Garage Floor Maintenance Tips
Whether you use your garage for storage, a workspace or simply a place to park your car, it’s important to take care of your garage floor. Maintaining your garage floor leads to a safe, clean and well-kept garage. Below are reasons why you should take care of your garage’s flooring and tips for how to do so.
The Importance of Garage Floor Maintenance
When you think about maintaining your garage, you probably think about maintaining your garage door, your garage door opener or garage organization. However, your garage floor is actually one of the most important parts of your garage to maintain.
A dirty or poorly maintained garage floor can attract rodents or cause various accidents, such as a fire — allowing debris and belongings to pile up haphazardly in your garage can be a recipe for disaster. It’s important to maintain your garage floor year-round, but doing so is essential in the winter months, especially if you live in a snowy area. Elements like snow, ice and salt can cause cracking, pitting or other damage to your garage floor.
Overall, maintaining your garage floor can lead to fewer accidents and dangers. Learning how to properly maintain and clean your garage floor will keep your floor safe and looking great for years to come.
Tips for Maintaining Your Garage Floor
Without proper maintenance, you may be looking at costly repairs for your garage floor and your garage as a whole. While cleaning a concrete garage floor may seem self-explanatory, you can use a few tips and tricks to keep your garage floor looking great and potentially extend its life span.
1. Reduce Clutter
Clutter makes your garage seem smaller and unorganized. Letting things pile up in your garage can attract rodents or other animals, and it can make it difficult to find what you need.
Routinely clearing out any unneeded items from your garage will help clear up space in your garage. Consider buying shelving to store items on. This way, you clear up space on the floor and have a more organized system for storing your items.
2. Wipe Up Spills Immediately
Concrete garage floors are quick to absorb any liquid. Therefore, it’s critical to clean up any spills as fast as possible to prevent stains. When cleaning up any spills, but especially oil or grease, you’ll also want to avoid spreading the spill. Use materials like sawdust or cat litter to help absorb the liquid without making the spill bigger.
Quickly cleaning up spills to prevent stains is important to keep your garage in good visual condition, but it’s also important for the safety of you and others. Leaving any spills on the floor can lead to slips and falls that might injure you or your family.
3. Remove Rust and Oil Stains
Sometimes, you won’t notice a spill until it’s already stained your garage floor. Specifically, rust and oil stains tend to sneak up on garage owners. Unfortunately, these sneaky stains are also the most unattractive.
When trying to clean oil stains from a garage floor, a degreaser should do the trick. Meanwhile, for rust stains, you’ll need an acidic cleaner. Use a trisodium phosphate solution or household items like vinegar or lemons.
For both of these stains, you’ll want to use a stiff brush or broom to scrub the solution into the stain, and then rinse the area with water when you’re done. For the best results, treat these stains as early as possible.
4. Sweep Floors
One of the simplest ways to maintain your garage floor is to routinely sweep the area, as you can clear away any debris that might affect the integrity and appearance of the floor. Investing in a nice, large push broom will allow you to sweep your floors faster, making sweeping a more manageable task.
Especially in the winter, you’ll want to prioritize sweeping your garage floors. Your car or your shoes may bring in salt from the roads or sidewalks, which can cause concrete garage floors to crack when left for too long.
5. Wash Your Garage Floor
Just like the floors inside your home, your garage floors need a deep clean every so often.
Grab a cleaning brush and some water from a hose or bucket and begin scrubbing the floor. After your initial scrub, mix a simple solution of baking soda, laundry detergent and dish soap, or buy a premade cleaning solution.
Pour your solution over the floor and allow it to sit for several minutes. Once you’ve let the solution sit, give your floor another scrub, or rinse away the solution with clean water, depending on the floor’s dirtiness.
6. Inspect for Major Cracks and Chips
Cracks and chips in your garage floors are unpleasant to look at and become safety hazards. Additionally, untreated cracks and chips will only become worse, so finding and fixing these imperfections as soon as possible is crucial.
Once you find a crack, start by removing any loose concrete in or around the area. Then, fill the area with epoxy and smooth the product with a putty knife. Once the epoxy has dried, sand down the area to create a smooth finish.
For any large or extensive cracks, call a garage floor maintenance company to properly repair your floor.
7. Apply Polyurea Floor Coating
One of the most effective ways to protect and maintain your garage floor is by applying Polyurea floor coating. Polyurea coating can help extend the life of your garage floor by preventing chipping, cracking and staining. This floor coating also makes sweeping and washing your garage floor much easier.
Polyurea coating is extremely elastic (300%), allowing it to move with your concrete garage floor as it settles, expands or contracts during cold weather. This elastic coating will prevent any chipping or cracking due to this movement.
Other benefits of Polyurea floor coating include:
- Slip and skid resistance.
- UV stability to protect against yellowing.
- 100% antimicrobial and antibacterial.
BlackHawk Garage Door Can Help You Protect Your Garage Floor
When you need to properly protect your garage floor, the dedicated team at BlackHawk Garage Door will be there. We offer a one-day installation process so you can get back to using your garage quickly. Start enjoying all the benefits of Polyurea floor coating in your garage and request a free estimate today.