Newbie seeks advice on new garage epoxy prepping please!

[cooljw]

I am a new homeowner and have begun prepping my garage for epoxy. I already bought 2 kits (4 gallons total) of the Rustoleum Epoxy Shield Professional (solvent based) from Home Depot. Are people satisfied with this stuff? I have ~525 s.f. of garage floor to cover.

After hours of research online about how to do the job right, I finally found this board - what a great place! Now I understand that floor prep is 98% of the job.

I have a few prepping questions I could use input on:

1.) It's a new home (very clean concrete) and yes the concrete has already cured for 5+ months. I did not clean/degrease the concrete or use any floor grinders/sanders. Is this OK?

2.) Yesterday I used muriatic acid solution and did the whole acid, scrub, rinse, scrub, rinse, squeegee routine. Is there a way to tell if my floor is ready to be epoxied now? Should I use a de-acidifying treatment before proceeding?

3.) I have concrete "curbs" at the bottom of my walls and I was planning on epoxying these surfaces too. However, I did not acid etch these surfaces because they touch the drywall and are elevated. Plus, the concrete here is a very rough finish, almost like a popcorn ceiling. Will that alone hold the epoxy OK or should I prep these surfaces somehow?

All the horror stories about epoxy jobs flaking and lifting are scaring the **** outta me, so I want to make sure I prep correctly.

 

[Scott]

It sounds like you are good to go to me. If you rinsed the floor pretty well most of the acid should be gone. I would not worry about the sidewalls, they do not get much abuse anyways, I am sure it will stick, mine did.

The main concerns about peelling come from concrete are: shiny finish, oily/dirty or previously have been sealed with something else. New concrete that is clean and etched should be great.

I used the same product on my 28 year old floor that was, shiny and greasy. I used simple green to clean it and then etched it with muratic, one year later is still looks great, no chipping, flaking or peeling.

 

[sjsfire]

It sounds like you are good to go to me. If you rinsed the floor pretty well most of the acid should be gone. I would not worry about the sidewalls, they do not get much abuse anyways, I am sure it will stick, mine did.

The main concerns about peelling come from concrete are: shiny finish, oily/dirty or previously have been sealed with something else. New concrete that is clean and etched should be great.

I used the same product on my 28 year old floor that was, shiny and greasy. I used simple green to clean it and then etched it with muratic, one year later is still looks great, no chipping, flaking or peeling.

Did you use the Simple Green as per directions or mix it a little stronger?

 

[Scott]

I mixed it 4:1 water to simple green in my garden sprayer and used a brush on a stick to scrub it. simple green-scrub-rinse-simple green-scrub-rinse was a much as I did to degrease it.

You can tell the areas that need work, the water will bead up in areas where there is lot of oil contamination, scrub those areas extra good.

 

[REFLEXX]

wipe your hand on the floor. Is there anything on your hand? White powder? dust? If there's nothing, you're good to go!

 

[cooljw]

wipe your hand on the floor. Is there anything on your hand? White powder? dust? If there's nothing, you're good to go!

In that case, I must need to rinse again because I still get gray chalk-like powder on my hands (concrete dust?) if I wipe.

I'm actually going to do another muriatic acid etch tonight, because there are some spots here and there that it seems like I missed (lighter color and smoother texture than the rest). So I'll rinse even more this time around.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

I would pressure wash the entire floor to remove the acid. If the cement was coated with a curing compound/searler when it was poured, the acid will NOT remove it, so I'm told by the company that made the curing/sealer I used.

Charles

 

[REFLEXX]

I will also add to not skimp on the epoxy (thickness wise). I just finished 1,000 sqft of Epoxy-Coat (70% with flakes) and the thin spots showed up after a few hours! I was so concerned with running out of epoxy that I didn;t lay it down thick enough. What ***** is that I DID have enough. I had to go back and touch up. Looks really good, except that I ran out of flakes now! Sheesh. Two coats, without flakes looks REALLY good. The flake area looks good too and will hide abuse better.

The epoxy-caot gal also told me that sanding with 80-100 grit is "AS EFFECTIVE" as acid etch. That's what they do in thier big installations where acid & wash is not feasable. That's what I did and the floor looks flat as glass. I had trowel marks on my "1 year new" concrete, the sanding took care of that!

 

[chet]

Def. clean again if you have dust on your hand. As said you should be able to wipe the floor and get nothing.

I just got done doing 800 ft2 with the water based rustoleum product. I cleaned with TSP solution then hand scrubbed areas that had paint stains (no grease/oil on the floor) then used the acid solution and scrubbed/rinsed/squigy/rinse/squigy and the next morning it had a nice rough clean white texture to it.

Don't skimp when rolling it on. I too was afraid of running out as 3 kits will do 750 sq. ft. and I had almost 800. Some spots look blotchy but it will be covered in **** soon enough! I had almost 1/4 of a can left!

 

[cooljw]

I ran into a problem (minor I hope?) There was some white latex paint overspray on the floor that I wanted to clean off. So I poured some paint thinner on it (mineral spirits) and then scrubbed. It kinda worked, but the problem now is that the paint thinner basically left a big oily spot on the concrete. I don't think the epoxy will not stick to this oily concrete. I should have known better than to put something oil-based on the concrete.

What's the best way to remedy this problem? It's a small area (3 square feet tops).

