prepping floor for epoxy, questions

[Eliteconcept]

Hi all,
long time lurker first time poster

I"m getting ready to in the coming weeks to apply epoxy-coat to my garage floor. I knew i was going to do this to my garage in May this year when I had rented a floor diamond grinder for some other work i was doing inside my house. Knowing that i was going to use epoxy coat on the garage floor I ran the floor diamond grinder in the garage when i had it in mid May.

Since then I have used the garage as normal, normal foot traffic, and parking 2 cars. My question at this point is, will i need to diamond grind the floor again or will my grinding in mid-may be sufficient? Or will I need to acid etch the paths where the car tires have been going over the past 3 months?

I figured i would need to acid etch the entire floor just to be safe. Its not going to hurt my end product and doesn't cost or take a lot of time to do so. I've already done the big job of dimaond grinding the floor but wanted insight on this

thanks in advance for suggestions and advice

 

[Shea]

You don't need to grind again. The big issue is going to be making sure your floor is very clean. Grinding opened up the pores of the concrete and has allowed dirt and grime to collect since May. Once you get it clean, you should be good to go. Acid etching should not be needed if you did a proper grind.

Remember, acid is not a concrete cleaner. It's easy to assume it does since the etched concrete turns a lighter color. Acid will not penetrate grease, rubber marks, and heavy soiling. It reacts with the free lime in concrete in order to break it down. If it's blocked by grease and etc, it will not do anything.

 

[Eliteconcept]

thank for your input. I planned on using a de-greaser and cleaning the floor really well, blowing the floor off with a leaf blower after its dry, then cleaning and rinsing down the floor a 2nd time. sounds like that should be the focus of my efforts to prep at this point.

 

[Armorpoxy]

She is right on, if already grinded just re clean it well. Note...if you grinded, make sure you use the proper matching epoxy primer as grinded floors are very porous and can soak up the epoxy if not primed leading to an uneven finish. Priming stops that problem.

 

[cpttuna]

Just my $.02. I hope you did a good job grinding the floor. WE did our church floor and it some spots where a good job was not done and now there is a little roughness. By the way, I'm the janitor. I get to clean it.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

You don't need to grind again. The big issue is going to be making sure your floor is very clean. Grinding opened up the pores of the concrete and has allowed dirt and grime to collect since May. Once you get it clean, you should be good to go. Acid etching should not be needed if you did a proper grind.

Remember, acid is not a concrete cleaner. It's easy to assume it does since the etched concrete turns a lighter color. Acid will not penetrate grease, rubber marks, and heavy soiling. It reacts with the free lime in concrete in order to break it down. If it's blocked by grease and etc, it will not do anything.

Did you change your gender? SHE?

 

[Shea]

Did you change your gender? SHE?

Lol... I just caught that