How does Your Application Determine Your Choice of Floor Coating Material?

There are several types of floor coating material: simple sealers, epoxy, and polyurea-polyaspartic materials. Are you coating a garage floor? A home workshop? An industrial shop floor? Your application will determine your choice of floor coating material.

Dallas, Project Manager at Motorcity Floors and Coatings, offers the following advice:

“It’s a great question. So we [Motorcity Floors and Coatings] are based out of Michigan, and we have a little bit more extreme climates: really hot, really humid,… This can cause things to be wet. And any coating is still a painting, so you want to be mindful of that.

And with that, epoxy has a higher or a lower thermal shock level. What is a thermal shock? The word designates what temperatures extremes a coating can be in without it going from a liquid, or a solid back to a liquid. When it reaches an extreme out of its capabilities, it’s going to go back to a liquid. That’s when those hot tires will start leaving marks on the floor.

So it’s important to consider the thermal shock level of whatever coating you’re putting down in which environment. In a garage, usually the scene of very basic foot traffic, you pull a car in, you park it — you’re normally not doing donuts in your garage.

In a shop, there is a little bit more room for adverse events to happen. Whether it’s a forklift, or you’re dragging pallets, or the cars or if it’s a tool-and-die shop and you have metal shavings on the floor, you’re driving over it and things like that.

Epoxy is going to be more sensitive to marks being left because of its thermal shock level.

By difference, a polyurea floor coating topped by a polyaspartic floor coating is actually going to be less vulnerable to impacts like that on a day-to-day use.

Motorcity Floors and Coatings has years of experience setting up floor coatings in multiple types of scenario. The floor coating material you select will in part determine the longevity and the beauty of your application. So, whether you plan for a garage floor coating, or a worshop floor coating, a warehouse floor coating, or a patio and other types of outdoor coating situations, we invite you to contact our technical department to discuss your options and receive a solid advice for a long-lasting, aesthetically pleasing floor coating.