Toughest Paint for Concrete Floor

LESLIE: Alright. Now we’ve got Linda on the line calling in from Florida. How can we help you today?

LINDA: I have a concrete floor that was originally stained. And then it was painted over with, supposedly, a really good stuff. And now, not doing well. And we want to take care of it but we don’t want to have to remove all that’s there. We just want to know if you have something we could put over it that will – it has heavy machinery in it and there’s gas and oil and all that sort of stuff there.

TOM: So this is where? In the garage?

LINDA: Actually it’s in a hangar.

TOM: Oh, it’s in a hangar? Oh, OK.

LINDA: Mm-hmm.

TOM: Yeah. So, usually, the best kind of concrete floor paint for an industrial location like that is epoxy paint. And the way epoxy paint works is it’s a two-part paint. So when you purchase it, it probably comes in larger quantities, depending on how many square feet you want to apply. But typically, for a house, it would come in a gallon-size container. Except that when you open the gallon up, it’s only filled up about three-quarters of the way because you also get a quart of hardener. And the idea is you mix the two together. And then the chemical reaction is what gives you the durability and the drying of that epoxy surface. Now, because it was stained I’m not as concerned. Because it was painted, you will need to at least get off any loose paint material that’s there now. Because if you put good paint over bad paint, you’re still going to have flaking. Because the bad paint acts kind of as the Teflon there and it won’t let the new paint get into the floor itself. So you are going to have to pressure-wash that concrete floor, you’re going to have to abrade that floor. You’ve got to get as much of that old paint off as you can so that you have a good surface. But I think the solution is epoxy paint. And they also have sort of a coloring fleck that can be added to that paint that gives it kind of a texture and helps sort of hide the dirt. So if you’re looking for a reasonably easy, inexpensive way to give that floor a whole new look and new life, I would recommend epoxy paint.