What is the best garage floor?

18 09 2008

What is the best garage floor is a difficult question to answer.  There generally is no doubt that adding garage flooring is a wise decision.  The added benefits outweigh the cost in most cases.  Inexpensive garage floor protection benefits include:

  • Added warmth to cold floors
  • Anti-fatigue properties
  • Easy clean-up
  • Improved appearance
  • Sound deadening
  • Less dirt tracked into your home
  • And many more…

Opinions will differ among those who have garage flooring as to which is the best garage floor.  The reason for that is quite simple, everyone has different needs.  Cost, style, comfort, safety, and cleanup are some of the aspects of the decision making process.  What is the best garage floor for one may not be the best garage floor for another.

If your looking at the purchase of a garage floor from a strictly cost related basis, then the best garage floor is the rolled garage flooring.  Dollar for dollar, rolled garage flooring is the least expensive per square foot and with different thicknesses and qualities available, you are sure to find a floor to meet your budget needs.

If appearance is the main quality you are looking for then the best garage floor is a tough one to answer.  As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  That being said, the general consensus as to which is the best looking garage floor is usually tile garage floors.  Because most garages are fairly large a single color rolled floor may be too much of one color for some people’s individual taste.  The multicolored tile garage floors help breakup that look with contrasting colors.  In addition, garage floor tiles allow you to design your floor any way you please and many people take advantage of that ability.  Popular patterns include boarders around the perimeter or a check board layout.

When it comes to comfort, generally rolled garage flooring or soft garage floor tiles make the best garage floor.  Many of the other flooring options are made from a hard plastic type material that is more comfortable than plain concrete, but not nearly as comfortable as the rolled garage floor.

If safety and cleanup are your primary reasons for looking into garage flooring, the best garage floor for you is most likely rolled garage flooring.  One of the biggest benefits of rolled garage flooring is that it is easy to clean.  Aside of the seems, rolled garage flooring does not allow spills or leaks to penetrate to the floor below.  That means spills are contained to the rolled garage flooring where they can be easily taken care of.  In addition because rolled garage flooring is not secured to the floor it can be dragged out of the garage and sprayed down occasionally with a garden hose.  Rigid garage floor tiles are usually solid or perforated.  The perforated types allows spills to drain below the tile to the floor below.  This can be beneficial in some applications but ultimately the difficulty becomes cleaning up spills below the tile.  Unless you pull up part of the floor, the spills will remain under the floor forever.  Even solid tiles are not installed tight enough where spills don’t leak down between the seems.

Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to install garage flooring, but deciding which is the best garage floor is strictly up to the individual making the purchase.



Garage Floors – How Much Do I Need?

4 09 2008

Garage floors make a nice addition to any home and they are a fantastic home improvement project.  There are many types of garage flooring with the most popular being rolled garage flooring.  With the wide variety of textures, colors and thicknesses available, choosing the right garage floor can be a difficult task.

If you are looking for Garage Flooring That’s Inexpensive and Easy To Install, check out our article on that subject.  If you are more interested in Garage Floor Tiles, we have an article on that too.  Whatever type of flooring you choose you will need to determine how much flooring you need to purchase.  If you have a rectangular or square garage, that calculation is quite simply length x width.  For example, if your garage is 24′ x 20′, then you simply take 24 x 20 and determine that your garage is 480 square feet.  If you were going to purchase rolled garage floors then the your best option would be to choose a roll that is 10 feet wide and purchase the length you need for each 10 foot increment.  In our example 2 rolls of garage flooring that is 10 feet wide by 24 feet long would be perfect.  But what if you garage is 24′ x 22′?  If that is the case the best option would be to purchase rolled garage flooring that is 7.5′ wide and then buy 3 rolls at 24′ long.

In each of the examples above it is important to know the width and length of your garage.  Many of the garage floors available comes in various patterns and are generally rolled out from the back of the garage to the front.  By doing this, the seem will run along the length of the garage.  To determine the width of the rolls you will need you simply take the width of your garage and divide it by the various widths of flooring available.  The most common widths of rolled garage flooring are 7.5′, 8′, 9′ and 10′.  If your garage is 22′ wide then the best choice would be 3 rolls of the 7.5′ width flooring.  That would give you the least amount of waste when you install your floor.  Three rolls at 7.5′ wide would cover an area 22.5′ wide providing only 6 inches of waste.

Once you determine the width of the roll out flooring you need, the length is easy.  Purchase each of the rolls in the total length of the garage.  For example, if your garage is 24′ long then you will need each of your rolls to be 24′.  But what if the necessary length of garage flooring is not available?  The better garage flooring retailers like StoreItWell.com can special order customers the perfect length of flooring you need.  This eliminates waste and generally saves you money.  Because there are usually custom order cut charges, it is best to order 1 long run of flooring instead of 3 separate rolls.  In our 24′ long garage, that would mean a total roll length of 72′, (24′x3).

Calculating the right amount of garage flooring can be a difficult task but one that is extremely important if you are planning on this impressive home improvement project.  You don’t want to buy too much and waste your money but you also don’t want to buy too little and end up short on the job.  The right calculations are important to doing the job .  If you are not comfortable determining how much you need, ask for help.  We will be more than willing to help you order the perfect amount.