Prep for epoxy question...

[Billwater24]

Hey all, new to the boards. I prep 3-4 floors a week for epoxy. My partner and I are both professional Firefighters and do this on our days off. We haven’t had any issues with our floors after we are done. With that being said, I obsess over how much remaining dust is ok.

I use a 7” hand grinder with a dustbuddie shroud on an Ermator S26. I also have a Husqvarna PG 450. After I grind, I sweep with a medium bristle broom, then a fine bristle broom and then I blow it out with a gas powered leaf blower. Sometimes I vacuum it out with the Ermator. After all of that, I can take a broom and still make dust come off the floor. If I take the end of the Ermator hose and put it directly on the floor, it gets ALL of the dust. But I can’t vacuum a whole garage floor with a 2” hose!!

Question is, how do I get all of the dust off?? As I said we don’t have issues but it bothers me!

 

[TXpintail]

I’m no expert, but recently did mine and had a pro standing over my shoulder telling me what to do. A few thoughts I had while reading your post:

- Dont use a gas blower. The blown air can have oil in it from the two stroke gas (fisheyes in the epoxy). We used an electric shop vac with no filter and reversed flow to gently blow dust out.

- Once we swept and blew it out the best we could, the next step was hosing it out really good with water top to bottom. That’s what really got that last bit of dust out.

Could you add that to your service?

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

You are fine, our install team has the same equipment (pulse-bac). Vac it first, then do a broom-blow, then once more. Done.

Yes, electric blower only.


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[Billwater24]

I’m no expert, but recently did mine and had a pro standing over my shoulder telling me what to do. A few thoughts I had while reading your post:

- Dont use a gas blower. The blown air can have oil in it from the two stroke gas (fisheyes in the epoxy). We used an electric shop vac with no filter and reversed flow to gently blow dust out.

- Once we swept and blew it out the best we could, the next step was hosing it out really good with water top to bottom. That’s what really got that last bit of dust out.

Could you add that to your service?

I can’t always wash them out because my partner may need come and paint right away, no time to wait for it to dry.

 

[Billwater24]

You are fine, our install team has the same equipment (pulse-bac). Vac it first, then do a broom-blow, then once more. Done.

Yes, electric blower only.


Sent from my iPhone using Garage Journal

My partner tells me it’s just fine, I wanted some other professional opinions. I appreciate it!