Floor Grinder Rental

[Augus7us]

Ok so I have my floor on order and I need to get grinding. I called about a half dozen places today. Unfortunately I was lucky if the kid on the phone could tell the make of the grinder.

I have several rental places and big box stores in the vicinity. So instead of relying on the advice of the rental guy I thought I would try here.

I've read up on how to grind the floor and its seems the pros all recommend grinding dry so that is what I'm going to do. Unless that opinion has changed!

So my question is does anyone know of which place rents the best grinders? Sunbelt, Nations Rent, Franklin Equipment, Home Depot... They all have them and they are all different sizes.

Sunbelt had a 3 disk grinder but it was 400 a day and did not include the vacuum or probably the trailer I would need... Most had the grinders that required I buy teeth but one had a walk behind that used a disk, I think that was Home depot.

Any advice would be appreciated, I'm going to try and do this tomorrow.

-Clint

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Clint:
Sunbelt is our source here in Orlando.
You can probably buy the teeth cheaper then you can rent from them.

We carry diamond tools for Husqvarna, Edco, Diamatic, etc... if you need them.

http://www.legacyindustrial.net/images/thumbnails/280/213/detailed/1/M10A4896.jpg

 

[Armorpoxy]

Whatever you get, make sure it has a compatible vacuum, you have no idea how much dust these things can throw off! The Home Depot rented Diamabrush fits on a floor buffer and had no dust shroud so it can make quite a mess. Wear a good dust mask too...

We recommend Sunbelt. They normally rent a nice two-disk unit that should be fine for residential use.

 

[8mpg]

Home Depot all the way. $80 or so for the grinder with the grinding disc included.

 

[cash68]

So I'm not sure where you got that price, but my home depot wanted $300/day for the floor grinder, AND I would need to buy the diamond wheel ($80). So $380 for that, plus smaller wheels for hand grinders to get the edges (more $) and then also probably a new filter for my shop vac ($40).

After getting a quote from a local company, they were able to prep my floor in 5-6 hours, they shot blasted the spalling, V-'d out all cracks, filled cracks w epoxy, filled spalling/damaged areas with hydraulic cement, reground everything flat, all for $900.

IMHO, even though I am a DIY guy, it was worth the extra $500 to have someone do the job because when I started adding up all the materials, the labor was probably under $300.

 

[jay8s]

I went with home depot. It was $130 for the 4 hour rental and the grinding pad. They were the cheapest, and had the nicest equipment. I did dry grinding. I used a small grinder for the edges, it is by far the ugliest of the whole job, but it does not bother anyone other than me. I got the grinder wheel from harbor freight for $20.

 

[BigEd]

A friend did a garage by renting a floor sander from Home Depot and used several of the coarsest belts. Seemed to work ok but needed to use a belt sander at the edges.
A LOT OF DUST!!!

 

[300e]

I'm going to go with the HD grinder as well I believe. Did yours come with the ability to hook it up to a shop vac for the dust?

 

[jay8s]

I'm going to go with the HD grinder as well I believe. Did yours come with the ability to hook it up to a shop vac for the dust?

Mine did. That was my only request. We had to pull one way from the back of the machines to get one with the dust collector.

 

[8mpg]

Prices must be regional but have gone up. I rented the Edco 2 years ago for $80 (might have been the 4 hour rate) but now its $120 and $160/day here in north Texas

 

[Augus7us]

I used mine today, I didn't go with sunbelt or HD. More on that later. Quick question for now then I'm going to crash.

Is the objective to scuff up the surface or completely remove a layer?

I ask because I can see some marks that are not ground out as well but to remove the the amount of surface material to completely grind the mark out would probably take forever. I did try one spot and the teeth seemed to just burnish the surface after so long.

While I was thinking about it I noticed the teeth they gave me were 100grit. I'm not sure where that stands with concrete; To fine? Too course? That said I did go at it for about 12 hours and probably dumped 40lbs of concrete dust.

-Clint

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

18-40 grit is the range for coatings prep.
We use 30 most times.

 

[Armorpoxy]

You are on the right track. Make sure that you get the right Diamond pads for the machine and you may need several passes with different diamonds depending on what you plan on coating it with as you could end up having swirl marks show through. Also very important to have the proper matching vac for it rented. Shop vac will plug up in ten minutes.

 

[FJ4FUN]

SunBelt will have what you need be it a twin head Edco or a 30" Lavina and everything in between. For your typical 2 car garage the Edco will be fine. For larger jobs step it up to one of their 20-30" planetary grinders. Make sure to include an appropriately sized HEPA dust extraction unit! You'll also need a shrouded 4.5" angle grinder and turbo cup wheel.

 

[Augus7us]

Rent the three or two disk over the single disk grinder if possible. It is far easier to control compared to the single disk, but you'll need two people to unload and load it.

Get inserts that are around 60-120 grit.

A dust vacuum designed for concrete grinders is almost mandatory, without it you'll struggle to clean up all the dust.

You really need an angle grinder with a 4 1/2" diamond wheel to get in the corners and tighter areas the floor grinder is too big for.

Good luck!

 

[roc_on_the_rocks]

Coating gurus, please advise!
After years of reading concrete grinding threads here (preparing for my eventual garage makeover in my 53-yo house), I am surprised with some of the responses here. I was concluding that for a reasonably smooth concrete, the goal was just a light scuffing to add 'bite' to the concrete, to aid adhesion to the epoxy/poly/whatever coating.

I was understanding that the 16" 28-pad Diamabrush disk is the way to go, so I'm surprised with the EDCO suggestions, or the 2 or 3-disks grinders. The Diamabrush disk would be paired with the Clarke Floor Maintainer (175 rpm) or Clarke Floor Polisher (175 rpm).

Did I get it wrong?

PS.: I coated the 3-car garage floor of my previous house (2-yo at the time) with UCoat It without any grinding, just the muriatic acid etching. It still looked great when we sold the house seven years later.

 

[Armorpoxy]

Hi, we sell many thousands of our www.armorcladepoxy.com 100% solids garage kits prepped with just acid or our new powdered acid with zero issues for standard floors.