Your Brief Guide: How to Repair a Garage Concrete Floor

Your Brief Guide: How to Repair a Garage Concrete Floor

Have your garage floors seen better days? You’re not alone; cracks, chips, and spalling are all very common, but that doesn’t make them any less annoying.

If you are planning to seal, paint, or epoxy your garage floors, the floors need to be as close to flawless as possible before you start. The good news is that you can repair garage concrete floors, and in some cases, you can even do it yourself. It just takes a little work and know-how.

This blog will cover the basic steps in repairing simple surface damage to your concrete garage floor.

Choose the Right Repair Product

There are many concrete crack repair kits available from specialty retailers and big-box outlets. However, most professionals would urge DIYers to stay away from cheap latex or water-based concrete filler kits. While they are easy to use, they tend to fail over time, will not accept paint, and are not sandable, so getting a smooth finish is almost impossible.

Epoxy, polyethene, or polyurea-based concrete crack fillers are more difficult to find at your local hardware store, but the results are much stronger, and they can be sanded down and painted if that’s in your cards.

Chase the Crack

If you are not familiar with concrete repair terminology, and really, who could blame you, chasing the crack refers to a process where you break away any loose material around the damaged area before repairing. The reason this is done is that even the best polyurethane or epoxy crack filling compound is only as strong as the material it is bonded to; if there are still bits of chipped concrete, your repair won’t last.

Using a chisel and a hammer, begin removing any loose material while carefully following the angle of the crack. Keep hammering away at the chisel until all the loose concrete has been detached. Next, shop vacuum away the bits of the material left in the crack, making sure to get everything before cleaning the rest of the area.

Apply Your Repair

Carefully following the manufacturer specifications for the product you have chosen, you can now start your repair. Epoxy-based fillers should be well worked into the crack to ensure any trapped air is eliminated. Once the epoxy has been worked into the damaged area, you can use your trowel to smooth out the surface. If you begin noticing dips as the material settles, you can apply another coat.

For larger cracks, fill 3/4 of the crack with silica sand before applying the first layer of epoxy filler. Once the epoxy has soaked into the silica sand, you can apply a second layer of epoxy, topping it with a sprinkle of sand and then wait for it to set. Once set, you can scrape or sand away the top layer.

Once the epoxy has fully cured, which shouldn’t take more than a few hours, you can use a grinder to sand the top layer, leaving a smooth surface that will eventually be ready for paint, sealer, or epoxy coating.

It may not be all in a day’s work, but it can be done. However, if you prefer professional to repair a garage concrete floor, Kings Services is here to help.