How To Clean Up Roofing Tar?

[ted13b]

The garage in my recently purchased home needs some work. The walls have been redone to fix rot at the base, along with some sill work. I'd like to paint the floor soon but I discovered the previous owner spilled roofing tar on the floor. I managed to scape off most of it, but I have a shiny black splotch a couple of feet square left over. Any idea how to clean this up, since I know paint will not stick to it...

 

[Hammerdown]

Try lacquer thinner and a wire brush. The thinner should disolve the tar when scrubbed with the brush. Pat it dry and repeat. Then clean with a good degreaser. The lacquer will make the stain larger before it gets smaller, so just keep at it.

 

[Vicegrip]

Paint thinner will pull it up without smearing the black around. Use the thick type. Glop it on and let it get thick then brush scrape it up.

 

[dgcdot]

pressure wash it. If you have one that puts out about 3000psi it will take it off. If you put heat to it it will just make it a biger problem. Another way is there is a siding cleaner on the market that may work. I am a roofer and the best and easyest way is the first way I told you. Take care Dan

 

[SC-Eric]

Fred,

Can you post a picture of torching the roofing tar from MG (or should I say MCM)?

Tar is typically removed by torching and scraping. It's not fun!

 

[tatra]

co2 extinguisher and then hit when brittle.................

 

[AlphaGarage]

A few weeks ago we had an interesting project in Detroit where the floor had probably every problem possible - and then some. Tar? Oh yeah, big globs of it. It was removed the tar with a propane fueled torch backed up with some elbow grease.

If you're just dealing with a little amount of tar the typical hand held plumbing torch will work fine, for large chunks of tar try the torches used for sidewalk ice.

Actually this floor had pretty much everything wrong with it that you can imagine. I'll post a few more details soon.

 

[malibu101]

co2 extinguisher and then hit when brittle.................

I second that thought.

 

[tatra]

as a bonus, any left over co2 can be used to frost up the beer

 

[SC-Eric]

A simple torch (weed torch) can be bought at the local Big-Box store. They usually run around $30. You simply hook them up to a propane grill tank!

OH... we'd really like to tell you guys all about this project... but... we can't yet... secrecy agreement...