 

[chet]

my directions recommended paint thinner for getting some stains off! Srub that area again with a degreaser and see if it will come off. any paint stains (there was a some good ones in mine) I used a wire brush and it worked great.

 

[tommya]

Is prepping a brand new concrete floor with Muriatic acid really necessary? It kind of seems to me that I'd be better off with a real clean NEW floor instead of worrying that there's still acid on the floor?

 

[tommya]

Sorry a follow up to myself-
Epoxy-Coat has a "epoxy-prep" included. Anybody use it and how is it applied?

 

[REFLEXX]

tommy,

i just got done doing Epoxy-Coat on my floor, here's my write up:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=47839#post47839

Love it!

 

[snorvet]

Is prepping a brand new concrete floor with Muriatic acid really necessary? It kind of seems to me that I'd be better off with a real clean NEW floor instead of worrying that there's still acid on the floor?

tommya-

i visited a Premier Garage showroom(they install floor coverings, cabinets, etc) and asked a bunch of questions. The guy told me that they acid etch the concrete. He said that the etching removes small particles in the surface that makes the surface rough enough to allow the epoxy to adhere to the concrete.

 

[cooljw]

Just wanted to post a follow-up on my project.

I ended up using Amershield by Frazee Paint, because they sent me a new homeowner 30% off coupon. This is industrial stuff, so I figured it would be better than the Rustoleum Pro - plus with the coupon it cost about the same. It doesn't come with paint flakes so I had to get those separately.

One Amershield kit is a 1 gallon paint can with 1 qt. of activator. It took two kits to cover the entire garage. There were some thinly covered spots showing, so I used a third kit and was able to apply a second coat to the entire garage - now the look is totally uniform. That was 1.5 weeks ago and I have yet to park on it just in case (but I will this weekend).

Looks good, color is exactly the same as the Rustoleum Professional silver-gray semi-gloss.

 

[Dave Carney]

Looks great!

 

[bmwpower]

I ran into a problem (minor I hope?) There was some white latex paint overspray on the floor that I wanted to clean off. So I poured some paint thinner on it (mineral spirits) and then scrubbed. It kinda worked, but the problem now is that the paint thinner basically left a big oily spot on the concrete. I don't think the epoxy will not stick to this oily concrete. I should have known better than to put something oil-based on the concrete.

What's the best way to remedy this problem? It's a small area (3 square feet tops).

Yea, for the record don't use petroleum based solvents. Stick to acetone or similar. Something that does not leave a film and dries quickly.

BTW, the floor looks really good!

Be sure to add your product to the epoxy and floor covering pricing thread.

 

[index]

any update on this? how is the Amershield holding up?

 

[cooljw]

any update on this? how is the Amershield holding up?

On the negative side, it's actually a bit flexible of a floor coating, so it's not as impervious to scratching as I would like - don't get me wrong, it still takes quite a bit of effort to scratch the coating.

On the positive side, it's been impervious to chemicals, hot tires...etc. It cleans right off with water or a little spray cleaner. It also has not cracked, even in the joints, perhaps because it is flexible.

For a truly bomb-proof floor, I understand your supposed to put a coating of Amerlock over the Amershield. I was considering doing this but don't know if I'll ever get around to it - plus for my relatively light-duty garage I don't know if I would ever need it.

 

[index]

cool - thanks.
where did you get this stuff from? just a frazee place?

 

[cooljw]

cool - thanks.
where did you get this stuff from? just a frazee place?

Only certain Frazee stores (typically the largers ones) sell it.

 

[Kingham]

Is prepping a brand new concrete floor with Muriatic acid really necessary? It kind of seems to me that I'd be better off with a real clean NEW floor instead of worrying that there's still acid on the floor?

More important is that the floor has a "profile" that the epoxy can stick to. This is typically done in two ways Acid Etching and/or bead blasting.. most commercial flooring contractors bead blast because it's easier to control in a large enviornment and there is not a lot of hazardous waste to dispose of ...(ie.rinsing acid into a storm drain) and does a great job profiling the floor for proper adheasion.

Acid etching is a little less effective in profiling a floor.. but it does double duty as working as a degreaser. it will lift loose items and degrease the floor at the same time. A second acid etching my be needed to get a better profile.

 

[bsmith95610]

When you applied the 2nd coat to your garage was it a thin coat of epoxy?

I bought some Amerlock but my garage is 660 sq ft and the kits only do 500 sq ft so I bought two kits so I was going to use 1 kit and a little bit of the other kit to do the 1st coat followed by a thin 2nd coat the next day. I'm just trying to make sure that my 2nd coat doesn't peel up.

 

[cooljw]

When you applied the 2nd coat to your garage was it a thin coat of epoxy?

I bought some Amerlock but my garage is 660 sq ft and the kits only do 500 sq ft so I bought two kits so I was going to use 1 kit and a little bit of the other kit to do the 1st coat followed by a thin 2nd coat the next day. I'm just trying to make sure that my 2nd coat doesn't peel up.

The 2nd coat was definitely thinner as much less was required since the concrete was already coated with a 1st layer. But it's not like I was trying to put down as little as possible. I actually put down a little heavier 2nd coat in places where I was trying to mask some uneven texture in my concrete floor. Overall the second coat kind of seemed to meld together with the 1st. It's been almost 5 years since I put it down and there's been absolutely zero peeling or cracking anywhere.