Diamond concrete grinder or Acid etching or Both

[Car-lover]

Looking to do my 2 garage floor with polyurea & not epoxy, found that floor preparation is the most important.

As mentioned in this forum, visited Home depot close to my home, they have the diamond grinder 7" & the the price is $119+tax + insurance 10% extra then I need an industrial vacuum for about $60
I will need at least 5-7 hours work

Then to apply the 2 coat polyurea that will cost $300 first coat + $360 for top coat + $240 for extra flakes
So will cost me around $1200 all in & have to work around 12 -14 hours
Any one know if it's too expensive & I can make it cheaper... or better to hire a professional company to do the job with no effort for around $2000 -$2400

Any one had experience with Polyurea that is supposed to be 20 times stronger than Epoxy & no scratch & no peeling for sure

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Epoxy with urethane is very formidable. However, epoxy with a polyurea topcoat is pretty tough to beat.

No scratch?? Not possible.
No peel?? Everything will peel if you don't prep correctly.

Remember, as wonderful as polyurea is, if you are not prepared to move quickly you can make a real good mess of it.

 

[Dave Maxwell]

I just ground my floor.240 dollars per day. Used dymaserts. I still have to etch. Grinder went across high spots , but my low spot are still smooth. 11 hours solid for 3000s/f. I stood in one place at times and still didn't get all the low spots.

 

[Car-lover]

Epoxy with urethane is very formidable. However, epoxy with a polyurea topcoat is pretty tough to beat.

No scratch?? Not possible.
No peel?? Everything will peel if you don't prep correctly.

Remember, as wonderful as polyurea is, if you are not prepared to move quickly you can make a real good mess of it.

Thanks for your advice , mentioned Polyurea no scratch as the installer give 20 years warranty
Any one have a good experience with any polyurea installer in Toronto-Markham area

 

[Dave Maxwell]

 

[shiers69]

Nice picture. It looks like mine does right now. I'm planning on using the product from epoxy-coat.

I have no idea what type of sealer is on my garage floor but so far I've spent about 20 hours grinding away with the floor grinder that home depot rents out and I still don't think I've penetrated the sealant everywhere yet.

On my first pass with the grinder it ended up shooting out lots of little balls of a plastic-like material. I sucked all of them up with my vacuum as I went. After the first pass I did a water check and found that water still beaded up on top of the concrete. Subsequent passes with the diamond grinder no longer produced the little balls of stuff, but the grinder didn't seem to make any headway in grinding down the concrete - it just seemed to slide across the top - even if I left the grinder in the same spot for extended periods of time. I've rented the tool twice now and have spent just shy of 20 hours grinding away at my 644 sq ft garage floor. I'm amazed my arms haven't fallen off yet.

I did use a 4.5" dewalt double-row diamond grinder to get around the edges and on the surfaces of the concrete stair into my house. It worked quite well but I wouldn't want to do my entire garage with it - I'm too concerned about screwing it up and leaving high/low spots.

I did a test spot with the phosphoric acid that came with my epoxy-coat flooring kit and it seemed to have no effect - this leads me to believe that I'm dealing with a polyurethane coating.

I'm not sure what to do next.

Option 1 (Cheap): I could use muratic acid followed by a hose down followed by a pressure wash.
Option 2 (Expensive): Acquire some solvents to remove the urethane (Does anyone have any experience here?)
Option 3 (Expensive?): I could find another grinder at some other rental store.
Option 4 (I might have to kill myself): Drop another $120 and rent the
grinder from Home Depot for a 3rd time and spend another 20 hours on my feet grinding away.

Thoughts and opinions?

 

[Dave Maxwell]

I've been using my 6 foot level and 4.5 grinder. Removing the highs and blending the lows. Wish I had a home depot around here that rented equipment. Rented an enco with dymaserts. The pic shows what it left. Now I have to fix those areas before the epoxy will stick. Dark areas are smooth