Just a summary for this thread for future reference, since I posted it in my never-ending garage thread...
Step 1: Wash floors with soapy water, scrub with a stiff bristle broom, and squeegee out. Rinse, squeegee.
Step 2: Rent Concrete prep tool from Home Depot and buffer machine, ~$110. Took about 3 hours to do 700 sq ft. This may not be necessary depending on the concrete profile. Mine had a sealer and was quite smooth, so I wanted to rough it up. This will not scrape old coatings or paint off. It mostly leaves fine scratches. Use a diamond cup grinder or a belt sander with an rough grit(40 or 60) to go around the walls where the prep tool didn't reach. The cup grinder is very aggressive, so if you have some rough concrete you can clean it up. Sweep up the mess.
Step 3: wet concrete, use an acid etcher. The Rokrez kit came with citric acid which is fairly mild as far as etching goes, but after using it my concrete opened right up and all the coating went away. Wash floor a couple times, make sure it is clean! Do this 2 days before epoxy so it has time to dry completely. You will know your floor is ready for epoxy when you put water on, it doesn't really bead, it kinda soaks in. Mask off anything you don't want epoxy on like the door rails. Place a strip of duct tape or gorilla tape under the door, so you can close the door and not have it stick. this also gives you a clean edge. You don't want epoxy outside, as it will break down in sunlight. I ended up putting fresh masking tape over this on subsequent coats because I got some epoxy on top of the tape. Not a big deal, just bury it.
Step 4: cost: $269 to do a regular size garage. I used 2 kits for mine, took 3 hours. Follow the epoxy kit directions. I also bought a notched squeegee not included, and it helped to get the epoxy in an even layer before rolling with a roller. It kinda scrapes it to a thin layer, you will think there isn't enough on the floor but once you work it a bit you can get an even coating.
Step 5: Topcoat! Cost: ~$220 for regular size garage, took 2 hours. The Rokrez kit does not have one, but I had read it's pretty essential otherwise the chips start pealing up. Not much extra effort at this point. So I got a kit from PSC in Calgary. Topcoat goes on the next day while the base coat is still in the re-coat window. You must do it in the window, otherwise you will have to rough up the set epoxy. I added the anit-slip additive from the Rokrez kit in the top coat, as it would be buried if used in the base.
That's about it, let it set 72 hours. Total time was about 9-10 hours.
Resources:
https://allgaragefloors.com/
This is a great site, and you can email them for advice.
Rokrez
https://www.costco.ca/RokRez-Epoxy-F...100402675.html
PSC-for topcoat, but you can also have this tinted and get all the chips form them for a basecoat as well. Product is 2301. They are helpful as well, and a Calgary company. I'd consider going straight to them for everything.
https://www.polymersciencecorp.com/p...poxy-coatings/
I have a Rokrez kit and enough 2301 to do a topcoat that I may sell for a good price if anyone is interested, I just have to see if my dad wants it first.