Winterizing your garage floor may not be the first thing you think of when the temperatures start to drop, but it is an important step to insure the protection of your concrete. As winter creeps in, with it come the harmful rock salt and road deicers that attach themselves to the bottom of your vehicles, only to get deposited on your garage floor. If you have bare concrete without any protection, then you may be all too familiar with the upcoming salt stains and possible damage from spalling that reveals itself in the spring time.
Protecting your garage floor from winter
The good news is that it’s never too late to protect your garage floor from winter. The first thing you want to do is give your concrete a thorough cleaning to remove any contaminants that may be on the concrete. Once this is done, now is a good time to make any floor repairs that may have been revealed that can’t wait till spring. After this, you are ready to protect the floor.
The quickest and easiest way to protect your concrete is to use a garage floor containment mat. These mats collect the deicing solutions, road salts, snow melt, and other debris that are deposited from vehicles and keep it off of your floor. They are easy to clean out and don’t make a mess. Once winter is over, just pack them up and store them out of the way until next winter.
If you want to protect the entire garage floor from winter with mats, there are a variety of choices available for roll out garage floor mats. Many of these do a good job at insulating your feet from the cold concrete as well. The small coin mat by BLT is one of our favorites.
Another solution would be to seal your garage floor. A siliconate penetrating sealer is the easiest to apply while an acrylic sealer will provide a glossy finish. These sealers will create a barrier that will prevent deicing solutions and salt from entering into the pores of the concrete. They can be applied by the novice DIY homeowner and are relatively inexpensive to purchase.
Other popular choices to winterize your garage floor are coatings such as epoxy. These tough garage floor sealers will stand up to any deicing chemicals or salty road slush that you can track into your garage. Best of all, they are the easiest of the different garage flooring options to clean, but can quickly become the more expensive choice depending on the quality of epoxy used and whether you install it yourself or not.
One thing to be aware of is that most epoxy floors can’t be installed in cold temperatures because it needs to be warmer than 50 degrees in order for it to cure properly. Not to worry though. If the temperatures have already dropped, you can always have a polyurea or polyaspartic coating installed instead. These are just as durable as epoxy if not more so and can be installed in temperatures below freezing.
More winterizing tips
If your garage floor has already been winterized, you can always add a runner mat or two in the winter time to run alongside your vehicles. This will provide for an added non-slip benefit as well as keep you from tracking any deicing chemicals into your home. You can find them here at Amazon
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If you feel you don’t need a runner mat, then it’s always wise to invest in a good floor mat to clean your feet with before you walk into your home. Deicing chemicals and salt don’t do well in carpet and can even stain stone tiles as well.
Lastly, now may be a good time to check on the condition of your garage floor door seal. If your garage door isn’t sealing properly, you could be letting in cold winter air or snow that can create a slippery slush on your floor.
Remember that’s it never too late to winterize your garage floor. Take advantage of the numerous flooring options available to protect your concrete and prevent the hazards of winter damage. The time and effort spent now may save you from the headaches and site of a damaged floor later.
I think garage floor mats are the easiest way to protect your floor. I just bought one last week for my SUV and it works great.
Thanks for all the great information! We are in the final stages of construction on our new house and I had been planning on doing a primer/epoxy/polyurethane system but with the closing date set for mid-October I’m worried it may be to cold to attempt this project in Michigan.
Besides containment mats, would you recommend putting a topical sealer or other treatment down or just leave it bear until springtime when the temperatures are more favorable?
Hi Scott. You actually have a few options. If you want to wait till spring time, you can apply a penetrating siliconate sealer to the floor to protect it from freeze/thaw and road salts. Just grind the concrete for your normal floor prep when it comes time to apply the epoxy and you will be fine. Also, read our article about applying epoxy in cooler weather. You would have a better idea of what temps you will encounter and can make an informed decision about whether or not you should wait.
Lastly, take a look at the new Nohr-S polyurea coating by Legacy Industrial. This can be a great alternative for new concrete that doesn’t necessarily need a high build system to hide flaws in older concrete. We are fairly impressed by this product and it can be applied in cold weather. We are currently working on an article about it. If you are interested in it, contact Scotty from Legacy Industrial and ask him any questions you may have. He is excellent with helping out the DIY crowd.
Is Kelly-Moore KEL-SEAL 77 a good product to cover my garage floor and protect it from road salt pitting? It is 50% silane and 50% surfactant. Is there a Kelly Moore product that will help with road salt pitting?
Hello Bill. The Kelly-Moore product will work OK, it but will need to be reapplied more often. The main ingredient is silane which needs to be applied in liberal amounts in order to soak well into the concrete for the best effects. Kelly-Moore counter acts this by using a sulficant to act as a water repellent on the surface, but it will wear away and doesn’t have a long life. We are not the biggest fan of silane for a garage floor, however. The reason is that the reactive chemical process of silanes are always looking for other chemicals to react with. If not enough is applied to the concrete, oil and gas (petroleum products) can react with the silane causing a permanent stain in the concrete that cannot be removed. We are not as familiar with their products so we can’t make a recommendation.
Siliconate sealers last much longer and will not have the same effect with petroleum products. Also a densifier and oil repellent combo such as this one works great as well.
I use a floor mat under my SUV, but I find that it locks in moisture underneath. I assume the moisture is either coming from underground from the pores in the concrete, or from slushy drippings from the car making their way underneath from the mat’s edges. In any case, I am purchasing an epoxy finish and I have been advised to not use the mat if it still traps moisture after the epoxy is installed.
Hello Jennifer. It sounds like you have moisture that is coming up from below the slab. Mats do not breath and will block and collect moisture vapor, thus the wet concrete underneath. If you have slush running off the mat, then you need a containment mat. This will keep all liquids contained within the mat.
Like Jennifer, above, our floor seems to have moisture coming from below the slab. Is it OK to seal the floor in that case? What is the most cost-effective type of product to use, keeping in mind that the weather is in the 50s during the day and 30s-40s at night now?
Hello Sharon. Your floor would be great candidate for a densifier with siliconate sealer added. It works by helping to fill the pores in the concrete to reduce moisture from traveling up to the surface. In addition, the siliconate seals the surface to protect it from deicing fluids and salt damage. It needs to be applied in temps higher than 40 degrees. You can read more about this product and what we recommend here.