Granite Stone Marble

Why The Garage Floor Paint Is Peeling Away

Generally, when someone notices that their garage floor paint is peeling, they want to blame the product. They assume that, since the paint is beginning to flake off, it has to be due to faulty garage floor paint. This is not always the case. In reality, most garage floor paint will not peel, even if it is cheaply made or incorrectly installed; it will usually dull or rub off instead. For the most part, garage floor paint that is peeling is suffering from a moisture issue.

Epoxy Garage Floor Paint And Moisture

Epoxy will definitely insure the protect of your garage floor's concrete from moisture and humidity in air, but doesn't have any defense against moisture from under. Epoxy is made to have a seal-like ability that is able to prevent moisture from most origins from penetrating through, almost completely. For example, if oil were to drip on the garage flooring, it would not be able to penetrate through the epoxy paint, and as a result the concrete will not have absorbed it and can just be cleaned up.

Concrete Has Pores Too!

Since the concrete for your garage floor sits underground, both its sides and bottom are able to absorb any liquids that they find there. Even if something were to somehow get to the concrete there to stain it, you'd never see the actual stain, so the primary worry is water. Unfortunately, this water that is absorbed into the concrete must evaporate. That wonderful epoxy garage floor seal suddenly becomes its own worst enemy. It's a dual edged sword: it will keep the moisture in just as it keeps moisture out. As the water rises through the concrete, it begins to create bubbles under the garage floor paint. As the bubbles expand, they will eventually burst, causing the dreaded epoxy paint peeling.

Epoxy Garage Floor Paint: Killed By Humidity?

There are some area related factors that cause the dreaded peeling effect. Generally speaking, humidity plays a leading role. If you live in an area that is humid, most everything will stay damp, along with the earth under the concrete and also any wood that has not been treated that garages are commonly made of. Your concrete garage floor will absorb the moisture from these sources. But this situation can be increased fiercely when water pools from the concrete any where around your garage.

Ground Water Can Also Affect Epoxy Garage Floors

The height of your water table can also affect the garage floor coating. The water table is, put loosely, the surface of the ground water. If the water table sits high, this means that the water is sitting close to the bottom of your concrete, and the water will try to use the relatively porous garage flooring to make its way to the surface to evaporate. If the soil in your area tends to stay relatively moist, even when the earth is cracking only a few miles away from a heavy drought, then beware. It's very likely that you have a high water table.

Check out my garage floor site for more garage floor paint information.

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Epoxy Floor And Bubbles – What To Do?

Formation of bubbles is often seen in epoxy floors. The size of bubbles varies a lot, from an inch in diameter to as small as pinhead. You can find them in groups or scaterred around the floor. "Out gasing" phenomenon is what usually causes this. When the epoxy paint starts to dry, then this happens. When the air gets hotter, it will expand and this is what creates those small bubbles under the coating we just made.

Use application primer as a tool that can help to prevent bubbles. Also never apply the coating in direct rays of the sun and always use a drill of a slower speed when mixing the coating.

When a roller is used to apply the coating, it is better to use a medium roller. The epoxy should be applied very slowly in a gentle motion. This helps to prevent bubble appearance on the epoxy garage paint.

You can use rotary scrubber ans some sandpaper to remove all those bubbles on your epoxy floor. First roughen the bubbled area with the sandpaper. Then scrupulously clean the dust. Use a rag dipped in solvent to clean the area you worked on. When you finish this, apply one more coating. One more type of bubbles that can appear are fisheyes. They are usually caused by residual silicon on the surface.

You can easily clean this with scrubbing the problematic area with a sandpaper. When you are finished with this, you can clean the entire place with solvent dipped rag. And now you are ready to apply fresh epoxy coating.

In case you have bubbles appearing through the entire floor, then you should consider to sand blast or shot blast entire area. Use sand blaster to remove the epoxy coat from the area you are working on. You also need to clean the entire area with an acid. If the troublesome area is very small it can be treated in isolation. You will need to repair the area first and the you will have to make a new coating.

Our epoxy floors can have bubbles due to another reason: moisture. You can chech this by breaking one of the blisters and see is there any moisture there.

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