Garage Flooring Options: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Expected Costs

Garage Flooring Options: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Expected Costs

There are so many options for garage flooring that it can seem a daunting challenge to pick the type of flooring that best fits you, your needs, and your garage. We’ve pulled together the key elements of this important decision into this post to help with your decision making.

 

Flooring Material Comparison and Advantages

 

There are three major types of garage flooring: epoxy coating, tile, and polished concrete. All three protect the garage floor, help prevent slips, and greatly improve the look of your garage. They all add value to your home as well.

Here’s a quick overview of each type of flooring and their advantages.

 

 

Epoxy Coating

 

  • Lasts 15 years on average with a five-year warranty with professional installation.
  • Incredible range of solid colors and styles including metallic and decorative chip coating.
  • Application is suitable for any hard surface and works great with concrete.
  • Easily cleaned and provides stain, chemical, and impact resistance.

 

Tile Flooring

 

  • Available in a wide range of materials including ceramic, stone, and flexible plastic.
  • Wide choice of style, texture, and colors. Plastic options include hard tile, flexible PVC, and vented.
  • Extremely long life span.
  • Easily cleaned non-slip surface, even when wet.

 

Polished Concrete Flooring

 

  • Extremely wide variety of colors, patterns, and levels of polishing—from high-gloss to matte.
  • Highly durable, lasting 20+ years.
  • Withstands high levels of humidity and moisture.
  • Easy cleaning and maintenance with stain resistance.

 

Flooring Material Disadvantages

 

As with anything, there are pros and cons to the flooring types we’ve discussed. You’ve seen some of the advantages of each type of flooring in the list above. Here are the disadvantages.

  • Epoxy Coating: This type of coating has difficulty adhering to concrete in high humidity environments. When taking a DIY approach to epoxy coating, its lifetime can be reduced to requiring recoating every few years. For this reason, we do not recommend installing epoxy flooring yourself.
  • Tile Flooring: Ceramic or stone tiles are subject to cracking, breaking, and staining. They further require grout that needs replacement from time to time. Flexible plastic tiles don’t break, but they do experience staining and expand/contract during heat and cold extremes.
  • Polished Concrete: This type of flooring has a lengthy curing time running from two to four weeks. That’s a long time to forego use of your garage, but it can be worth it.

 

Expected Garage Flooring Costs

 

Epoxy coating runs from $3 to $12 per square foot including professional installation. That means a one-car garage at 250 square feet would start at $750. With epoxy coating there is also a do-it-yourself option that can offer cost savings. However, to gain those savings you’ll need to purchase an epoxy resin kit, tools, and brushes. Then you get to try your luck following the directions provided with the kit. At the end, there’s no warranty and you can expect to recoat the surface every few years.

Tile flooring costs between $3 and $6 per square foot. A two-car garage at 500 square feet would be between $1,500 and $3,000.

Polished concrete flooring also begins at $3 per square foot and can get as high as $15 per square foot with demanding color ranges and patterns. More typical is a higher range of $8 per square foot. Looking at a two-car garage the total cost would be between $1,500 and $7,500.

 

We Can Help

 

We can help you sift through all this information and find the exact solution for your garage.

Contact Philadelphia Garage for a free on-site consultation and take the first step toward a dream garage.

 

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