Pictures! http://www.vorshlag.smugmug.com/gallery/2164276/1
Before you can coat a concrete floor with epoxy, there's the the clean-up and etch step. This took... TWO. LONG. DAYS. The main work was removing paint and crap from the floor, the etching was to remove the highly polished surface of the concrete. Epoxy flooring needs a bit of coarseness to "bite" into. The acid eats away a very small layer of fine aggregate, and essentially "De-polishes" the surface.
First things first, we moved about 250 bricks out of the garage. Go Amy, its yer birthday...
Followed by about an hour of blowing dirt out of the garage and driveway with a leaf blower. Probably 100 pounds of sand was in the garage and 300 on the driveway (which was blowing right into the garage - so it all had to go).
Fookin builder's crappy sub-contractors left 80% of the floor COVERED IN PAINT and spackle and texture. Not just from drywalling, painting and texturing the walls and ceiling in the garage, but from cleaning their brushes and tools RIGHT ONTO THE GARAGE FLOOR, as well as spray painting some interior doors while laid on the floor (overspray).
note the white crap? That's after blowing out all the dirt. White = paint!
It was an utter mess in there that only came off with direct application of muriatic acid (6 gallons were used!) + scrubbing with wire brushes and steel scrubbing pads (grill cleaners). Contrary to popular myth, latex (water based) paint does NOT "clean up easily with water" after it has dried. It cleans up with metal, and muscle, and copious amounts of strong acid. And more muscle.
"Acid fumes are bad, m'kay?" This stuff is strong and would "clear the room" each time I poured. It burned the lining right out of my lungs. It can knock you DOWN, and is not to be toyed with. We kept all the doors and windows open and still had to dodge the fumes pretty regularly. Bad stuff.
Thanks to Amy, Duck and especially AMY for the massive amount of paint scraping from the floor. That girl scrubbed and scraped the floors on her hands and knees for two days, while I just huffed acid fumes and scrubbed with a wire brush tipped broom. McCall and Duck also helped with the wash out/squeegee work, and McCall helped scrub acid too.
Dig the crappy 3 bulb lighting, above left. Its hard to describe how much work this cleaning step took (16+ hours over two days, with 2-4 people working the entire time). In that last picture, above right, you can see the white line of solid paint against the walls and big patches of splotchy white everywhere else. Paint. This is what Amy scraped up and what was along the entire perimeter, and much of the interior, of the garage floor.
When building a home ALWAYS specify that the garage floor be COVERED COMPLETELY immediately after pouring the slab. Otherwise it becomes the clean-up slop room.
Tools used:
Before you can coat a concrete floor with epoxy, there's the the clean-up and etch step. This took... TWO. LONG. DAYS. The main work was removing paint and crap from the floor, the etching was to remove the highly polished surface of the concrete. Epoxy flooring needs a bit of coarseness to "bite" into. The acid eats away a very small layer of fine aggregate, and essentially "De-polishes" the surface.
First things first, we moved about 250 bricks out of the garage. Go Amy, its yer birthday...
Followed by about an hour of blowing dirt out of the garage and driveway with a leaf blower. Probably 100 pounds of sand was in the garage and 300 on the driveway (which was blowing right into the garage - so it all had to go).
Fookin builder's crappy sub-contractors left 80% of the floor COVERED IN PAINT and spackle and texture. Not just from drywalling, painting and texturing the walls and ceiling in the garage, but from cleaning their brushes and tools RIGHT ONTO THE GARAGE FLOOR, as well as spray painting some interior doors while laid on the floor (overspray).
note the white crap? That's after blowing out all the dirt. White = paint!
It was an utter mess in there that only came off with direct application of muriatic acid (6 gallons were used!) + scrubbing with wire brushes and steel scrubbing pads (grill cleaners). Contrary to popular myth, latex (water based) paint does NOT "clean up easily with water" after it has dried. It cleans up with metal, and muscle, and copious amounts of strong acid. And more muscle.
"Acid fumes are bad, m'kay?" This stuff is strong and would "clear the room" each time I poured. It burned the lining right out of my lungs. It can knock you DOWN, and is not to be toyed with. We kept all the doors and windows open and still had to dodge the fumes pretty regularly. Bad stuff.
Thanks to Amy, Duck and especially AMY for the massive amount of paint scraping from the floor. That girl scrubbed and scraped the floors on her hands and knees for two days, while I just huffed acid fumes and scrubbed with a wire brush tipped broom. McCall and Duck also helped with the wash out/squeegee work, and McCall helped scrub acid too.
Dig the crappy 3 bulb lighting, above left. Its hard to describe how much work this cleaning step took (16+ hours over two days, with 2-4 people working the entire time). In that last picture, above right, you can see the white line of solid paint against the walls and big patches of splotchy white everywhere else. Paint. This is what Amy scraped up and what was along the entire perimeter, and much of the interior, of the garage floor.
When building a home ALWAYS specify that the garage floor be COVERED COMPLETELY immediately after pouring the slab. Otherwise it becomes the clean-up slop room.
Tools used:
- Mop & mop bucket (until I figured out that 4:1 water:acid mix was crap; and just started pouting it directly on the floor!)
- "deck cleaning brush" + handle. Very stiff bristle, 10" wide broom. Used this to spread and work around the acid.
- 10" metal bristle brush + handle. Used this to attack the paint after pounding it with acid. Wet the floor, muscle the wire brush over the paint, it'll come up. Remove broom handle and use it up close for tough spots.
- Hose and nozzle and craploads of water (what drought?!). Dilute and rinse out the acid after it quits bubbling.
- Lots of putty knives (2", 4", 6" stiff and flexible putty knives make great scrapers)
- "Grill cleaning brush" (very hardcore steel wool attached to a plastic backing plate and handle) Attacks the thick paint and spackle.
- 6 gallons of muriatic acid (1 gallon per ~200 sq feet) Etches the floor for a good bite on the epoxy.
- 24" squeegee and two 14" squeegees (the big $25 squeegee was 10X better than the two $8 jobbers)
- Electric leaf blower + extension cord
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