Interlocking garage floor tiles [Archive]

F5 Dave

29th October 2024, 15:47

For some time I’ve been thinking about giving my garage floor a birthday.
Currently it is rough cast concrete with maybe a stipple of 3mm stones poking through.
Connects to a laundry with a door, and a garage door.

It gets dusty and dirt blows in as the roller garage door doesn’t have an effective seal on it. In fact it is on a bit of an angle so I’ve riveted a bit of angle to the door bottom with this angle so it blocks most of the gap.
Atm I have to live with a bit of dust blown in. Sweeping it out can be a pain as there are always bikes locked to the ground and work benches aplenty to negotiate.
Anyhoo;
I was originally thinking of applying a self levelling compound and making a smooth surface. This would make it look nicer and be easier to sweep. Work better in the laundry as well as it is always a dirty concrete floor.

Self-levelling compounds come in many forms, but most are meant for Prior to surface finishes. Occasionally, like K310 you can use as your finished surface as is.

They do have a few things going against them.
1. The finished surface products are expensive.
2. You need to be real careful with surface preparation or you will be left with a crumbling hard to fix mess in 3 years’ time. Especially if you want to run it on real thin to save money.
3. You need to move everything.
4. This becomes a huge project. I have bad fatigue atm, I can’t work for more than an hour at a time really.
Carpet:
Nah. Had it in a rental, it’s a poor choice of garage flooring.

Tiles:
I do have some foam ones for around the bike bench, I move some around to kneel on if needs be. The interlocking of these are miserable and temporary at best. They keep coming apart. Fail.
A mate offered me some flexible tiles. They are kinda rubbery on the bottom and kinda furry on the top. Apparently, you throw them all over the ground and they stay there. Maybe on smooth surfaces. I took a couple to try and they didn’t really work. Maybe I could lay down some adhesive and lock them down.
This could also turn into one of those : ARGH!! How do I get rid of these damn things? Especially now they are stuck to the ground but attract dirt and lift at every edge?

Then as surfing I come across the interlocking tile thing.
I actually had them in my van. You had to mallet them together. They quickly proved (some cretin ‘detailed’ the van with some slippery coating, but even after cleaning I put some carpet in place to stop the wheels of tied bikes sliding around the place in transport.
But as a garage cover they do offer some advantages. Bought away from M10 they can be affordable. I could install a bit at a time, and cut around lathes and benches.
It could be a nice floor for the laundry.

Experience with?
There are the slotted type which can be bought with ramps. That’s attractive, as it doesn’t become a tripping hazard entering the laundry or in the garage door.
They contain slots. Good for grip, might mean I never need to sweep the floor (until they fill up?). -Or am I going to curse every time something small enough to drop goes through the slots?
I don’t usually spill stuff, but if I did there’s no mopping it up, even a flood.
https://www.tradetested.co.nz/p/home-outdoor-living/sports-outdoors/non-slip-flooring/interlocking-garage-floor-tile-system-30-pack-tiles-black?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw7Py4BhCbARIsAMMx-_KiE-69-ktetgwJrFQuRbAVuzupfxPFjPKjc1_5D-YFU5MflAWrdbUaAnLUEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Or you can get thinner solid ones.
https://castlenz.com/product/garage-tiles/

Thoughts from experience?