Due to the numerous emails, comment questions, and some unfortunate mistakes made when purchasing clear top coats for garage floor coatings, we have decided to post this article to help clear things up (no pun intended). Our objective here is to prevent some of the confusion, disappointment, and poor results some people have encountered when choosing a clear coat.
As a refresher, clear topcoats have many advantages when applied to a garage floor coating. Besides creating a nice, semi-gloss to glossy finish to your color coat, clear coats lock in and protect the color flakes and act as a sacrificial layer that protects the underlying base color coat.
The problem, however, is that some people are unknowingly purchasing the wrong product, poor product, or trying to apply a clear coat to paint.
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No Clear Coats for Garage Floor Paint
The first mistake is purchasing latex acrylic concrete floor paint or 1-Part epoxy paint for your garage floor with the intention of applying a clear coat to it. Paint for concrete is designed as a one-and-done product and is not intended to have a clear coating applied.
Technically, paint is not a coating. Unfortunately, marketing practices by the large companies that produce these products intentionally do not make that very clear, especially when they call it epoxy paint.
Coatings are thicker and actually seal the concrete of your garage floor while paint does not. Read here for more information about the difference between paint and coatings.
The other issue that comes up is that people tend to be unhappy with the matte finish that garage floor paint and 1-part epoxy paint provides. They then set out to find a glossy clear coat to increase the shine.
The main reason that most clear coats will not work with paint is that the majority are solvent-based. The moment that you apply it to your water-based garage floor paint, the paint may soften and sometimes even bleed into the clear as you are applying it.
Yes, we did say most clear coats will not work. However, there is a way to apply a properly performing clear coat to garage floor paint.
It requires that you rough up the surface of the paint with 120-grit sandpaper after it has dried. Sweep and then damp mop with clean water to remove the dust. Once dry, you can then apply a water-based or 100% solids epoxy clear to it.
Water-based epoxy clears designed as a topcoat are hard to find and usually expensive. A better option is Rust-Oleum EpoxyShield 100% solids clear coat. You can find it here at Amazon.
Be careful not to confuse this with the optional EpoxyShield solvent-based clear coat. It needs to say 100% solids in the description.
As you can see though, it’s still three times more expensive than paint. If you are going to spend the money for an epoxy clear coat, then you should spend the money for an epoxy color coat initially and not paint.
Some of these paint companies do offer an acrylic clear that can be applied to paint. Do not use it!
These acrylic clear coats are water-based and inferior for garage use. They are designed for foot traffic such as patios and walkways.
They will soften, smudge, and/or peel the moment you spill any gasoline or brake fluid on them. Most petroleum-based products such as oil or transmission fluid can cause them to break down if it sits on it for more than a small length of time as well.
Unfortunately, we have seen some online vendors of actual 2-Part epoxy garage floor coatings offer what they call a “clear glaze coat” for a clear coat. This is an acrylic product as well. People often complain of poor performance. Again, we recommend not using it.
Home Improvement Centers Don’t Sell Clear Coats
With some exceptions, home improvement centers and hardware stores do not offer the proper clear coats for concrete coatings. They do a good job of carrying the traditional DIY epoxy garage floor kits, but most do not carry the manufacturer’s optional clear coat to go with them.
Rust-Oleum EpoxyShield is a good example. You generally need to special order the clear coat from the stores or purchase them from vendors online such as Amazon.
However, we have noticed that this trend is slowly changing. Home Depot, for example, has started carrying RockSolid’s new Polycuramine garage floor coatings and some sell the optional clear coat to go with it. Menards is another example.
What they don’t carry are commercial-quality clear coats such as polyurethane and polyurea. In addition, they do not carry high solids commercial quality epoxy color coats, and clear coats. We suggest reading our article on how to choose a clear topcoat to get a better idea about the difference between clear coats and which type may be best for you.
As a rule, home improvement centers in general are not the best place to start your search and gather information for garage floor coatings. While they may have the product that you ultimately decide is best for you, do not rely on the information that they may provide. This article will help to explain why.
