Q:
I am considering installing a new floor over the concrete floors in my garage and breezeway. I'm thinking about hiring a company that uses a hybrid polymer for new floors. The price of this material is about $5.95 per square foot, which amounts to $3,100 based on the size of my garage and breezeway. Do you have any experience with this type of flooring? It would be far less expensive to just paint the floors--would you recommend that instead?
A DIY epoxy garage floor paint kit would save money and give you great results. Hybrid polymers, such as the one your contractor proposes to use, are blends of paint resins that bind well to cement and have very good UV and abrasion qualities. Applications are known as overlays and more commonly referred to as skim coats. Overlays are especially useful when the original concrete surface is worn, so using a hybrid polymer on a surface that's in good structural condition is overkill and very, very expensive.
Epoxy delivers a coating twice as strong as concrete for the toughest garage floor in one coat and costs less than 30 cents a square foot, or about 20 times less than the hybrid polymer you were considering. I'd recommend you go with a DIY garage floor epoxy paint kit and use the money you save for some nice garage storage cabinets!
Answer by: Tom Kraeutler