Kits
Are DIY garage floor kits worth it?
A kit off a shelf and an installed floor differ in the prep more than in the bucket, and the prep is what decides whether a coating stays stuck to concrete.
The short version
- The prep is the difference. A kit is usually sold with an etch step; an installed floor is usually ground.
- Kit coatings are generally thinner, and thickness is what takes wear.
- A kit that fails has to come off before anything else goes on, and removal costs more than the kit did.
- The label on the kit is the authority on how to use it. Read it before buying, not after.
What is in the box
Most kits are a coating, a stir stick, a bag of flake and a packet meant to open up the surface of the concrete chemically. The coating in them is real product. What is missing is not in the box at all, it is the machine that would have opened the concrete mechanically instead, and the vacuum that takes the dust away while it does.
That matters because a coating does not stick to a smooth slab. It sticks to a profile, which is a roughness with somewhere for the resin to key into. Grinding makes one. A chemical step makes a shallower one on some slabs and almost none on a hard-troweled floor, and a hard-troweled floor is what most newer garages have.
Where a kit floor usually goes wrong
It comes up in sheets rather than wearing out. When a coating lets go it usually lets go clean, and the underside is smooth concrete rather than profile, which tells you the bond was never made. It shows first where the tires sit and inside the door, because that is where the heat and the water are.
Moisture is the other one. Concrete on grade moves water up through itself, and a slab that reads high has to be handled before a coating goes on it. A kit has no way to tell you what your slab reads.
When a kit is a reasonable buy
A dry slab, a floor you are not asking much of, and an owner who reads the label and follows it exactly is a fair place for one. A shed, a shop corner, a floor you plan to redo anyway.
Where it usually is not worth it is the floor you would be upset to lose: an attached garage you park two vehicles in through a Midwest winter, or a basement you are finishing. If the coating has to come off later, the removal is the expensive part of the job you were trying to avoid buying.