Moisture vapor transmission mitigation?

[pfa]

Hi all,

I have a 2001-built 600 sqft attached garage that I'm currently updating.

Until recently it had some kind of cheapo epoxy floor coating that started to peel off in heavy traffic area (where car is driven every day) and scratched under motorcycle kickstand, but otherwise was pretty solid. I decided to replace it with Armorpoxy stuff, and while kit was en route, ground current coating with HomeDepot-rented Diamabrush. Surprisingly, Diamabrush was able to remove maybe 2/3 of the coating, leaving blotches of it that had to be ground by angle grinder with diamond wheel (which probably means that adhesion was indeed good and solid).

Then I did moisture vapor transmission test just for the peace of mind, and got the result of 9lbs/1000sqft*24hr in the area where coating peeled off. Kind of deal breaker, so I ordered 3 more tests and put them in different places - and 3 days later got readings between 12 and 17 lbs. Part of this is probably attributed to the floor not being dried properly after pressure washing (12lbs reading was taken at the same place where I got 9lbs previously, and 17lbs was in the darkest corner with poorest ventilation), but nevertheless it's too high for the epoxy coating and needs to be mitigated.

I contacted Armorpoxy support (they've been extremely helpful and timely with their answers), and their recommendation was to use Moisture Barrier Epoxy (sorry, can't post links due to low post count) as a primer instead of the one that came in a kit. This requires mandatory shotblasting even on freshly ground floor and would cost me ~$1000 ($700 for the stuff itself, plus shipping, plus $250 for shotblasting machine rental). And I'm not even mentioning issues with sides and corners that can't be reached by the shotblasting machine and possible issues with the texture of the finished floor due to the extreme roughness after shotblasting.

Looking through other possible solutions, I found RadonSeal, specifically their RadonSeal Deep-Penetrating Concrete Sealer and Ion-Bond Armor. Company claims that combination of these two "was successful on slabs exceeding 14 lbs/1,000/24 and is easy to apply for contractors or homeowners". This would cost me $460-$480, depending of the type of sealer (Standard or Plus), plus $40 for another set of moisture tests to do afterwards. Overall, this solution seems like much less hassle and half the money.

Reviews for RadonSeal are extremely scarce, but I wasn't able to find any clearly negative ones. And I guess if it fails - I could always do moisture sealing epoxy on top of it (though it would cost me extra $500).

So, what would you do if you were in my shoes?

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Silicate Solutions claiming vapor mitigation are suspect. There are too many variables to consider. In theory it works, however slabs are not placed into your house from a controlled mfg facility, they are poured on-site and therefore are not perfect.

Our Aqua-Dike MVB Primer works well and only requires a diamond grind for a successful
application.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BK9Yk1BhiBQ/?taken-by=legacyindustrial
Good luck.

 

[pfa]

Thanks, this is indeed interesting. However, tech data still calls for the same CSP 3 profile, isn't it something that requires shot blasting?

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

CSP-3 can be achieved with a good diamond grinder, 18 Grit, and our own team installs this regularly.

 

[ford33]

Sounds like the correct solution will cost $1000 and the alternative but suspect solution is $500. You likely already spent $2000 or more on materials so why try to save $500 on a suspect solution?

Do it once and do it right. The $500 difference is small change compared to your total material and labor effort. The peace of mind is also something to consider.

 

[pfa]

I actually spent around $1000 on the flooring at this point (~800 for ArmorPoxy kit, plus Diamabrush rental, angle grinder wheel/shroud, etc.). And 'correct' solution seems to be closer to $2000 - I miscalculated the amount of primer I'd need, and shot blasting machine also requires rental of the vacuum, which is separate. And all of this not even counting royal pita with shotblasting.

Legacy Industrial's solution above is half that, with a possibility of getting by with just grinding (still pita, but cheaper and easier), so I'm looking at that currently.

But my main point here is that I likely did the test incorrectly - not drying concrete properly after pressure washing and not allowing for a correct ventilation while testing. Indication of that is previous epoxy coating that sticked to the concrete for many years just fine, peeling off in just one spot, and that in a month that floor is ground there is no visible indication of moisture issues.