We just bought a brand new home and we have about 5 days at the end of May where the house is empty to do some work before we move in. One of the things we're thinking of doing is covering the garage floor with epoxy.

We have a painter we used before (and were happy with) and he is somewhat experienced with the prep and application of the epoxy product. It is very, very expensive (just over $2,000 for our 400 square foot garage) and is really going to pushing it for getting done in 5 days (it requires 3 days just to cure before you can walk on it, and with temps in May still being rather chilly where we live (in Vancouver).

I am trying to convince my husband to look into the Modular garage systems (the interlocking tiles). I like them because they are very durable, are easily installed and require no prep to the floor. I don't like them because water, dirt, oil, etc., gets trapped under the tiles and I could see that being a disgusting mess to clean up at some point (and if you don't clean it up, isn't that just utterly gross and almost toxic?).

I've heard that some professionals that apply epoxy can guarantee it for 20 years, but I wonder what that guarantee is. Hubby will be working on the cars in there (changing oil) and his motorcycle (doing everything), so there will be oil, gas, lubricants, chemicals of every kind going on that floor. I've heard stories that no paint can hold up to chemicals like that. Not to mention, we live in earthquake territory, so we get cracked pavement all the time. It's a new house, too, so it's going to settle and maybe there will be cracks. How is that going to affect the epoxy and the epoxy guarantee?

I'd be really curious to know if anyone has finished their garage floor and what they've used and how they've found it to be. We have about a week to decide and we're frantically trying to get as much info as we can.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Paula