Polyurea is a subgroup of polyurethane.
Garage floor polyurea vs epoxy.
What are polyurea and polyaspartic coatings and how do they compare to epoxy.
It s also marketed as an easy do it yourself application.
The main reason being that it s cheap.
Compared to the many decades that your polyurea will last epoxy will almost definitely result in you spending again and again for re coating.
Like epoxy it is a 2 part component that mixes resin with a catalyst to cause the curing reaction that makes the material hard.
Our polyurea floor coatings will have a mild odor for a few days comparable to a freshly painted room.
It is formed when isocyanates react with water or polyetheramines to create a urea linkage.
They share a common chemistry.
It dries significantly more quickly and thus does not have the opportunity to wick into the pores of the garage floor concrete as much as epoxy does.
There are two competing products in the garage floor coating industry.
First the coatings are chemically related.
First off i ve used epoxy coatings on numerous floors over the years 20 plus years and as long as you had a quality prep job acid wash in some cases multiple.
Like most things in the consumer industry you get what you pay for.
Currently there is no 100 aliphatic epoxy floor coating.
Cost of polyurea vs.
Epoxy costs less but that s only an advantage in the short term.
Not all polyurea and garage floor epoxy products are equal.
We can t speak for products provided by others as there are a lot of variables and a lot of variations.
For this article when we discuss garage floor epoxy and polyurea coatings epoxy vs polyurea we are talking about the garage floor coatings that we offer here.
Epoxy is deceiving because when first installed it looks pretty good.
Epoxy is found in many garages.
The traditional applied epoxy polyurethane coatings and the relatively newer polyurea coatings.
The problem with polyurea is that is simply does not stick to the garage floor as well as good ole epoxy.
Polyurea is a flexible synthetic material used for a number of products and purposes such as lining tanks and trucks.
Epoxy paint is a resin polymer that has been used to protect concrete garage flooring for decades.
As a general rule of thumb epoxy works best indoors so this chemical resistant and slip free surface is perfect for the garage environment where spills and puddles can create a challenge.
Thus all epoxy floor coatings and conventional polyureas contain aromatic compounds and are subject to uv photodegradation yellowing and impaired mechanical properties.