Garage Floor Resurfacing: Prepare a Pitted Garage Flooring

Special concrete resurfacers will make a concrete flooring look like new

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Time

Multiple Days

Complication

Beginner

Toll

$101–250

Introduction

Restore a pitted physical garage floor with an like shooting fish in a barrel-to-apply resurfacing product. It'll make the floor await fresh and new again at a pocket-sized price.

Tools Required

Materials Required

  • Concrete cleaner
  • Physical crack sealer
  • Resurfacer

Projection step-past-step (10)

Step i

Results to expect

If your slab is suffering from low self-esteem because of pits, craters or cracks, y'all can embrace up those scars. Concrete "resurfacer" is a cement-based coating that forms a smooth, new surface right over the quondam physical. The cost of resurfacer for a two-car garage is typically less than $200. You'll also need to buy or hire some special tools, and so wait your total price to be nearly $300 for this how to resurface concrete projection.

Cleaning and resurfacing the floor ordinarily takes 1 mean solar day (on the other mitt, clearing out your garage so you can work may take weeks!). Spreading the resurfacer smoothly is the trickiest part of the project, so it helps to take some experience with physical or drywall finishing. Absurd atmospheric condition, with temps in the 60s, also helps. Warmer weather condition makes resurfacer harden faster, reducing the time you have to finish the surface.

As a first-timer, yous might achieve a perfectly smooth, flat finish. Or you lot might end up with a few rough spots and small ridges. Merely even if your work is far from flawless, you lot'll even so make a bad floor look much ameliorate. And remember this: If yous make some major mistakes, y'all can add a 2nd coat—this time with the benefit of experience.

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Step two

Buy the materials

Resurfacer

Nosotros used Quikrete Concrete Resurfacer (nearly $twenty for 40 lbs.). Similar products, such every bit Sakrete Flo-Coat, are available. Buy enough to resurface the whole floor. To estimate the amount you lot need, check the label and and then buy two or three actress containers. Better to render some than to run out before the job'southward done.

Plastic sheeting

Plastic

Protect walls with a ring at least three ft. high. We used vi-mil plastic, simply lighter stuff will piece of work too.

Brush and push button broom

broom

A stiff brush designed for stripping decks and mounted on a handle (shown) will keep you off your knees ($10). So will a push broom; get a push broom with the stiffest beard you can observe.

Squeegee

Squeegee

Get a beefy version designed for floors, not a lightweight window-cleaning tool. A quality squeegee will give y'all amend results and is worth the price ($xxx to $45).

Mixing equipment

A powerful 1/2-in. drill and a mixing attachment ($12) are the but way to go. Mixing by hand is too slow.

Protective gear

gear

Safety boots and gloves protect your skin against the degreaser and resurfacer (which can burn skin). You'll as well demand eye and hearing protection. You'll need a force per unit area washer, concrete cleaner (such as Quikrete Physical & Stucco Wash No. 8601-xv; at habitation centers), a castor, push broom and a floor squeegee. Buy enough concrete resurfacer material (such as Quikrete Concrete Resurfacer; 40-lb. bags) to coat the entire floor. Refer to the coverage specs on the bag to decide how many bags you need.

Everything yous'll need for this project is available at home centers. Aside from basic tools like a hammer and chisel, buckets and a steel trowel, you'll demand:

    • Resurfacer
    • Plastic sheeting
    • Concrete cleaner
    • Stiff, long-handle castor or push broom
    • Force per unit area washer
    • Squeegee
    • Mixing equipment
    • Protective gear

Step 3

Clean the slab and fill deep holes and cracks

Get-go with a clean flooring

Scrub with a concrete degreaser and a stiff brush, and then follow upwards with a force per unit area washer. Rinse twice to remove all residue.

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Step 5

Remove the loose stuff

Chisel abroad any loose fragments along cracks or craters; at that place's no demand to bust away concrete that's firmly attached.

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Step vi

Concrete Flooring Patch: Fill up cracks, craters, divots and pits

Mix upward a stiff batch of resurfacer, using just enough water for a workable consistency. Scrape off the backlog and so repairs are flush with the surrounding flooring.

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Step 7

Create a dam

dam

Glue weather strip to the floor exactly where the garage door rests. This will stop resurfacer from flowing onto the driveway. The cleaner the concrete, the meliorate the resurfacer volition stick. Start with a thorough sweeping. If you lot have oil spots to clean, scrub them with a deck castor and concrete cleaner. Once you've removed the stains, employ cleaner to the whole slab with the brush. And so burn up the force per unit area washer (Photo 1). Start in the dorsum of the garage and work your style to the forepart, forcing the excess h2o out the overhead doorway.

