RaceDeck 8-Year Long-Term Review / The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.ค. 2024
- We discuss the durability, performance, pros, cons, and mishaps in our 8-year long-term review of RaceDeck garage tile flooring. In addition, we discuss the use of floor jacks and jack stands for plastic tile. Would we purchase it again? We reveal what flooring choice we made for our new home.
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18" Industrial Mop
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Parsons Ammonia
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00:00 - Introduction
01:34 - 8-year review backstory
03:42 - Why we chose RaceDeck
04:36 - Before cleaning
06:42 - After cleaning / blemishes
09:04 - Noise when walking
10:57 - Performance review
12:15 - Pros
15:43 - Cons
22:37 - The Ugly mishap
24:34 - New flooring reveal
25:38 - Final thoughts - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Great review. I'm not a pro floor guy, just a DIYer that has done both epoxy/flake floors and Racedeck. Our brand new home in Texas I did a grind prep and put in a high quality polyaspartic epoxy floor with flake and a double top coat - that floor was awesome, but it was a lot of work and I didn't do any patterns or accents because I just didn't have the time for all the taping - plus it's hard enough to do an epoxy floor single handed without all the taping and small epoxy areas. As it it was a project that spanned 4 days with the cure times (but not 4 full days of work). I did both 100% solo.
Fast forward five years and we were buying a 40 year old home in Minnesota with a 40 year old spanned garage floor (meaning a a heavy, structural floor with rebar and a void below, that was the way they did them in the 80s and 90s with full foundations in Minnesota). Those spanned floors tend to sag at the front where the floor is tied to the foundation creating a transverse puddle. The remedy is a few holes in the floor, functional but unsightly.
The floor had deep oil staining, some sag spots. Also we had already moved in so I needed to be able to move things around in the garage during the project. I did Racedeck. Due to being in Minnesota with "road buggers" all winter I did a checkerboard but with free flow panels across the front and around both car locations - the goal was to be able to set things around the margin and have the outside 3' of floor stay dry.
I don't do work like pulling transmissions - but I do a lot of home wood working and things like breaks and basic repairs and other home projects.
We're 4 years in and the Racedeck is holding up very well. I usually clean the main floor with cleaner once a year in the spring to get the winter grit off and spot clean and rinse mid-winter if temps allow.
All things being equal I prefer a high quality epoxy floor...but I'm happy with the Racedeck. Also now with 3 winters in Minnesota I'm not sure I'd do epoxy in Minnesota just because of the ice melt and water issues that the Racedeck is soooo helpful with (no sarcasm). it has been a huge value with the Racedeck to not have snow melt puddling going to the stub walls and otherwise making a mess. There is also an unintended consequence of having as much free flow tile as I do. It's easy to clean the road grit out from under the floor. I poke a couple of long pieces of conduit (1 1/4" PVC) under the floor and then I'm able to blow out the crud from underneath very effectively with a backpack blower through the free flow areas.
When it's really warm (>90-95F outside or so, about 85-90 in the garage) the floor will pop just a bit in the middle (3/8"-1/2" or so). As I'm moving things around I plan to trim a bit more around the edges and that should address the problem. People in most climates shouldn't have an issue but in Minnesota the unheated garage can swing over 100F from high to low in a season. I keep a set of 4 18" 3/4" plywood squares handy for things like jack, stands and ramps (and honestly this is a good practice with epoxy too).
My advice...if you love the look of epoxy, have a floor in good shape and the time, go epoxy. But...
If you have any of these factors:
- have a floor with concrete issues - stains, efflorescence (dried salt like crystal residue), degradation from salt, pyrrhotite (NE problem) or inadequate fly ash (Texas problem)
- plan to replace the floor in the future due to any of the preceding issues but want to preserve your investment
- have a floor that doesn't stay dry enough for epoxy (slab on grade with wet soils)
- need to get the project done in a day
- need to get the project done and can't get enough days of good cure temps (not too hot or too cold).
- you want below surface drainage
- want bright, bold colors and/or patterns like checkerboards and lines without spending hours and hours of taping and hand rolling
- Are just more comfortable with the simplicity of snap together without dealing with epoxy systems and all the steps of epoxy floors
- You can't clear the garage 100% for days and need to be able to move stuff around and _on_ the new floor to create working room.
- Do the kind of work where you will damage the floor at some point and want an easy repair that can be done in minimal time (replacing tiles)
Then Racedeck is a great option.
Advice...
Like Racedeck says - work garage door back, you need the tiles to line up with the trim pieces and garage door.
I didn't get a trick guillitine cutter. I was able to cut the tile just fine with a fine crosscut blade on a table saw. You will want the rip fence to have at least ~5-6" of material between the fence and the blade to avoid chatter which means you might be working with the rip fence left or right of the blade depending on cut size. If you have less than 3" of space at side walls or the back I suggest using the trim pieces vs trying to have that narrow a piece.
Measure your overall width to see if you need to start with less than a full tile to have enough width on the last tile of a row.
If you live in a climate like Minnesota with a lot of temperature swings be generous on borders. I did 1/2" to 3/4" - but 3/4"-1" would have been better and probably resolved the warm weather floor pop.
