What Are My Garage Flooring Options?

Flooring your garage may seem like a straightforward task, but when it comes to DIY garage flooring, you want a durable floor that is easy to install, and gets the job done with as little maintenance as possible. We’ll start by listing the available choices, then explain why we think modular flooring tiles are the best option.

Floor Paint

Floor paint is the cheapest and least effective method of flooring your garage. Paint comes in either latex or oil, with oil being the most damage resistant, but still not a great option for your floor.

Epoxy

A two-part epoxy treatment can sometimes be the most durable garage flooring you can use. Although tough, epoxy is tricky to apply and can take up to a week for it to cure and harden. On top of that, epoxy usually takes several different coats: primer, epoxy, and a sealer. Keep in mind that this process will have to be redone after several years of use.

Stain

Garage flooring ideas that use stains are often the most decorative. They’re great to look at, but at the end of the day they are more luxurious than useful.

Sealers

Concrete sealers are the next step up above floor paint in toughness and cost. Sealers can look great with a high-gloss finish, but they often don’t stick well to concrete and have a tendency to yellow over time, meaning you’ll have to reseal it sooner rather than later.

Vinyl Tiles

Vinyl flooring is generally not recommended for garages. In some cases, vinyl works great. It’s best to think of vinyl tile as more of a coating than actual tile. You just spread the bonding, lay the tile, and wait a week before applying sealer. Although vinyl tile can come in different colors and may be fun to look at, it can also be very slippery, can stain easily, and can be damaged if you’re not careful. Also, vinyl has bonding issues in extreme temperature changes.

Modular Flooring Tiles

So now that you know some of the garage flooring options, it’s hard to decide which one to use as they all have significant drawbacks. What do you do? The solution is modular flooring tiles.

Garage flooring options should be do-it-yourself, but many of them that claim to be DIY are cumbersome, require trial and error, and require multiple steps. With modular, interlocking floor tiles, the minimum amount of effort is required to floor your garage. All you really need to do when using modular flooring tiles is sweep and vacuum the concrete floor before you begin placing the tiles. After all that’s done, you can begin laying your first tile and subsequent tiles by snapping them together.

Having years of experience shouldn’t be a requirement when installing a garage floor. That’s why modular flooring tiles are created to be easy to use right out of the box. The tiles can be laid quickly and easily with just a few simple instructions. The process is so simple, even your kids can get involved.

If you’ve used epoxies or paints in the past, you’ll notice that they have a tendency to wear thin, chip, and degrade. This depletes their usefulness and appearance over time. Modular floor tiles are a great option to cover chipped concrete, stains, and cracks. Plus the tiles will last many years and many of them have long warranties.

There are several flooring tiles you can choose: solid surface or open-profile. Solid surface tiles cover your floor completely. The open-profile tiles are popular for garages due to a good-sized channel beneath the tile to allow for drainage and easy surface cleanup. The tiles are about an inch thick and will completely guard your flooring while concealing stains and cracks. Either option you choose, you’ll have a great looking floor to show off.

Moving? That’s not a problem because what good is modular flooring if it can’t be moved? Modular flooring tiles can be moved with you to your new home. Removing the tile is as easy to do as it was putting it together. When disassembled, the tile can be stacked, moved, and reassembled at your new home.

The flexible use of the tiles makes it easy to cover a smaller garage or add additional tiles to accommodate a larger area. Also, you can always reconfigure the design of the tiles if you want to mix things up a bit. The tiles will still function and last as they should at your new residence as they did at your old one.

Garage flooring ideas are plentiful, but only modular flooring tiles allow for such easy assembly and removal while providing a high-quality, durable option, in a variety of styles and colors to fit your needs and tastes.

Click HERE to see modular flooring tiles in real garages from one of the leading manufacturers, Swisstrax.

Last Updated: February 27, 2016

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