Important: If you find that the cleaner doesn't soak into the concrete but just beads up into aerosol on the surface, yous have a sealer over the concrete that you'll need to remove. In that instance, utilize a stripper first to remove the sealer, then clean.

When the slab is clean, discover and mark the deep (1/4 in. or deeper) pits and divots (Photo ii). Wait for any pieces of physical that the sprayer may have loosened. Chip these away (Photo 3) and collect the debris as you get, sweeping it into a dustpan with an onetime paintbrush. Now's the fourth dimension to fill these cracks, divots and pits. Mix some resurfacer to a mashed potato-similar consistency and push the mix into the cracks. Smoothen it with a cement trowel affluent with the surrounding surface (Photo 4).

If y'all have expansion joints cutting into the existing slab, push a weather strip into the joint. This will maintain the joint and give you a convenient time to stop and take a suspension. Apply and smoothen no more than 150 sq. ft. of resurfacer at a time for the all-time results. You can gum a length of weather strip to the slab to ascertain a stopping bespeak if you don't accept a command articulation and and then continue from that edge once you've smoothed the first section.

For a nice-looking finished edge under the overhead door, we practical a heavy-duty vinyl weather strip (Photo 5) that we picked up at a local home center. Simply be sure to dry the slab along the location with a hairdryer so your adhesive volition work properly.

Step viii

Mix and spread the resurfacer

Mix like mad

Mix

Recruit a helper to mix the resurfacer while you spread it. The cloth begins to stiffen speedily, then the faster yous get it all mixed and applied, the better your results.

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Stride nine

Spread information technology smooth, and so let it set

Spread

Spread from the center of the puddle. Push the squeegee frontwards under moderate force per unit area to piece of work the resurfacer into the concrete and forcefulness information technology into pores and pits. And then drag it back to eliminate edge ridges and to smooth the coating. Continue spreading until you get fifty-fifty coverage. Aim for a thickness of i/8 in. When you've covered the whole floor, let it cure for 24 hours before you drive on it. This is the time to recruit a helper. You'll need ane person to mix and another to spread resurfacer. Have 2 minutes to read the directions before mixing. The central to a polish, lump-complimentary mix is to let the resurfacer 'slake,' that is, sit in the saucepan for a few minutes later on the initial mixing. Then mix a chip more (Photo half dozen). It'southward also adept to take a slat of wood on hand to scrape the sides of the bucket equally you mix.

Saturate the concrete with h2o and then use a broom to push button out any puddles from the pitted areas or low spots. The concrete should be damp when you apply the resurfacer, only not wet to the touch. Pour the mix into a puddle on the slab and immediately spread it (Photograph vii). Work quickly and carefully, blending each stroke into the previous one until you go a nice, uniform look. Polish the resurfacer along the side walls by pulling the squeegee toward you lot. As you lot reach the edge of the door atmospheric condition strip, employ your steel trowel to gently alloy the resurfacer confronting the conditions strip. You tin can remove the excess with the trowel and drop it into a bucket.

To apply a nonslip texture, lightly elevate a make clean push broom in 1 management beyond the still-wet material (allow no more than 5 minutes of setting fourth dimension earlier applying the broom finish).

With the slab finished, let the mix set upward. In hot, dry out weather, information technology'due south a adept idea to mist the hardened surface; keeping it damp longer volition let the resurfacer to fully harden. After several hours, the stop will support foot traffic. If the pits still show, let the material prepare and apply a second glaze afterward in the day. But you can stop with i coat if information technology provides good coverage.

Depending on the weather, wait at least 24 hours earlier driving on your newly finished slab. Follow the manufacturer's directions for additional hot-weather misting procedures or extra drying time for absurd weather condition. After a few days of curing, you can apply a sealer if you'd like to protect the slab from oil and other stains.

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Footstep 10

Erase your mistakes

If you stop upward with ridges, shallow craters or squeegee marks, yous don't accept to live with them forever. Get to a rental shop and rent a physical grinder for nigh $125 a solar day. It looks like a flooring polisher, but it grinds downwardly the surface, removing about 1/16 in. with each slow pass. It'south a dusty task that might accept all day, but you'll get a much smoother, flatter surface—perfect if you want to apply a finish like epoxy paint.

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Originally Published: February 22, 2021