Epoxy floor kits

FULL BROADCAST EPOXY FLOOR

 in Commercial Epoxy Flooring / Epoxy Coating / Epoxy Flooring / Garage Floor Epoxy / Industrial Epoxy Flooring  tagged commercial epoxy floor paint / commercial epoxy flooring / DIY Epoxy flooring / epoxy color chips / epoxy flakes / Epoxy floor kits / epoxy flooring / garage epoxy flooring / garage floor epoxy / industrial epoxy flooring by

SHOULD YOU DO A FULL BROADCAST EPOXY FLOOR?

The short answer is no unless you’re a professional and have done it many times before. Many customers call us and state they would like to do a full broadcast color flake epoxy floor for their garage or shop. Then after speaking with us for a few minutes they change their minds.

Epoxy Flooring ChipsIt may seem like a good idea when you read about it but doing it is much harder than it sounds. First off you need a tremendous amount of flakes, 70-75lbs of flakes for a typical 2 ½ car garage. Trying to do it with less chips and your floor will come out blotchy! Then you have the problem of applying so many flakes without them piling up in uneven lumps. If you’re not experienced in applying the color flakes they will end up in uneven layers and piles. Other companies trying to sell you on this will tell you that you can scrape the chips down. Again easier said than done and even after scraping and even sanding, the floor won’t look right.

So in addition to having your brand new epoxy floor not looking right, you’ll have to spend additional money to purchase a lot more topcoat. When you do a full broadcast, all those chips piled on top of each other create lots of nook and crannies. Those nooks and crannies have to be filled with topcoat, so plan on spending a lot more money on topcoat and time applying it in at least two coats or maybe three.

How do we know this? We know this from the thousands of floors we’ve done with our own guys. They have to know what they’re doing and even they screw it up every now and then. Which means they have to grind the floor off and start over. That’s why over 90% of the floors we do are not full broadcast. ArmorGarage offers two color flake floor options. The Armor Chip Garage Epoxy Flooring kit which provides you with about 75% chip coverage. Our Armor Granite kits provide you with 90% coverage. Both of these floors use the base epoxy color as one of the background colors. They both provide a beautiful finish that looks like you had a Pro do it for you even though you did it yourself for a fraction of the price. In fact, most customers don’t use all the color flakes we provide in each kit. We provide you the most color chips of any company so that you can apply the color chips until you like the pattern without having to worry about running out.

So why spend extra time and money and run the risk of having your floor not looking the way it should when you can get a gorgeous looking floor every time with our Armor Chip or Armor Granite Epoxy flooring kits.

Bubbles in my Epoxy

 in Epoxy Trouble Shooting Guide  tagged epoxy / Epoxy floor kits / floor epoxy / garage epoxy flooring by

Although today it’s extremely rare that you get bubbles in the epoxy such as these in the images below. But it can happen so we need to talk about why it can happen and what you need to do to fix it. The bubbles will usually show up the next morning when you’re ready to apply the next coating.

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Although this condition rarely happens these days, it used to happen more frequently cause in the old days lots of floors were not installed with vapor barriers. All fairly new floors have vapor barriers. Some floors installed prior to 1980 may not have had a vapor barrier installed. If you have a 30 or 40 year old floor it’s a good idea to do a moisture test BEFORE you order an epoxy floor kit. A simple way to do that is to tape down a 3×3 or 4×4 square foot piece of plastic and seal it all around with some good duct tape like Gorilla Tape. Let it sit for 24-48hrs and then remove the plastic to see if any moisture has accumulated underneath. If no moisture is present you’re good to go, if there is moisture take a picture and send it to us. We have products that can deal with moisture but moisture issues need extra consideration. Please note that moisture that gets on the floor from above is of no concern, we are only concerned with moisture coming up from below the slab.

The next reason you can get bubbles is by mixing the epoxy with a drill at full speed. This will whip air into the epoxy which will then have to escape during the curing process causing bubbles and other deformations to occur in the epoxy. This is easy to avoid and really never happens, just using medium speed on the drill will prevent this problem. Take a look at Coolest Gadgets to find reviews for good cordless drills that are able to operate at various speeds for whatever projects necessary.

The next reason is applying the epoxy in direct hot sunlight. This can happen but again it’s easily avoided(who wants to work in direct sun on a 100 degree day!). On a very hot day lets say above 95 with direct sun hitting the floor, the epoxy will start to cure extra fast making it difficult to work with in a short period of time. Remember our epoxy is military grade pure epoxy, it’s not your typical water based or store bought epoxy. Our epoxy cures via catalytic reaction and is not an air cure. This means that while curing it generates heat and the more heat the faster it cures. So you don’t want to be adding extra heat like direct sun on a 100 degree day. Direct sun on cooler days is fine. So just a little precaution will prevent too rapid a cure that will trap in air. Bubbles can form from a few hours to a few months after application. The good news is they are easily avoided by a simple moisture test if a moisture issue is suspected, don’t mix the epoxy with the drill at super high speed and close the door if you have to apply the epoxy with direct sunlight baking the floor on a very hot days above 95.

