My new shop: doing it right from the ground up.

Personally I would use a 2 part epoxy on the floor. I can’t imagine that you can tell much difference standing on a wood floor over concrete. Just get some comfortable shoes.

-- DaveH - Boise, Idaho - “How hard can it be? It's only wood!”

Personally I would put in the wood floor or something to make standing a lot easier on the legs and back. Standing on concrete for any length of time causes me considerable discomfort and limits my time in the shop so I buy really comfortable shoes and when the budget allows I will be putting some kind of flooring in the shop…other than sawdust :-)

-- ...it's rennovation time!!!

I have a concrete floor in my garage but I put down some interlocking foam matting I got at CostCo. It cushions your feet and insulates you from the cold concrete floor which can be hard on joints and back.

-- Dan, San Diego, CA

yeah, I’d leave the concrete, and maybe pour some epoxy on top of it – but I would definitely wouldn’t put wood floors on it as this will cause too much vibration for the powertools to transfer to the floor, and to you as well – vibration and noise will be higher than if the powertools are on concrete

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

I like the solution Dan’s offering. the interlocking foam.
Does it provide enough resistance for the powertools/workbench, or do you work around those?

A concrete floor is a big mistake in my humble opinion. I had a concrete floor and painted it, it led to nothing but constant backbreaking problems.Then I put on top of it all floating wooden floors and have never looked back I hope you get it sorted Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease

Obi1 you can build/interlock those foam cubes around your power tools, so that they sit directly on the concrete floor – you don’t really need to pad the tools and benches… just where you stand. I actually use the same right now as I’m renting and can’t really do much more than that – it’s a great portable/cheap solution. you can find these at costco (east coast…. I wasn’t able to find them on the west coast… but you can look either way) or online. I hear Harbor Freight carries those as well. they are usually 2’x2’ and about 1/2”-3/8” thick – the thicker the better obviously.

SCOTSMAN – I’m curious as for future plans I was thinking about pouring in concrete and painting it with epoxy layers (once I have my own place) – is it really still that hard? are you also using foam/rubber to soften the work areas ? (thats what I plan to do as I already have the pads) is the wooden floors transferring any of the major tools vibrations ? (table saw/jointer/planer/etc)

I like the concrete+epoxy since it is one single smooth surface if you need to move things around, and is resistant to water/moisture if anything spills/etc.

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

i would hesitate to put wooden flooring onto a concrete slab in a shed. i would be extremely concertned about termites & carpenter ants, and that is an awful lot of space for them to go to business in.

Purplev we here in the U K have a kind of laminate flooring which looks very much like wood.It is called a floating floor because it is laid on top of some styrofoam material which is laid first.This makes the whole floor quite nice to walk on and is vey durable.The surface is wood effect with the same type of surface finish as your average kitchen top covering perhaps a bit harder.It is guaranteed for about fifteen years and works well .I am a heavyish guy and had a bad back anyway so it was a saviour for me to change to this set up,however before this I experimented with rubber mats about 1 inch thick which I spread everywhere.I found them to be more trouble than they were worth when it came to cleaning up after a days work.here is a few pics of the flooring down.and I hope you do well God Bless and good luck Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease