Cleaning Residue From Concrete

[Rowdy Rat]

I'm in the process of getting my garage and shop area prepared for Armstrong VCT tile. The garage area is pretty straight forward... No real problems to address. The shop area (about 28' x 14' was at one time, covered with self adhesive carpet. The carpet was in rather poor shape and I plan to cover that area in tile as well. The problem is that the carpet adhered TOO well to the concrete and there is quite a bit of carpet backing/adhesive residue still stuck to the floor.

I'm looking for some thoughts on the best way to remove this residue and prep the floor so that I can put the tile down. Chemical strippers and mechanical sanders come to mind, but if there is any product or tool in particular that does a good job, I'd love to hear about it.

Regards,

Stan Falenski

 

[D-Cal]

I don't have any real wisdom for you, but my instinct tells me to rent a sander and just grind it off. No chemicals to deal with, just a vacuuming pass. Probably clean it up in an afternoon and be ready to lay tiles. Bonus is that the concrete will have all the high spots knocked down that might have caused you headaches anyway.

In years past when I worked for an insurance clean-up company, glued down carpet or underpad was the bane of our existance. It usually had to be hacked at for hours with razor scrapers on a pole.

Good luck with your project.

 

[Rowdy Rat]

In years past when I worked for an insurance clean-up company, glued down carpet or underpad was the bane of our existance. It usually had to be hacked at for hours with razor scrapers on a pole.

LOL... Welcome to my nightmare!

I spent the better part of two days scraping the carpet off of the concrete floor. The carpet has been removed, but as I mentioned, a fair amount of the self adhesive backing is still there.

I experimented in a couple of sections last night with adhesive remover in one area and sand paper in another. The chemical removal was sloppy and still did not get the floor completely clean. The area that I sanded looked much better and as you mentioned, smoothed the floor out as well. Odds are that the first passes are going to clog the sand paper on the machine, but that should end as soon as the high spots of the residue are sanded away.

Thanks for your input... Much appreciated!

Regards,

Stan Falenski

 

[D-Cal]

Maybe get a stiff bristle brush or wire attachment with the sander and use that for a first pass.

 

[Rowdy Rat]

I rented a rotary sander from Home Depot yesterday along with a dozen 36 grit sanding pads. The process went slowly at first, but as the top face of the backing was ground down, the job went much easier. I ended up using only five of the sanding pads... Those things lasted a LONG time. The corners and edges needed a little hand sanding, but not much because there was no foot traffic and was not compressed as much as the center area.

About 3½ hours had the floors looking pretty darn good... I'll post some photos of the completed job when I get a chance (it looks REALLY good). Thanks again for your interest and comments.

Regards,

Stan Falenski