"Racedeck" tile floors

[tsuter]

Dragging the bench around would mar the tile but I convinced the wifey to assist. Jack stands should go on a 1/4 inch or 3/8 inch plywood I believe.



Final stages:



And the last is in:



Overall 500 feet took about 14 hours including a lot of cleanup and moving of junk. If the garage was clean it would be much faster.

[PDACPA]

tsuter - Did you buy the bevelled edge for the openning or did you put it all the way around?

[tsuter]

Used the bevelled edge only for the entrance to the garage. Otherwise it is square to the edge of the wall curb. My garage slopes five inches back to front for drainage. The bevelled edge snaps onto the normal tile but it is also single directional so you have to order edges for the correct side based on how you lay the tile.

[Jim Garfield]

I noticed in a Racers Group ad that they
sell Motor-Mat for $ 2.69 per tile, fwiw.

[JavaBrewer]

tsuter - The floor looks great. How does it sound when you walk on it...I'm thinking a lot like a laminate floor? Since you deal with snow what was your reasoning for not getting the open mesh style for under the cars? Good luck and hope the floor works out!

[tsuter]

It sounds different than walking on concrete. Some tile noise. They are 3/8 thick with a heavy drain/support grid underneath. I did not get the open top mesh because it will trap a lot of dirt. We do get a lot of snow but when it falls off the car I just sweep it outside. The stuff that melts will run off with the slope I have and even that which goes below the tile will also run off. The open top mesh design just facilitates the water going down the the lower floor.

[tsuter]

Here is a bad shot of the bottom of the tile showing the support and drainage grid.



This photo shows a stack of four tile with a fifth tile upside down on top.
You can get some idea of the thickness.

[jase007]

Looks great!

Have you tried a creeper on it yet (with you on the creeper)? I was just wondering how it would roll as compared to a harder surface.

BTW nice bike

Thanks.

Jason

[widebody911]

Looks nice, 'cept that wouldn't have been my choice of colors.

I'm still sceptical of the durability of the tiles and how well they work for working on a car. For instance, when you're raising a car with a floor jack, how easily does the jack roll? Would you be able to rotate the handle end of the jack out of the way? It sounds like one would spend the rest of their natural life making compromises to avoid 'marring' the tiles.

The place where I play volleyball has a similar tile system. I've been playing there for a few years. The tile joints used to be super smooth, like the industrial tile they use in schools and hospitals. However, over time, the edges have begun to curl, making a pronounced 'lip' around each tile, which has trapped dirt, and stymies efforts to get them to stay down again. I took a close look at them last weekend, after the discussion here about tiles. I'm going with epoxy for the new garage.

Plastics do not live forever - ignore the marketing. The second you take them out of the wrapper, they start to decay; it seems there's an inverse half-life, which is affected by UV exposure, heat cycling, and rand(1).

[JavaBrewer]

Thom,

Alot of my neighbors went the epoxy route - 50% professional install ($2K) and the others DIY kits (Home Depot ~$200). I would think that for someone who really wrenches alot the epoxy floor would be the most troublesome due to damage/chipping from the occasional dropped tool. Anyone with a epoxy floor please chime in here. The last thing I would want is a floor I would have to baby.

Edit - plus my garage is also used for lots of home construction/landscape projects and I cringe to think of what would happen to the epoxy when I drop a ceramic tile, hammer, or shovel on it.

[tsuter]

Well I have dropped some things and this tile does not mar easily. Dragging the fridge did not mar it but the workbenck with metal legs would.
One thing about Epoxy - how do you paint the checkered square pattern?

[VincentVega]

I have epoxy on my floor that I 'installed'. I've dropped tools, hot exhaust pieces, torch 'drippings' and so on on the floor with only a few scrapes. One thing that will harm the expoxy is a hard metal wheel, on my creeper for example. You can usually find floor safe wheels if you look around though. The dollies I have are floor safe and dont leave a mark when shuttling the cars around.

[MovitNA]

RaceDeck is a nice looking floor but sounds a bit cheap when walking on it. I mentioned this to someone at the factory and they often put a carpet liner below the tile to dampen out this noise. If anyone in the NY City area needs any, I've got 10 different colors in stock....$3.00/ft (pickup price). If you're on the East Coast and order factory direct or from a West Coast distributor, figure freight cost will run .25-30/ft. SD

[widebody911]

Originally posted by tsuter
One thing about Epoxy - how do you paint the checkered square pattern?

It wouldn't be difficult at all. Split your epoxy inventory into two parts, tint the one part. Mask-paint-mask-paint. Badda-boom badda-bing.

[MovitNA]

You can also lay black & white epoxy-quartz tiles. SD

[Joeaksa]

One thing to remember is that if anyone is interested in buying tile or things like this from either Lowes or Home Depot, that there are people on Ebay selling 10% discount coupons there.

They usually sell for $2-3.00 and will save a fair amount off of the cost of doing a garage in either VCT or epoxy paint. I have purchased a couple of these and saved enough to buy more Porsche parts!

JoeA

[Joeaksa]

If anyone is interested in the Racedeck tiles, I was just at the SEMA show in Vegas and they are giving a discount price there. Believe that its $2.50 a sq ft for people at the show.

Asked if I had to purchase there and they said to call them the next week at the factory in SLC and they would honor the pricing.

JoeA

[JmuRiz]

When you spill oil/washer fluid or anything on those Racedeck atc tiles...do you have to pull them all up to clean all that's seaped underneither them? A home depot DIY rustoleum epoxy paint seems good for me, cheap and easy...if it chips just patch it right?

[Randy Webb]

Marmoleum

[stealthn]

What happens if your floor is cracked. If tiles are glued won't they crack with the concrete? And if using epoxy, do you have to dig out the cracks and patch them first. I have a few hairlines.....