DIY Driveway Epoxy Coating
For better or worse, one of the first things that any potential buyer sees when they come to look at your home is the driveway. Realtors are forever stressing the importance of “curb appeal” when it comes to selling a home, but all too often, the driveway is one element of those two magic words that gets overlooked.
The folks over at www.createwithmom.com understand very well how important an attractive and well-maintained driveway can be. Akheela and her family have come up with and generously shared many ingenious solutions for preserving and maintaining all elements of their investment on their blog, up to and including their problematic driveway!
Akheela had done all the usual things to enhance the appearance of the asphalt driveway of their home. They’d employed professional finishing services, and had gone more than one DIY route using any number of asphalt treatments and sealants.
Unfortunately their experience with all previous services and products was that after a few days of looking great their asphalt driveway ended up returning to its old, worn and unattractive appearance; a disappointing waste of time, effort and money.
After resurfacing the floor of their garage with an epoxy finish, Akheela and her family decided to explore the options available for epoxy driveway surfacing by the same manufacturer: Rustoleum. To their great delight, they discovered that the company has a line of products that would yield the same attractive and durable effects that the epoxy flooring in the garage had.
Epoxy treatments, be they for garage floors, basements or driveways, require careful cleaning and preparation. Especially important is the removal of all oil stains from the surfaces to be treated, as oil interferes with the chemical bonds necessary for epoxy to set, as well as leaving unsightly stains.
Cognizant of this, Rustoleum has produced an entire system for epoxy application from the first steps of preparation to the final touches on the finished surface. This is particularly valuable because there is no guesswork involved regarding the compatibility of each product element to the others.
Akheela began the process of refinishing her driveway by laying down a coat of Rustoleum’s EpoxyShield oil stain remover over the largest and nastiest oil stain. The product applies as a liquid, then dries to a powder, the oil is lifted from the asphalt surface as the product dries. It is important to apply the product in dry weather, and for it to dry naturally over the course of a couple of days; again, ideally during a time when no precipitation is expected. Once the stain remover dried, Akheela was able to sweep away the powder, delighted to find that nearly all of the stain went with it. She followed up by using ExpoxyShield Premium spot remover for any smaller, indeterminate stains and remnants on the big stain with great success.
But cleaning is really just the first step in any epoxy application, for a comprehensive and entertaining look at the rest of the procedure, check out Akheela’s blog at:
http://www.createwithmom.com/2016/09/enhancing-curb-appeal-with-this-diy.html