garage flooring

Soldato
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Hi

Has anyone had experience using vinyl flooring tiles?

Looking at these


Its looking around £330 to use these.

Are there any alternatives?

We are not looking to park a car in there but most likely some gym equipment at one end and some work area for diy at the other.

Garage is 2.6M x 6.1M.
 
Soldato
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I use horse stable mats, 18mm think, come in 6ftx4ft size. Around £60 per mat delivered. Very easy to cut to size using a Stanley knife.

Arkmat.co.uk is who I used.
 
Associate
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I'm still undecided if i'm just gonna seal my garage floor and just leave it as plain concrete or add in some of these mats. It will probably be more comfortable to walk on and the cold wont come up through the floor as easily but not sure if its actually worth it for how long i spend in the garage.
 
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I put some of the cheapo interlocking floor tiles down that you can get from Halfords or B&Q (Ronson) etc. Think they were £8 a pack when I purchased but may be a bit more now. Managed to do a large double garage with around 9 packs or so, cost me less than £100... I use the room as a home cinema and have some gym equipment + fridge & freezer in there. Overall they have been a great purchase and went down really well. They have really warmed the garage up now, even when it is cold outside when I get round to insulate the garage doors I think it will be very cosy in there with just a small heater being required in the winter. Prior to putting the mats down I did paint the floor with a few coats of Leyland 'heavy duty' floor paint which I believe has really helped keep the mats stable. Floor paint is not as nice as going full epoxy but for £25 a tin you cant really go wrong. Put it on with a a cheap roller on a stick and throw the sleeve out at the end, give it at least 24 hours between coats and then probably a week to cure to full hardness depending on ventilation. The mats themselves are not that tough and they will imprint if you leave something heavy stood on them for a while. It all depends how big an area a load is spread over. Generally any dents etc come out over time but worst case you can always replace a mat if it gets horribly damaged. One option might be to just use more heavy duty mats where you will have the gym equipment if you are worried about dropping dumbbells etc. I did look in to Duramat etc but thought I would try something cheap and cheerful first and upgrade if needed. I don't think I will ultimately bother as the cheap solution seems to have done the job better than expected. Overall one of the best home improvements I have done in terms of cost/performance.
 
Soldato
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Well i decided to go for it.

The tiles came next day and i have just fitted them today.

4rcF92a.jpg v2ruy0O.jpg

They went down easy but where a bit tough to cut with just a Stanley knife and a blunt hack saw.

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mBdTpgV.jpg

Really pleased with the result. Garage is 6.1m X 2.6m and everything came to £330 delivered .
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I worked out 72 tiles needed but bought 75 just in case, turned out i needed exactly 75.
 
Soldato
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Do you find the garage is more insulated with the mats? Or no difference at all?


We haven't moved in yet so cant comment, we are waiting for carpets to be fitted in a few days.

They do butt up to the garage door but are not glued in place so the seal is not perfect.
 
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So just worked out how many of these times i will actually need . 110 apparently and thats with a bit extra think i may buy some every month as to spread the cost
 
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I was considering Duramat at circa £300. I ended up sealing the floor with watered down PVA and then a tub of Screwfix Trade Floor Paint, 2 coats 2.5l covered a 14m2 garage. Needs 7 days to cure but was easy to apply. Worth considering.
 
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I was considering Duramat at circa £300. I ended up sealing the floor with watered down PVA and then a tub of Screwfix Trade Floor Paint, 2 coats 2.5l covered a 14m2 garage. Needs 7 days to cure but was easy to apply. Worth considering.
I've sealed the floor already the concrete dust was just getting too annoying to sweep out every week. Suppose i could paint it to begin with and if i dont like it i can always lay the tiles down later on. I'd probably need two tins for 24m2
 
Soldato
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Bit of a bump on this @utajoker are you able to send over some pictures of how you have done your internal edges, did you just cut the interlockers off on one side and leave a small gap like can be seen in this picture? Just looking to order some soon once I get the samples and decide which ones I want. Duramat looks cheapest so far.

mBdTpgV.jpg
 
Soldato
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I went for Duramat to cover my 4x6M garage floor over 2-years ago. I park a car on it and often work in there. It's stood up to car jacks, axle stands, oil, brake and other fluids being spilt and also sitting submerged in crappy water after a crazy heavy downpour that ended up leaking into the garage. My garage has a 300mm thick concrete base and 3x of the walls are retaining walls for the surrounding earth so it can feel a bit cold in there, but the flooring definitely helped make it feel a bit more insulated. It's certainly much nicer to work in there than before the tiles. Considered just painting or sealing the floor but it would have still been mega cold.

For my internal edges, I cut the external interlockers off one side and left the internal interlockers where they were and used it as a straight edge, I have battens and insulation on the walls so you can't see the internal interlockers. I had to cut more than just the external interlockers off some pieces and tried cutting them with a new sharp Stanley blade but it took too much effort so ended up sawing them in the end. Rubber mallet to get them down easy enough and they've been been fine. It is worth leaving a 1-2cm gap around the edge as they can move ever so slightly if in direct sunlight of if it's very hot.
 
Soldato
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Bit of a bump on this @utajoker are you able to send over some pictures of how you have done your internal edges, did you just cut the interlockers off on one side and leave a small gap like can be seen in this picture? Just looking to order some soon once I get the samples and decide which ones I want. Duramat looks cheapest so far.

mBdTpgV.jpg

Yes exactly that. The instructions said to leave a gap 5-10mm. I'm assuming for expansion. Cut the locking pieces off on one side and just trimmed to leave a similar gap on other side.

Garage is full and I cant see any edges to get pictures :p
 
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