door open or if the sun shines onto the garage floor through the windows, you will find that the epoxy’s color will start to change.
This occurs through a process known as ambering. This is because epoxy floors tend to turn a shade of yellow or amber after being exposed to enough sun. In some cases, the sun can discolor the floor so much that it will turn an ugly shade of brown.
The Details
This, of course, will take most, if not all, of the style out of your garage floor. There are some cases in which the floor will fade rather than discolor. This can make your floor look old and even dusty. This, of course, is the last thing you want after paying so much to get the floor installed in the first place.
Even if you’re very careful about keeping your floor out of the sun, it will still end up somewhat discolored over the years. The big downside is that there is no way to fix this problem once it occurs. You can’t simply scrub the floor and hope that the discoloration will go away.
Rather, the problem is with the entire epoxy coating itself which will become discolored the longer it is exposed to the sun. There is also no such thing as epoxy flooring that is resistant to the sun’s UV rays. While there are some types of epoxy that are a bit more resilient than usual, even the strongest epoxy will still end up getting discolored.
Epoxy Can Crack and Bubble
While epoxy floors have a few benefits, they often fall victim to their own downsides. One of the major downsides is that epoxy tends to crack. This happens when the concrete floor beneath the coating starts to shift.
There is nothing you can do about this for a variety of reasons. For one, your concrete garage floor will always shift at some point because the earth beneath it will shift at some point as well. Obviously, there’s not much you can do about the earth under your house shifting and settling.
These shifts are usually very small and not very noticeable. However, if you have an epoxy coating, they will become much more noticeable. This is because epoxy’s biggest weakness is that it has a serious lack of flexibility.
Even if the floor beneath it shifts even slightly, the epoxy will not be able to move along with it because it is a brittle rather than a flexible material. For that reason, you may start to notice small (or even very large) cracks running through the epoxy layer.
These cracks usually start out very small at first because, as mentioned before, the earth usually only shifts in small amounts. However, over the years, these movements will start to add up and become more noticeable. At that point, the cracks in the epoxy will become quite hard and virtually impossible to ignore.
What You Need to Know
Of course, once the epoxy starts to crack, the few benefits it had to offer would be completely destroyed. For example, the epoxy coating would no longer be resistant to water since water could seep right down to the deeper layers of the floor through the cracks. It would also become very difficult to clean the coating since a lot of the dirt, dust, and other debris would get stuck in the cracks.
Besides cracking, the epoxy may also start to bubble as well. Bubbles often occur soon after the installation process. It is more common in floors that are DIYed rather than done by professionals.
These bubbles may be very small and numerous or they may be very large and noticeable. Whatever the case, once the bubbles form, it will be pretty much impossible to remove them. This is is because, during the installation process, the epoxy coating will be in the form of a liquid.
But once it is installed and starts to harden, there won’t be anything you can do about adjusting the floor. Once the bubbles start to form, they will be solidified into the rest of the epoxy coating. Some of the bubbles may be near the surface where they will ruin the surface texture of the epoxy or they may be trapped deeper in the epoxy coating.
Whatever the case, these bubbles can be quite ugly and can ruin the entire look of your garage floor if you’re not careful.
Alternatives To Epoxy Floors
Besides these downsides, there are many other reasons why you should avoid epoxy floors. For example, they are slippery, emit strong odors, and take a lot of effort to install. So, you might be wondering what you should do if you should avoid this type of floor.
Should you just stick with an ordinary concrete floor? Not at all! Instead, you should opt for an epoxy alternative such as polyurea.
But what is polyurea, you might ask? Polyurea is a material that is similar to epoxy but it is much more resistant. In general, polyurea is much like the upgraded form of epoxy.
But what can it do that epoxy can’t? First of all, polyurea is much more resistant to the sun than epoxy. When the sun hits a polyurea floor, you won’t have to worry about it discoloring or ambering.
This is because this material is much more stable when it comes in contact with the sun’s UV rays. For that reason, you won’t have to worry about your floor becoming an ugly shade of yellow or brown. You won’t have to worry about the color of the floor fading too much either.
What to Know
But that’s not the only benefit that polyurea has to offer. Another big benefit is that this floor is far more resistant to cracking because the material itself is more flexible than epoxy. As mentioned before, epoxy is not flexible at all and it will start to crack the moment the earth beneath it starts to shift.
This is not a problem you’ll need to deal with if you opt for polyurea instead. This is because polyurea is very flexible and it will move along with the concrete floor beneath it. This is important because cracks can completely compromise the coating and ruin the concrete floor beneath.
As long as no cracks form in the coating, your concrete floor will be in perfect condition for many years to come. Yet another benefit is that this floor is slip-resistant, unlike epoxy which is famous for being very slippery. So, you won’t need to worry about hurting yourself by accidentally slipping on this type of flooring.
All About Epoxy Floors
It is a good idea to avoid epoxy floors for a variety of reasons. For one, these floors are not at all resistant to sun damage and they tend to turn an ugly shade of yellow or brown over the years. These floors also crack easily when the earth beneath them starts to shift.
A good alternative is polyurea which is much more durable and resilient. To learn more about polyurea flooring, click here.