Garage floor coatings are an excellent way to preserve your concrete and protect your investment, but is there a better time of year to install a garage floor coat? Does the weather or ambient temperature make a difference? As a matter of fact, there are many different factors to consider, all of which we discuss below.
Pros of Garage Floor Coatings
Garage floor coatings really are the best way to protect your floor from damage, both of the elements and general traffic. Coating your floor can extend its lifespan significantly, making it resistant to cracking, peeling, and UV radiation.
Floor coatings look beautiful the day they are applied and for years afterward. They are 100% customizable and come in a broad range of colors. They prevent the natural yellowing of time and keep out both precipitation and chemical spills.
Additionally, a good floor coating will make surfaces smooth and easier to clean without making them too slippery. Materials like epoxy and chip-and-flake are great under impact, abrasion, and the pressure of large vehicles. They really don’t have any downsides except perhaps a little upfront installation money and time.
Can You Install a Garage Floor Coating in Winter?
Whether or not you can install a garage floor coating in the winter depends entirely on which kind of coating you work with. With the right material, winter may actually get you a garage floor coating more quickly because lead times in the colder months are shorter.
When Can You Coat a Garage Floor?
Installing a floor coating takes quite a bit of preparation. All previous coats of paint or epoxy coating will need to be removed first, and the area will need to be completely cleared of debris, vehicles, and stored belongings.
The best time to install a garage floor depends heavily on the kind of flooring you want installed. However, there are some consistencies across the board. You cannot install your garage floor coating when there is a lot of moisture in the air or in the concrete. Too much moisture spoils the curing process and results in ineffective coatings.
Short of watching for rain or monitoring humidity levels, how can you tell if the ambient moisture will be too much? Here’s a simple experiment: tape a plastic bag to your garage floor overnight. If, after 24 hours, you check under the bag and find moisture or dampness, there is too much water in the air or concrete to coat it. Wait to install or take steps to dry out the area, otherwise the water pressure will break the bond between coating and floor.
Epoxy Floors
Epoxy floor coatings are enduring and tough and are certainly a good addition to any garage floor. If you want to install a garage floor made of epoxy, however, there are several things to take into consideration. You cannot simply slop down a layer of epoxy at any time of year or even any time of day. The curing process for such floors is nuanced, and there are many factors to consider before starting.
The first is temperature. Epoxy floor coatings require specific temperature ranges for optimal installation. Epoxy doesn’t cure properly in temperatures below 55°F. This applies to ambient air temperatures and the temperature of the concrete itself. Typically, when installing epoxy floors, you want weather conditions to be around 60°F and 80°F for best results. This pretty effectively rules out winter as a good time to install an epoxy garage floor.
Epoxy, even in good weather, also takes quite a while to cure. Three days is the recommended minimum, meaning that you have to really plan for when you want to manage the installation. You may want to keep a weekend open for the process or handle it right before leaving on vacation.
While the epoxy cures, you should not put weight on the surface, so you’ll have to store your car somewhere else. This is another reason why winter isn’t ideal. On the other hand, if you don’t want your vehicle sitting out in the hot sun, you’ll install during the milder months anyway.
Polyaspartic Floors
Unlike epoxy floors, polyaspartic floors are much more forgiving in their installation. The material performs properly in both blazingly hot conditions and in temperatures as low as -40°F. This temperature tolerance means that you have a lot of flexibility when you want to install a garage floor of polyaspartic, even if you plan to install in the winter.
If you are not set on a floor coating material but do have a stringent schedule to keep to, polyaspartic is the way to go. Even if you need your floor installed in the winter, polyaspartic will cure properly in a way that epoxy cannot in the cold.
Polyaspartic floors also cure much more quickly than epoxy coatings. Unlike an epoxy floor, when you install a garage floor made of polyaspartic, it will harden very quickly, even being available in as little as four hours. This means that the hassle of installation and the degree to which it disrupts a household is significantly reduced.
