Maybe you’re buying a home that needs a remodel, and the garage floors look bad. Maybe you didn’t even realize that your concrete could crack at all, and that if those cracks are not tended to immediately, they can make paint or other coatings almost impossible to apply. You might have had problems with flooding, the ground shifting, or any of a ton of other factors that can cause damage to your concrete in ways that really cannot be controlled. Regardless, sometimes you do need a garage floor covering.
Why Can’t The Concrete Just Get Fixed?
Even though there are ways you can repair damaged concrete and paint over the cracks to make it not so noticeable, these methods always run the risk of returning cracks. In most cases, whatever caused the damage to the concrete in the beginning has a good chance of causing the problem again. As a result, the best objective is to forget about garage floor paint and purchase a covering in place of the repairs. Garage floor coverings are construed as tiles or mats. Most anything that does not coat the surface of your original concrete and adds another layer. You can use both of these coverings, but the first may not work in all situations.
Garage Floor Tiles Don’t Always Work
If you plan to use tiles on a floor with only smallish cracks, you may not need to do anything with the cracks before you do. This is because tiles can grip the concrete all around the crack, instead. Because tile really isn’t a coating, and is actually a separate material altogether, they may actually help hold things together and prevent expansion of old cracks as well as new ones. Just like any other coverings, the point is to cover any defects so that, while they’re still there, they’re not visible. Garage floor tiles are not ideal in situations where the concrete garage floor is stained, however. If you do use tiles in this case, the stains will end up “sweating”, and dissolving the sticky stuff that holds the tiles to the ground. When this happens, the tiles will lose their grip, and the floor won’t be in any better shape than it was before.
Garage Floor Mats Always Work
If the garage flooring is really messed up, you may have no choice but to use a mat. Luckily, mats are just as good at repelling chemicals as anything else, and they can look darn good while doing it. Unfortunately, however, you are just putting a band-aid on the problem, and it can eventually come back to bite you. If the concrete is really breaking up, it may end up with jagged corners which will tear the mat from underneath, especially when the mat is driven upon. You may not even notice just how bad the concrete is if it degrades further while covered with a mat. Should it become damaged, though, a mat can be pulled out and replaced with very little drama. That is, of course, if you can afford to purchase another one.
Your Solution May Be Predetermined…
When you think about it, the decision of what to use to for your damaged concrete is uncomplicated: using either mats or tiles is possible is tiles can stick. But if they don’t for any reason, you are left with garage floor mats.
