Yearly Archives: 2023


WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANTTHING WHEN BUYING EPOXY FLOORING?

The answer is how well will the coating resist wear and tear, Abrasion is the biggest enemy of any epoxy floor coating. If your coating doesn’t have the proper thickness and a true high performance urethane topcoat your floor is going to look great the first day you put it down. But then 90% of the time its downhill from there. The destructive forces of your vehicle’s tires, road salts and chemicals will see to that and once they penetrate the surface of your coating ever so slightly it begins an irreversible process of dirt spots, dull spots, staining, moisture and or chemical degradation. The key is to have an impenetrable layer over your actual epoxy. Some companies just use the same epoxy in a clear version, that’s not a topcoat. Your topcoat has to be much harder than your epoxy otherwise it’s a waste of money.

ArmorGarage has the best topcoats in the business, it’s why our floors look so great even after 15-20 years! That’s not just us saying that either. Take a look at the video at the top of the Home Page, it’s an Armor Chip floor with our military grade topcoat done almost 16 years ago and it still looks new even with big SUVs,and several cars turning in and out of their parking spaces several times a day! It’s still glossy enough where it still reflects light! This is not what you’re going to get with off the shelf garage epoxy floor coatings.

Now take a look at this CASE STUDY towards the bottom of the page. It’s a floor done with Armor Chip, primer and the military grade topcoat. When you first look at the pictures you’re going to say to yourself that floor looks like bloody hell and say what are the ArmorGarage guys thinking of showing this floor off. Well when you hear the facts about the floor you’ll realize why we’re showing it off. The floor is in a large Liquor warehouse store in NJ that has an average of 3000 customers per day walking through the store. There is also all sorts of other mean nasty and abusive things being done to the floor 7 days a week 365 days a year. There’s forklifts, pallet jacks, hand trucks running around all day, there’s employees dragging pallets across the floor by hand all day and shopping carts rolling around nonstop. On top of all that the floor has gotten zero maintenance, no washings or cleaning at all. The only time it’s cleaned is if a customer drops a bottle of alcohol on it and it’s wiped up by an employee. That’s the extent of maintenance performed. So when you take all that into account it’s easy to see why the floor looks like it does but in reality it’s in great shape after 14 years of abuse and neglect. So how does this apply to you? Just think about your application, you have a car, a pickup or SUV that you basically pull straight in and out everyday. That’s child’s play for this floor and why your floor will still look great at it’s 20th anniversary.

So at the end of the day you might be told that’s what you’re getting and what you think you’re getting with another product you’re considering to purchase but it’s just not going to happen. The video and this case study is all you need to know to purchase your epoxy floor coating with peace of mind!


ALL 100% SOLIDS EPOXIES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

As with most products in life there are similarities and also big differences in products that sound and look the same. Today there are lots of epoxy floor coatings proclaiming to be heavy duty, 100% solids or that high solids are good enough(no they’re not!). So what’s the difference and how can you tell which is the best product?? First be careful who you buy from. There’s a lot that can throw you off such as some companies advertise their epoxies as 100% solids when in fact they’re only 100% solids by weight and not volume which means they’re not truly 100% solids. See what we mean? When you purchase an ArmorGarage Epoxy System that is 100% solids it’s 100% solids by weight and volume in addition to being Military Grade 100% solids. Cyclioaliphatic epoxies tout being 100% solids but they are not military grade by any means. They’re a hybrid solids epoxy designed for cost savings. When doing an epoxy flooring project, saving a few dollars should not be your main criteria. It always costs you more money and heartache in the long run.

What are some of the other things to watch out for. Know that there is no such thing as lifetime epoxy coatings. Products advertised as such are just marketing gimmicks and you will never get lifetime warranty coverage on such epoxies. Also realize that warranties against Hot Tire Pick or peeling off is not the same as coverage from the epoxy wearing off! We offer a 5 year warranty against wear. Wear is the single most important factor you should be concerned with when buying an garage epoxy floor coating. The durability of the coating is what determines not only how long it will last but also how long it stays looking new. Most epoxy floors look great when first put down but soon start looking old and dirty when they’re not military grade. So when purchasing your garage epoxy flooring ask them what the guarantee on wear is. We get 100s of calls from customers who thought they were putting down heavy duty epoxy only to find out a lot sooner then they ever expected that the product they purchased was nowhere near heavy duty as claimed.

Beware of water based epoxies, these are all inferior and their claimed to fame is that they are environmentally friendly. That’s true but they don’t work well at all. First off they are up to 50% water so when you apply them 50% of the epoxy you bought evaporates into thin air leaving you with a paper thin coating. How can you tell if an epoxy is water based? It usually has a “WB” in the model number or part number. Also the pot life is usually in hours rather than minutes.

Water Based Epoxy Floor Coatings

Another thing to look out for is the final thickness of the finished product. ArmorGarage garage epoxies Armor Chip & Armor Granite are 20-30 mils thick versus some so called 100% solids and heavy duty epoxies that are 2-10 mils thick only. We can go on but hope you get the idea. If you haven’t done this before there’s a lot of things you don’t know about that will effect your satisfaction with the time and money you spent on doing your epoxy flooring project.


NEW PRODUCTS

NO PREP INSTANT PRIMER & VCT TILE COATING

ArmorGarage has added some amazing new products to our product lineup. 

First up is our game changing epoxy primer that requires virtually no prep and can instantly be epoxy coated over. You simply need to remove any nonbondable contaminants such as surface dirt, oil, grease or rust etc. This works over dirty concrete you just need to remove any dust with a vac or leaf blower or any dirt buildups. Then simply use our Acetone resistant hand pump sprayer or one of your own and spray down the primer. Let sit for 15 minutes till it gets tacky. Then immediately apply any ArmorGarage epoxy floor coating. This primer is super high performance and cannot be separated from concrete once it cures. Apply all the epoxy within 90 minutes. You can do the floor in sections, this gives you 90 minutes for each section to ensure you apply the epoxy within the coating window. If you miss the coating window for any reason simply scuff the primer with 120 grit and reapply some primer. This amazing primer utilizes ArmorGarage epoxy technology combined with Primera Nano Technology to allow it to stick to almost anything. Great for concrete floors with exposed aggregate(small river stones at the surface) and other hard to bond to surfaces. Thus eliminating the need for shot blasting, diamond grinding or etching. Saving time and money. This is a great solution for jobs that have limited down time. See the product here: https://www.armorgarage.com/noprinpr.html or contact us for help from one of our Reps.

Next up is our revolutionary VCT & Vinyl Floor Coating. Putting a permanent clear coat on VCT Tile and Vinyl Flooring has been the Holy Grail of the epoxy coating business. There are plenty of coatings that can be applied but none that will permanently adhere till now. We have gotten thousands of calls from customers that are looking to get out of the constant stripping and waxing of their vinyl floors. Stripping and waxing is time consuming and costly and must be done continuously or the your floor will start to look very shabby very quickly. ArmorGarage’s epoxy technology once again combined with Primera Nano Technology allows our clear liquified epoxy quartz coating to be sprayed onto any type of vinyl floor or linoleum and totally bond to it. Dries to a beautiful clear gloss finish that is extremely durable and easily cleaned. Eliminates scrubbing, stripping and waxing. This is a fantastic product for institutional and commercial applications in large high traffic areas where cleanliness is critical.

For more information see here https://www.armorgarage.com/vcttilivishc.html or talk to one of our expert Reps today.