Re-doing expoxy floor

[DenaliX5]

I moved into my house 3 years ago and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to put an epoxy coating on the floor before I move in. 1st mistake, I went to Home depot to buy the Rustoleum brand coating, but they were out of stock. The guy there talked me into the Behr brand product. He told me 3 cans should cover my 4 car garage. After throughly cleaning power washing and then acid etching the floor I put down the coating. After finishing the second Bay I noticed the product was very thin and I could see through the coating as it dried. I ended up buying 7 cans of product just to make it look good and put on 2 coats of product. After letting the floor dry for almost 2 weeks, ( they recommended 3 to 5 days). I filled the garage up and parked my cars.

6 months later is when I first noticed the floor starting to peel. It started peeling where the tires come into contact with the floor and where the garage door touches the floor. What a bunch of ****. I've now redone many parts of the floor where it is starting to peel up. I've noticed it primarily peels in the extreme heat of the summer and times when we have very cold temps in the winter.

Anyway to my point. What do I have to do to put on a new type of epoxy flooring? Power washing doesnt' bring up the old floor epoxy. Do I need to sand blast up the old product before applying new product. What's the best way to go about this? Help would be appreciated.

 

[Hammerdown]

You can go one of two ways.
First- You can apply another product over the existing coating. Clean the floor to remove all dirt, oil and debris. Scuff sand the coating with an 80 grit sand paper to create a profile (or tooth) for the new coating to adhere to. Remove the sanding debris. Apply your chosen coating as per manufacturer instructions. The new coating will only have as good adhesion as the existing coating has, so make sure it is sound and all loose or failing areas have been removed.
Second- Remove the existing coating to raw concrete. This can be accomplisehed in a number of different ways.
1. Chemically strip- mop down a good paint stripper (preferably with MEK in it) down over the coating. Cover it with 2-3 mil plastic sheeting. Allow it to set at least 8 hours or overnight. The plastic will not allow the chemical to evaporate as quickly and it will re-attack the coating repeatedly. This should save time and labor. Scrape up the coating the next day with a dry-wall scraper or similar tool.
2. Media-blast the coating away. Rent a media blaster(sand blaster,bead blaster, etc,) and remove the coating as directed by the machine manufacturer.
3. Grind the floor- rent an EDCO grinder and make several passes to remove the coating.
All of the above methods should be available at Home Depot, Lowes, a good tool crib, Nation Rents, etc, and should allow the average person to successfully remove the coating without hiring a professional.
As to applying any coating, Just like painting a car, the prep work is the most important part. The better prepared the substrate is prior to application of a coating the better that coating will perform up to the manufacturers specifications.
Hope this helps.

 

[camarojoe]

Personally, if its a garage used primarily for storage/parking, I'd say to heck with all that noise, lay down some adhesive and tile the whole joint with VCT. The more I read thread after thread after thread about epoxies and prepping and sanding and etching and grinding and blasting, and sanding again, the more happy I am that I chose tile for my new garage. Any way you cut it, to get all that old epoxy off is going to be a PITA.

 

[roger55]

I don't believe that it is a good idea to put tile over a coating that has adhesion problems.

Also, the Behr product is not an activated epoxy product. I don't see how they can call it epoxy. If it doesn't have A and B parts, it's not a true epoxy.

Use the stripper like hammer says and then put down the floor of your choice.
Or, go to something like racedeck where adhesion is not an issue.

 

[snorvet]

I'd go with the beadblaster or shotblaster like hammer said. That'l take off the old epoxy