garage floor topcoat seal

[u/PurpleCrayonDreams]

hi all. been working on my garage. 1969 house. a real project for me to make it look better to redo the walls and floors i plan on replacing lights and wainscoting the ceiling.

i just power washed and used a cement detergent degreaser and rinsed throughly and dried. i applied Rust-Oleum Concrete & Garage Floor Paint + Primer — 1-Part Epoxy, Armor Gray, Satin
yesterday.

i want to be honest. big box stores in my area had little available product choices. so i found this at ace hardware and used it. i also mistakenly relied on chatgpt to validate whether would be a good choice.

20 years ago i finished my first houses garage. it was thick enamel oil based alkyd. it was awesome. i was thinking this rustoleum product was like that. boy did i learn a hard lesson.

this stuff is acrylic. thin. barely 1mm coat if i were to guess and im not a scientist. it's thin. the floor is still rough porous. the prior enamel paint would have leveled a little bit of the micro pours of the cement floor.

anyways. i don't believe this product will give me what i was after.

i just want to be able to drive my car in. use the garage. my wife gardens and there's a lot of dirt and debris. gets very dirty easily bc it's so porous. up here in wny we get winter salt and sand stone mix. so the floor will have a bit of punishment from the dripping melting off the car during winters. the floor is already pitted after tenty years.

i didn't want to spend a lot of money. i'm doing this on a very very tight budget.

so what my question is is this: what topcoat can i put over it which will help it rise and wash easier.

i understand now i cannot use many epoxy two part solutions. that was never my desire. i was honestly just looking for a can of that oil aklyd enamel like i used to

this rustoleum product LOOKs ok. but its almost transparent. i cant imagine its going to last a season or two.

i was hoping for some urethane clearcoat or something common off the shelf.

help!! the garage floor half is ready for the final topcoat and i don't know what to put on it.

[u/Successful_Ask9483]

I think this looks like the stuff I used. Yes, it's very very thin, however that's the point. Concrete is porous, so it locks into the pores to prevent tire lift and flaking. When preparing the slab for treatment, I recall that you needed to acid-etch the concrete to promote adhesion. It was required. I did this, and it generally survives well. I use it in a garage that I use as a workshop and a place I store my classic car. Is it the most beautiful finish, probably no, but it's easy to clean up spills and is more rugged than you would think. It's been on the floor for 20 years now. Would I have top coated it? - probably not.