Your garage might not be your first priority when it comes to flooring choices, but when you think about it, your garage experiences a certain amount of wear and tear that is unique to it. Carrying the heavy weight of your car day in and day out, being exposed to certain chemicals that can corrode and react with incompatible flooring, and seeing the most mud and dirt inside your house are a few of their own struggles.
Finding the appropriate flooring for your garage is more than just an aesthetic choice. It helps make sure that your garage space is safe whatever you might need it for. You’ll eventually find that it is easy to narrow down these choices, as they are not a lot of flooring options that are durable enough.
Garage floor tiles and epoxy flooring are two popular types of garage flooring. They do have their own pros and cons that we will explore in this article so that you can pick the one that’s best for your own garage.
Garage Floor Tiles
When it comes to floor tiles, ceramic tiles are a common choice. One of the more durable types of tiles, ceramic tiles can be used in places with a lot of foot traffic. However, you’ll find that most ceramic tiles are not the best choice for garage flooring.
PVC Tiles
Another type of tile is interlocking PVC tiles. These are the actual tiles that would be recommended for you when you are looking for garage tiles. Generic ones are made from molded PVC plastic, although more durable options are available like vinyl and rubber.
PVC tiles are often lauded for their ease of installation. These tiles have a groove or tab on the sides that make them snap right into the next tile. This modular flooring makes them easy to install and repair if a few tiles are damaged.
PVC tiles usually come with a coin pattern which helps create friction for your garage. They can easily withstand heat and humidity, as well as not get affected by oils and other chemicals that they may get in contact with in your garage.
Rubber Tiles
A more durable option is 100% rubber tiles. They are used when you expect your garage to have a lot of moisture, perhaps when you use them as your home gym. Non-absorbent rubber tiles make sure that no moisture is ever locked on the floor, where bacteria may live and survive.
Perhaps the consideration that most homeowners would think of when they get garage tiles is aesthetics. No matter what kind of tiles you’re getting, you can be sure that you have a wide selection of designs that will match whatever motif you want to have to go on with your garage. They are definitely the top choice for the aesthetic-minded.
Epoxy Coating
First off, we have to clarify that epoxy coatings are different from epoxy paint. For floorings, epoxy coating is far more durable than paint.
Epoxy coatings are a two-part polymer coating that includes resin and cures to form a hard, glossy finish that is resistant to corrosion, chemicals, and other harmful effects from the environment. Most common epoxy coatings are 100% epoxy, which makes sure that you get a chemical-resistant smooth surface in each coat.
Epoxy floor coatings have long been the go-to choice for protective coatings, due to their durability and longevity. Plus, they are easy to maintain. Wet parts can be easily mopped away while vacuuming and sweeping dirt are enough to keep the surface clean. Additionally, you can also add an anti-slip coating to make the garage even safer.
However, epoxy coating’s advantages come with its own sets of disadvantages. To ensure that you are able to utilize all the advertised advantages of the coating, you might want to leave the application to the professionals. You want around 2-3 coats, with around a few hours in between each application.
Additionally, you want the concrete surface upon which you’ll put the epoxy coating to be pristine, too. The epoxy coating does not fix problematic surfaces, and a bad concrete surface might also affect the quality of your garage floor coating.
Comparing Floor Tiles and Epoxy Coating
Each of them has its own pros and cons, and we’ll discuss both sides and help you decide which one is the best for your garage.
1. Durability
If you can make sure that your garage will not experience any strong floor impacts, both epoxy coating and floor tiles can last you for many years. However, although ceramic tiles and PVC tiles are generally durable materials, they still carry the risk of breaking. Epoxy coating, when applied properly, can easily last for decades without needing to be recoated.
Due to this technicality, epoxy coating wins out the durability category.
2. Ease of Installation and Repairability
As mentioned above, garage floor tiles are the best option for DIY homeowners, since they are easy to install. Just slide each tile together through its grooves and tabs, and you’ll have an amazing tiled garage floor with minimal effort.
On the other hand, epoxy coating is best done by a professional. Although DIY tools such as roller and brushes are available if you do want to apply them yourself, a professional will do the job far better than you, and their experience will make sure that you get the perfect coating that you want. Plus, the epoxy coating can release toxic fumes in the application, further incentivizing the professional’s aid.
Additionally, you would also need to prepare the concrete floor properly so that the coating will bind to it. In total, you might need to plan for an entire day to do the entire epoxy coating.
Although quite unlikely, if you do happen to damage your coating, you will have to redo the entire coating. PVC tiles do not have the same problem, since you can simply replace the broken tile, which can offset their durability issues.
If you need the garage floor to be fixed right away, or if you prefer to do the flooring yourself, PVC tiles are easily your go-to.
3. Maintenance
Both floorings exhibit a similar level of maintenance. However, PVC tiles and ceramic tiles can suffer from having a lot of debris accumulate on the edges and grout lines of the tiles, which can force you to be more thorough in cleaning the tiles.
Additionally, broken tiles are another layer of maintenance, requiring you to change the tiles once you see some cracks on them.
On the other hand, a well-applied epoxy coating has no such gaps for the dust to accumulate, so you simply need to mop and sweep the floor diligently to maintain its cleanliness. For this, epoxy coating takes the win.
4. Cost
While the garage tiles are more expensive than the epoxy coating when buying them upfront, the installation and labor costs for epoxy coating can easily bump their final costs considerably higher.
Some of the most popular garage floor tiles (Swisstrax and RaceDeck) cost upwards of $3.99 per square foot. A single-car garage can go as big as around 400 sq ft. This works out to a total (theoretical) price of $1,600 for an average garage. If you are installing these tiles by yourself, you don’t have to fork out extra money for labor.
On the other hand, epoxy coating materials are around $2-5 per square foot, and labor can range around the same amount, from $1-7 per square foot. Including labor, that works out to be around $3-12 per square foot. Assuming the middle cost of $7 per square foot, you would need $2,800 for an average garage, over $1000 more than garage floor tiles.
Although epoxy garage floors do cost more, they generally last longer than garage tiles. However, if they do get damaged, you need to pay the same amount to re-coat the entire garage. Garage tiles need only to get broken ones replaced if they are damaged.
In terms of pure upfront cost, garage floor tiles win out this category by virtue of being cheaper. However, depending on how likely your garage floor will be damaged, the epoxy coating can be more cost-effective in the long term.
Conclusion
Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of both floor tiles and epoxy coating, you might find that both have certain strengths that you can take advantage of if you are in specific situations.
Ideally, epoxy coating is the go-to if cost is not an issue and you want generally reliable garage flooring. They provide one of the best protective floorings for your garage and can last longer than garage tiles.
On the other hand, garage tiles are amazing if you are cost-conscious, and are willing to DIY your garage to your liking. With its variety of designs, you can make your garage aesthetic into anything you want. Additionally, they can be the best option if you regularly move, and hence you are fine with occasional damage on your garage flooring.
However, no matter what flooring you choose, you’re sure that you’re getting the best of what is offered in terms of garage flooring. You can barely go wrong with either of them.
Nice blog post on garage floor tiles, thanks for the post.