We've got the epoxy at my work, we don't do much in the way of welding or torching but the one time we did the spatter from a torch left some burn marks, not sure if there are differant coatings that may be more heat resistant.
How about having it ground? The home depot nearby just had all of its floors ground and polished, I think they put down a clear epoxy afterwords, it looks very nice.
Two options I can think of would be to have it ground or a thin concrete overlay.
Grinding isn't all that hard to do. Most commercial rental centers have floor grinders. Sort of like a floor buffer that uses abrasive blocks to smooth the floor. Wear hearing protection and a dustmask. I'd hook the shopvac up to the grinder to limit the dust. The most important thing is to keep the grinder moving and not sit in one place. If you want, you could grind it with a cup wheel on a 7" or 4" grinder. Not fun but it works for small hard to reach spots. If its just the top surface that has a rough broom finish, I'd start with the fine grit blocks. If it has alot of trowel marks and humps start coarse and then move to finer grits. I would figure a day to grind the floor at most if its not to rough.
Thin overlays are trickier. You sort of need to have the right tools and materials to do the job right. You will have to move everything out and keep it out till the overlay dries. They hold up well to gerneral traffic but don't take a lot of pounding.
I've ground alot of floors and done some overlays. 8 years doing concrete from residential to commercial. If you are semi competant you can do a decent job grinding the floor yourself and save some money. Any questions feel free to pm me and I'll be glad to help.
One warning, smooth concrete floors can become VERY slippery when wet. That is the reason most exterior concrete surfaces are either given a broom or "mag" finish. You don't have to grind to a polish, just enough to knock down the roughness enough to sweep better will be fine.
I think you'll want a little bit of texture so it's not slippery, I would try a light floor grinding just to knock down the rough texture a little, and maybe get it stained.
You can try the "garage floor paint" but it's not very durable.
i picked up one of the tornado style vacuum cleaners that someone had set out for trash. i took it home and it wouldn't suck anything up, but the beater bar worked fine. after 5 minutes, i found it had sucked up a small poker chip type toy and had gotten lodged before completely packing up with hair...
now it cleans all kinds of stuff up off the floor. mud, grinder dust, small rocks, etc is no problem. the best part is i just dump the canister into the trash and go on, no filter bags!
Don't bother with the concrete overlay, a year or two of abuse and now you have a floor with cracks that are chipping up. I would just do a grind and call it good. Simple and effective.
Don't bother with the concrete overlay, a year or two of abuse and now you have a floor with cracks that are chipping up. I would just do a grind and call it good. Simple and effective.
I have the home depot DIY epoxy coat on my garage. Its my second garage floor to get it and I have never burned or discolored it. Course I do not use a torch but I do a lot of welding and cutting with chop saws and angle grinders and the stuff has held up.
mike,
if you grind it, grind the whole floor and clean it up real well. then you can coat it. they make epoxy with slight texture to it, or you can just seal it.
shop vac does work like a champ...just takes time...might be cheaper to get a good shop vac with 30 foot hose...plus it doesn't throw dust in the air.
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