I did a ton of research and ended up going with Garagedeck from bigfloors.com. One thing that I noticed is that many of these tiles sold by different brands are identical and actually are made in the same factory. I cant comment on free flow tiles as mine are solid but I will give you my experience.
If you are using this as a woodshop or if you plan on doing any "real" work in the garage I wouldnt recommend interlocking rigid plastic tiles. While I am happy with mine, I do notice some drawbacks:
- The joints between the tiles are not super tight so any standing water/fluid will seep through the joints and onto the garage floor. So if you spill oil or any other fluid you dont want on the concrete, you have to pull up the tiles which is a HUGE pain in the ass and hard to do without damaging at least the first tile. On the flip side, because its not super tight, the floor does "breath" a bit but I can tell you that any water that gets under the tile takes several days to dry unless you live in a very dry climate. when I'm doing any sort of work that I think might make a mess, I put a tarp down first to catch any fluids.
- The gaps between the tile will collect small amounts of dirt/saw dust so if you're using it as a woodshop, I would imagine that it'll be difficult to clean.
- When exposed to sun/heat the tiles WILL expand and at least in my case they will lift off the ground/buckle. I left PLENTY of space (1 inch +) around the perimeter of the garage for expansion but it still buckles. I think what's happening is that the little plastic "feet" under the tile get caught on the floor (rather than sliding across the floor when expanding) and don't allow for the expansion.
The reason I went with the rigid tile floor is because the concrete in my garage is 70 years old and patched, stained, pitted, etc. If it were in good shape I probably would have just gone with a sealer or epoxy if I had the cash.
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Plastic flooring from Greatmats consists of a number of different designs, creating one of the most versatile types of flooring materials on the market. You might even struggle to recognize some of these floors as consisting of plastic.
Make use of plastic flooring indoors or outdoors. Some of the tiles have a solid design, while others have holes that extend through the entire thickness of the tile, allowing water to drain to the ground underneath. It’s easy to clean, too.
For more information, please visit Interlocking Pp Tiles.