Don’t Buy Polyurethane For Wood Floors
This is an unfortunate mistake that we’ve received quite a few emails about. We do applaud the fact that these people took the time to research and learn that polyurethane has many advantages over epoxy. However, they didn’t take the time to read the product label of the polyurethane that they purchased and applied to their garage floor coating.
Can you guess where these polyurethane coatings were purchased? You got it — home improvement centers and hardware stores.
The polyurethanes we are referring to are water-based and oil-based polyurethane for wood floors and furniture. Varathane and Minwax are good examples.
This type of polyurethane is not compatible with epoxy and certainly not compatible with concrete for that matter. If applied to epoxy during the recoat window, you will end up with a yellow-tinted mess that you will need to scrape up off the surface. If you are lucky, it will not have contaminated the epoxy color coat in the process.
Where Can I Buy A Clear TopCoat For My Garage Floor Coating?
If you want a clear topcoat and are thinking of purchasing a traditional garage floor epoxy kit from a home improvement center, verify first that the clear coat is available from them. If not, here are some epoxy clear coat examples from Amazon that are available.
The higher-performance clear coats such as polyurethane and polyurea are generally purchased through concrete coating vendors online. Many of our sponsors are good examples.
These vendors specialize in concrete coatings and carry a wide variety of quality products. They specialize in garage floor coatings and are a great source of information as well. This link here will provide a great list of where to purchase coating products online.
Sherwin Williams is another source if you are looking for a brick-and-mortar store to purchase from. They won’t sell their best commercial quality product to the general consumer, but they do offer some decent quality epoxy and polyurethane coatings with their ArmorSeal line of coatings.
The reason you will not find commercial quality epoxy and clear coatings at home improvement centers and hardware stores is the simple fact that they require some attention to detail to apply properly.
Home improvement centers cannot provide the type of assistance and information required for applying these types of coatings. Most kits offered by major retailers are designed to be easily applied. This is why the quality isn’t the best when compared to products offered by concrete coating vendors.
Final Tips
If you are considering a particular type of garage floor coating and are unsure about your clear coat options, take advantage of the toll-free number that the manufacturer provides and ask for assistance.
Stay within the manufacturer line if possible. For example, if you apply a garage floor coating by Rust-Oleum, then the Rust-Oleum clear coat will work with your coating. This ensures that you will not have any compatibility issues with your clear topcoat.
If you opt for a higher-performance clear coat such as polyurethane or polyurea, contact the vendor you are interested in and ask about compatibility.
If you are considering the higher-performance garage floor coatings available from online vendors, take advantage of their knowledge and experience. Give them a call or email them for information. They can help qualify you and provide options based on your needs. Plus, they are great for assisting you with questions about application and concrete preparation.
Finally, if you ever have the slightest doubt about your clear topcoat options, compatibility, or application, make sure to seek help from the vendor or manufacturer before you make your purchase. That way you are ensured a successful outcome instead of a poor and potentially costly experience.
I have put down the Rust-Oleum 2 part epoxy kit in my garage and only been 4 days but satisfied with results. Also used there two part top clear coat and satisfied with it so far(24 hours). I have 3-4 small areas that I missed about the size of a grapefruit. I would like to coat those areas with something to make the job 100% done. That said I don’t want to buy another $199 Rust-Oleum clear glossy top coat kit. Is there anything out there to fix this at a reasonable price or just live with it since I really don’t want to spend the money for another kit since the area is so small
Hi Jerry. Unfortunately, Rust-Oleum does not sell touchup kits like the commercial-quality DIY coating vendors do. Anything else you apply to it is going to stand out with a different sheen. Ironically, the small areas missed typically don’t stand out as much as the areas touched up. You may be better off just leaving it as is.
The family who we bought our house from hag put down 12” square stick on tiles. It really looks nice so my question is would it be ok to coat it with Rocksolid Clear? I wonder if it would help seal the tiles & help with oil drip clean up. I’d rather not have to pull up all the tile & coat the floor if I don’t have to.
Hello Monty. No, RockSolid and other traditional concrete coatings will not adhere to PVC peel-and-stick tiles. It requires a specific type of coating. We suggest contacting ArmorPoxy. They have a Vinyl Tile coating you can find here.