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Any recommendations or advice?
Covering quite a large area (40sqm) so thinking of getting some rubber floor on a roll rather than the jig-saw matts, so there will just be a couple of (long) joins. Is it difficult to lay?
Thinking lino may be easier and cheaper but not such good insulation.
Just needed for footfall (and bike wheels of course) no vehicles.
Thanks.
Carpet tiles, Ebay...
Tongue and groove chipboard and a coat of floor paint
I used some garage floor paint I got from ScrewFix. Multiple coats covered the concrete surprisingly well. It keeps dust to a minimum, looks great and has stayed intact with the car going in and out.
The jigsaw mats work surprisingly well, stay together nicely, warm, soft and sweep nicely. The only thing they struggle with is heavy roller tool cabs or pulling a heavy sack truck as they tend to pucker up.
Not carpet tiles, unless you never ever intend to put a car or bike in there, and never ever spill anything. I had to rip them out of a previous house, along with the underlay which had basically rotted and turned into dust (a particularly lightweight, easily disturbed and would fill the whole house dust).
It was nice that bearings etc wouldn't roll away though!
I'm considering ceramic tiles at the moment. Saw them in a garage and seem to be a good idea...look nice, easy to clean resistant to spillages, will easily take the load of a car if I ever am able to fit a car in there amongst the bikes, tools, camping gear etc...I'm just a bit concerned about robustness if I drop anything on the floor, though my kitchen tiles seem to hold up well to the Le Cruset being dropped on them and other pots and pans. If they can withstand a Le Cruset being dropped on them then they are probably tough enough.
rubber jigsaw here. Works really well. Nice to kneel on, walk on, clean. Perfect. Certainly better than the carpet I had before.
Another vote for rubber jigsaw here!
Thanks, I imagine the rubber jig-saw is hard to cut/shape though isn't it? Works out more expensive than the rolls too.
Paint is very tempting as so easy but I want some insulation.
I like the idea of carpet tiles but think they'd get too filthy tbh.
Interlocking vinyl tiles 914 x 914 mm great job
If by rubber jigsaw, you mean the foam interlocking tiles, they cut very easily with a stanley knife. Mine are now in my campervan and I painstakingly cut chamfered strips to fill in the grooved floor before a complete layer over the top.
Rubber jigsaw here too. I just didn’t take them right to the edge.
My bike stand doesn’t like them so set it on the hard floor.
Second hand plastic event flooring.
Best place to order mats from?
Lots on Ebay etc - looking for recommendations.
Cheers.
Si
Ok, I think I might be swayed to the rubber jig-saw now then.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Anyone used/tried lino? </span>
rubber jigsaw is easy to cut, as said above. I got mine from Halfords, on offer, plus the BC discount.
My floor is all painted and have an area of the jigsaw mats from Halfords that cover my working area. Insulated, nice to kneel on, easy to clean.
How hard wearing are the interlocking foam/rubber mats?
Do you need to stick them down with anything or are they fairly solid once you've got a decent amount of floor covered?
Halfords ones look great. Thanks.
"How hard wearing are the interlocking foam/rubber mats?"
Pretty astonishingly tough tbh. Not indestructible but I put mine down about a year ago and it's still in near perfect shape. I've had some issues with buckling though- they seem to swell a little in the damp?
Wish I'd done it years ago tbh
The only lasting damage on my foam mats is where the cats decided to sharpen their claws 🙂 If you are a bit OCD, when you get them out the pack (6 tiles per pack), put them together to match up the checkerplate pattern. If you rip open 6 packs of the things and start laying randomly, you will never find two tiles where the checkerplate actually matches (I only found it mildly irritating when laying them, never noticed since!)
Also I didn't notice them swelling when damp, and after a year or so on the floor, no mould underneath at all. Did come home to a flooded garage one day, it was very weird walking in and thinking, its not so bad, and then I realised the whole floor was floating on an inch of water 🙂
I got the 2cm thick version to set up my home gym area, miles better than the jigsaw matting. I think 1cm would be more than adequate for your requirements.
Not sure what it would be called in English though.
The other option could be "horse stall mats"
But why would you want to just cover a garage floor when it is just used for storage?
My neighbour was fitting out a gym and brought home enough matting to floor three garages.
He rolled it all up outside the back of his garage for two years then put it all in a skip! I think he had planned to floor his garage but never got round to it.
I asked if I could have it, fished it out and laid it in my lair. It's about 30mm thick and I would imagine you couldn't shoot through it with a shotgun it was difficult to cut (sharp Stanley knife) but worth it.
Gym matt FTW
CSB