What do you do in the event of bubbles in the epoxy? Very simple as long as it’s not due to moisture vapor coming up through the slab. Hopefully you read this article and did a moisture test first. Which means most likely you mixed the epoxy at full speed or you were rolling super fast and you whipped some air into the coating. No big deal! Don’t panic. Simply cut off the bubbles, lightly sand with 100-150 grit paper and reapply a little more epoxy. Make sure you apply the topcoat to all other areas right away and then topcoat the bubbled area when the new epoxy cures. Problem solved and more importantly problem avoided!

 

General Ordering and Delivery Guidelines

 in Ordering & Delivery  tagged Epoxy floor kits / garage floor epoxy coating / garage flooring epoxy / industrial epoxy flooring by

EPOXY ORDERS

Today we’re going to talk about ordering epoxy floor kits. During busy season very often the demand will outstrip our production capacity. So instead of orders going out the next day they’ll go out a day or two later than that. Which should not be a problem in most cases. Problems can and do arise if you wait till the last minute to order and you have a specific date you want to epoxy your floor. Such as over a holiday weekend or during some time off from work. Please keep in mind that if you plan on doing your project over a long holiday weekend that you’re not the only one with the same idea. Back orders pile up and sometimes we get sold out of certain colors. So when you have a specific date in mind you should order two weeks in advance. This allows for back orders to be cleared up, it allows for delivery issues such as a package getting lost or damaged. It also allows you to do an inventory check once you receive all your packages to make sure you didn’t forget to order something or we didn’t send you something that you did order. Always allow a week cushion from when you should receive everything and when you want to do the job. The epoxy has a one year shelf life minimum so it won’t go bad sitting inside your residence, garage or place of business. Getting your orders delivered quickly can be difficult, thankfully there is software similar to last mile delivery software that can help make last-minute deliveries a little easier.

We ship the epoxy part of your order separately so that if FedEx roughs it up and it leaks it doesn’t ruin the entire order. You will usually get the etching and accessories first, this allow you to get a head start on the cleaning and etching process. The epoxy will arrive a day or two later. So on typical garage orders you would get two packages, on larger garage or commercial orders you will receive 3-5 boxes and on larger commercial or industrial orders your order will arrive on a pallet via truck.

If your order is arriving via FedEx ground you don’t have to be home to sign for it. If it is arriving by truck someone needs to be present to unload and sign for it. Once you have received your order you should open all the boxes as soon as possible to check that all items have been received and that there wasn’t any serious damage. If a can has gotten dented or a little bit of paint has leaked out, the product is still ok to use. If your cans have been damaged to the point where more than just a few ounces leaked then call us for a replacement. We will ship out a replacement right away and arrange for FedEx to pick up the damaged goods.

If you are using a contractor, it’s very important that you do NOT schedule your contractor till you have received everything and that you checked for damaged items and did an inventory check. When using a contractor please allow for Murphy’s Law to come into play. You can make a mistake, we can make a mistake, FedEx can make a mistake or all of the above can happen. If you order well enough in advance we can resolve any issue without it impacting your original desired completion date. It’s when you try to surgically plan everything to arrive by the day before you want to start that things could go south. Contractors get upset when they schedule jobs and then can’t do it due to last minute issues. If you give your contractor enough notice he can usually reschedule your job without a problem if need be. If you need to schedule your contractor cause he’s so busy than schedule him a minimum of 7-10 days after the anticipated delivery date of all your items. This allows time for problem solving if needed.

If you have an emergency type situation and you need to get your order asap just let us know and we will do everything possible to get it to you in time. Keeping in mind that we ship our epoxy orders from our NJ distribution center and all epoxy orders online must go Ground. Since our epoxies are not water based they are DOT restricted to FedEx ground delivery so please allow sufficient travel time in your calculations. Especially if you’re on the west coast. CA orders can take 5-6 business days to arrive once shipped.

So in sum just keep in mind our epoxies are not an off the shelf type of product. You can’t just go down to the corner paint store and get some. If you are buying home improvement or local paint store type epoxy, scheduling will not be an issue, you’ll have more serious issues later on but scheduling and getting the job done quick won’t be one of them. If one of the accessories items is an issue such as the etching solution leaked or a roller is missing or damaged or some such thing, you can go out and purchase it locally. Just give us a call or send us an email and we’ll be happy to credit you for any costs. Most times this is the easiest and quickest way to keep things on schedule so that your project is not held up for something minor.