The Perfect Pattern
If the first thing that you see is that tiles are not even or not centered, keep reading. If you never even noticed and you are now counting the circles to see what I am talking about, use the simple method 🙂
I am a frequent reader and often post on a popular garage forum. One of the questions today gave me a bit of a chuckle. Paraphrasing what we would consider the ‘simple‘ way to install a garage floor, the OP questioned ‘what if I want my pattern to be perfect?’
So lets back up a second and explain the premise of the question. For the sake of argument we are going to base everything off of 1′ squares with a 2′ border. Lets assume for a second you have a garage that is 25’3″ wide.
There are two types of people in this world. Which one are you:
- Nobody is going to see it anyway and if they do who cares? (This post will stress you out. Read the simple way above.)
- If I am going to do this job I should it right and my floor is going to be perfect, right down to the 1/16th of an inch. (Keep Reading)
If you want your floor to be perfect, most tiles can get you half way there. You can center your floor from left to right. In the example above you would have a 1.5″ piece on each side — actually less when you account for expansion, but that is another post.
Where you are going to run into an issue is back to front. If the depth is 30’6″ the last tile going back is going to have to be smaller than the first tile where you pull in. Most polypropylene tiles require you to use a full tile at the garage door so you can lock your edge pieces on. If this is still going to drive you nuts, you should consider a PVC tile or TechFloor.
PVC tiles allow you to slide the ramp over a straight edge so you do not need to start with a full tile. TechFloor offers multiple tile sizes which in most cases means you do not need to cut at all!
Please note, this is not meant to be ‘installation instructions.’ It is only meant to guide you towards which type of install you should use?
