Your metal building needs cleaning and organizing just as much as your other buildings and belongings. A cluttered garage accumulates dirt and dust, makes it difficult to find what you need, and looks unappealing. Not only that, but severe clutter and overpacking leads to building damage, like dents, cuts, and tears. It’s important that you remove excess clutter, chemicals, and unsightly stains to prevent damage to your garage’s walls and foundation and to keep you and your family safe.
Cleaning Your Garage Floor
One of the best ways to make your residential metal garages feel cleaner is to keep the garage’s floor clean. This is both aesthetically beneficial, and beneficial for your building’s overall integrity. Cleaning your garage’s floor regularly helps it last longer and prevents wear and tear damage. Not only does it prevent damage to your garage’s floor, but it prevents damage to your home as well. Oil, grime, and dirt can damage carpet and hardwood flooring and can be easily tracked in on your shoes if your garage’s floor isn’t clean.
So, what steps should you take to clean your garage’s floor? We’re glad you asked. Here are Metal Garage Central’s simple steps for keeping your garage clean.
· Empty the Garage
The best way to clean your metal garage’s floor is to start by clearing everything out of the structure. This will allow you to clean every inch of the garage’s floor. We suggest cleaning your garage on a sunny day with no chance of rain. This way, you’ll be able to place everything you removed from your garage in your driveway or yard without worrying about rain damage. If you want to clean your garage on a day with bad weather, you’ll have to make space for all that stuff in your home.
· Determine Where Runoff Will Go
To get the most thorough clean possible, we suggest using a pressure washer on your garage’s floor and walls. However, pressure washers produce a lot of runoff. It’s important to know where that water will drain at or runoff to. It’s ideal if your garage floor is slightly tilted away from your house. This means the excess water will runoff away from your home. However, if your garage has a flat floor or if the floor is tilted toward your home, you will have to find a way to prevent excess water from pooling near your house.
· Clean With Hot Water and Vinegar
One benefit of a concrete slab foundation is that you don’t have to buy expensive chemicals to clean it. Your metal garage’s floor can be cleaned with a solution of 1 gallon of boiling water and 1 cup of distilled vinegar. Simply scrub the floor with a stiff-bristled broom or deck brush to remove dirt, grim, oil, and road salt that build up over time. Be sure to remove any excess water and solution when you’re finished.
· Paint the Garage Floor
One of the best ways to prevent your garage floor from getting vehicle stains or general discoloring is to paint the floor. A lot of people overlook this step, but it can be incredibly helpful. Not only does it add aesthetic appeal to the interior of your steel garage, it also increases the floor’s resistance to mold.
As far as floor paints go, we recommend using a latex acrylic paint or an epoxy paint. The epoxy is the better of the two options, as it bonds more durably to concrete, but the acrylic is a more inexpensive option.
Organizing Your Metal Garages
Cleaning your garage’s floor is the first step. The next step is to organize your stuff and declutter the inside of the garage. This is the best way to make your garage usable and beautiful.
· Reorganize the Metal Garages
The first step to reorganizing your metal garages is deciding how you will use your space. Make sure to take advantage of all the vertical space you have by using shelves, hooks, pegboards, or a slat wall to keep your stuff off the floor and easy to find. We also recommend making use of old coffee cans, boxes, and other reusable items to store your stuff. We’ve seen some customers store garden equipment in PVC pipes and excess nuts, bolts, and screws in old soup cans.
· Create Zones For Certain Products
One of the best ways to organize your space and stay organized is to create specific zones for your stuff. Designate a certain area for parking, workshop space, storage, and whatever you need. Having clearly defined areas for each category of thing helps you stay neat and orderly.
· Solve Big Storage Problems Through Metal Garages
It’s important to realize that your garage will never stay organized if you don’t address major storage issues. There is no storage system thorough enough to declutter your garage if you have more stuff than the building will hold. One possible solution is to store the stuff you use most frequently in your metal garages and move the other stuff to a storage unit St George and many other places have available to rent. Consider having a yard sale or donating items you have not used in the last five years. There’s no need to clutter up your garage with stuff you don’t use.
· Organize Shelves and Cabinets
If you have the option, we highly recommend installing cabinets in your garage. Shelves are helpful, but cabinets keep your garage looking neat and clean by storing your stuff behind closed doors. Cabinet and drawer systems are typically low-cost storage solutions that take your garage to the next level.