Legacy Industrial + Epoxy-Coat floor Installation

[Prometheus]

Hi everyone,

I'm embarking on an Epoxy-coat floor with a Legacy Industrial primer coat in the next couple of weeks. Last night I started doing the floor prep. I bought a gallon of the Behr concrete cleaner/degreaser and scrubbed the whole floor with a deck brush. Many areas came out looking good, and the rinse water was pretty dirty. There are still several areas though that aren't up to what I want. See the attached pictures.

The spots look kind of oily, but don't seem to really strongly repel the water. I first did the dilute cleaner/degreaser, followed by straight cleaner/degreaser, then some tide, then some straight GoofOff, all with little to no improvement. I plan to rent a floor buffer and a diamabrush attachment, but I want to make sure the floor is as good as it can be before I start grinding (and if it truly is an oil stain I'm not sure the grinding would remove it). I've read about pour-n-restore (and the lowe's version of it) which I might try, but any other suggestions? Thanks.

-Adrian

 

[theoldwizard1]

Re: Remove stubborn stains in concrete?

Greased Lightening or Drive up. Pour it on, scrub lightly. Let sit overnight. Rinse well with hose.

 

[Prometheus]

Re: Remove stubborn stains in concrete?

Here is what the garage as a whole looks like. The darker areas are where the cars park and are rough concrete, my guess is because of the road salt used in Michigan. I sprinkled water over the floor and didn't see any slots where it really beaded up, but several spots took several minutes to soak into the concrete. That said I haven't ground or etched yet. So I guess my question ( in addition to the stains) is when is enough prep enough? Thanks.

Adrian

 

[Garage Flooring]

Re: Remove stubborn stains in concrete?

Try some degreaser then pour n restore then more degreaser. Also Tide works real well

 

[dmeadow]

Re: Remove stubborn stains in concrete?

I've had pretty good luck with something called Pour N Restore. Leave it on overnight, sweep it off.

 

[Shea]

Re: Remove stubborn stains in concrete?

Hmmm.... that doesn't look like the typical area where you encounter oils spills. Plus, doing a water absorption test before grinding doesn't tell you the whole story either. It could be just a couple of areas where the surface of the concrete is more dense than the rest.

I would grind the floor first then test those areas. If they don't absorb water well after the grinding then I would make an attempt to degrease it more. The open pores from grinding helps with reaching any oil contaminants as well. Here's a link to some methods for removing oil from garage floors that might help also.

 

[JCByrd24]

Re: Remove stubborn stains in concrete?

Brake parts cleaner works great on oil stains.

 

[Prometheus]

Progress - Grinding Complete (ish)

So Thursday I took Shea's advice and rented a floor buffer with diamabrush from HD. Below are some pics, First one basically complete (but still covered with dust), and the 2nd and 3rd some strange areas.

In an above post you can see a darker area in the concrete that I believe is due to road salt. After/during grinding I also discovered this is quite hard compared to the rest of the floor. Hard enough that the diama brush wasn't cutting it quick enough and I got out my angle grinder with diamond wheel on it. That cut it more quickly, but still took some time. From start to finish it was just over 14 hours in a single day. Either my floor is super hard, I'm super ****, or just really slow compared to the guys that say they can get their 2 car garage done with a 4 hour rental.

The other pics show some literal spots on the floor. I have pretty much decided I'm going to grind them off with the angle grinder (I've come this far, what the heck), but is it necessary? It's probably going to take me another 3-4 hours on hands and knees to get them all. They seem to pass the water test ok and don't bead. The 2nd pic shows a glove for scale, and the bottlme left corner is what it looks life after using the angle grinder on the spots. Any ideas? Thanks.

-Adrian