Dont try to cut around the garage door rails if they interfer. Juust use a grinder or cutoff to clip the bottom ~" of the rails if there's not clearance. Anything below the bottom roller and bracket is extraneous. This will also let the floor and garage door rails able to independently expand and contract.
Keep a rubber mallet handy...as you hit hot or cold the first year there will be a tendency of some tiles to pop a little on edges or corners. Just hit them back down with a rubber mallet. After the first year or so once things are stretched and set it will quit happening.
- The odds are almost 100% that your garage floor is not perfectly rectangular. You will likely have to adjust your trim as you progress back and on the last row against the rear stub wall (my back wall had almost 2" of variance over 20' - I'm glad I didn't pre-trim the whole row or I would have had a lot of gap by the back corner.
- You don't have to apply row by row - depending on layout and other things it can be helpful to presnap 2x2 or 2x3 sections and then pop them in. If you're 50+ solo like me that can safe a lot of up and down back strain.
- Besides around the cars I put 2x3 section of free flow tile by the stoop into the house - it's great to be able to shuck wet/snowy boots, umbrella, etc on the drain tile and not have a puddle later.
- If you bring muddy vehicles into the garage avoid the free flow tile. If you get mud under the floor it will be a mess - and not dry out letting nasty microbes grow. But for snow/sand/salt the free flow tile is great.
Note that the floor pop has mostly gone away - I don't think I had any in year 4. My guess is over time the overall floor takes a bit of a set - stretching and compressing a bit to find equilibrium.
All great points, Mark!
Wow this was better than the video. Thanks for all your points. Race deck going in my garage next week.
Thanks! Great review of your experience and helpful suggestions! especially the one about the landscaping fabric
Glad it was helpful!
Very informative and helpful. Thank you!
We are glad it helped!
Helped my decision to purchase racedeck thanks 😊
Terrific!
Thanks for the video! Very thorough and well done. If you wouldn’t mind I am still wondering if tiles are right for my situation and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I live in Chicagoland with a west facing three car plus garage, no drain in the floor. The home was built in the 90s and the floor is showing wear from road salts, which is the reason I am considering tiles. I’m thinking that I should go with solid ones, otherwise the salt would end up on the floor anyway, but I’m concerned about expansion, since I have a fridge and some other heavy items. I was thinking perhaps doing cutouts for the heavy pieces, but also unsure how heavy is too heavy.
Thanks in advance for your advice!
Hi Beez. Snow melt and salt will get down to the concrete with solid top tiles, just not as much as the self-draining tiles. I recommending reading our article on choosing interlocking tiles for snow climates. It has tips and considerations for each type: allgaragefloors.com/winter-tips-interlocking-garage-tiles/ No matter which type you choose, we highly recommend cleaning the concrete well when the garage is cleared out. After the floor dries, apply a densifier with siliconate sealer added. It's not expensive, it's easy to apply, and it will protect your concrete from further damage due to moisture and road salts. Here is a product we recommend: shrsl.com/3cnrf
Expansion generally is not a problem as long as you leave a 1/2" gap from walls and immovable objects (cabinets, support poles, etc.). If you like to leave your garage doors open for extended periods, then a self-draining tile is best (at least for the first few feet) since they hardly expand in direct sunlight. Heavy items on the floor are great for anchoring the floor down since interlocking tiles are a full floating system. As long as storage cabinets, refrigerator's, and any other heavy item has a flat foot or pad with a minimum of one square inch per leg to support the weight, you are good. However, you can trim around them if you like. Check out our video of the SwissTrax floor we just installed in our new home. You can see all the heavy items we have sitting on the tile near the end of the video: th-cam.com/video/DiQcVLlfMIM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Z4T9PTSid31_sud6 Just as an FYI, Swisstrax is offering 15% off through Father's Day on their Ribtrax Pro. We have the coupon code in the video description. RaceDeck and Swisstrax are the two top of the line tiles in the industry, so you can't go wrong with either.
Thanks for the long term review! I’m trying decide what floor to go with, my biggest concern with tiles is liquid spills. With the fall through floor and the solid top tiles it seems like I would need to rip up tiles and wipe dry every time I have a spill… kind of a pain no? Our use case is a little unique, we use are garage as an art studio and a home brewery, so sticky liquid spills are a constant threat. Not to mention turn the toddlers. Would you still recommend recedeck or swisstrax for our needs?? Thanks!
Hi Mark. I'm not sure that interlocking tiles are the best solution since you have a home brewery. Brew spills can cause bacteria to develop and grow in bare concrete. This is why breweries and many home brewers alike use quality epoxy coatings on their floors. The coatings are uniquely resistant to the liquid spills. They make clean up easy will little chance of bacteria developing. We have an article that discusses why epoxy coatings are used for home brewers: allgaragefloors.com/epoxy-coatings-home-brewers/#google_vignette If you were to use an interlocking tile system, we would recommend applying a penetrating sealer first (at the minimum) to help combat mold and bacteria from developing and to protect the concrete. A self-draining tile would be the best bet since spills would go directly to the concrete below and not spread on the tile surface. We think Swisstrax would be a good option since their tiles are the easiest to pull up in sections. You can use code AGF24 at checkout to get a discount as well.