Removing Urethane/Epoxy

[Money2536]

Last year, against my better judgement, I decided to have my floor done. Long story short, I ended up with a "metal" epoxy system topped with two coats of urethane. So I have two coats of epoxy and two coats of urethane.

Well... My floor looks horrible. The entire thing has turned a shade of pee yellow (it's supposed to look like aluminum) and has a really great pink sheen to it. You can see all of the roller marks in the top coat as well. From about fifty feet away it looks good. Once you get anywhere close it makes me cringe and wish I left the bare concrete alone.

The other problem is that we need to use a buddy system to walk into the house if there is a hint of water on the floor. It's an ACL tear away from me burning my garage down.

I've decided to eat the $3-4K I spent in favor of tiling the floor. I'm ordering cabinets soon, so I need to get the floors dialed in.

My question for the experts is, How do I get this **** off the floor without spending thousands of dollars to make way for tile? I'm assuming thin set and urethane aren't going to play well together.

Can I rent a machine and use something like this? Will I need to buy like ten of these to get through a 600 sq. ft. floor? I'm also assuming this is going to make a huge mess.

http://legacyindustrial.net/cart/mastic-tool-p-165.html

Looks great in photos, just not in person.

 

[shaun oriold1]

You should be calling the company back, and getting them to warranty their work -Unless you specifically asked for this type of floor. OR at least pay them to fix it properly (sanding down the floor, and applying a UV stable coating with anti slip. Or a flake floor) You could also get them to grind the floor again to prep it for tile.

If you're going to tackle it yourself you want to rent a grinder, and use PCD tooling to scratch off the epoxy, and not get gummed up like grinding tooling would - http://www.dynamicdiamondtooling.com/files/product/DYNO-H2012021010390405.png

Those bits will scratch off the epoxy, but not grind the floor any. It goes really fast, and isnt too messy -especially if you have dust collection of some sort.

Now be honest and tell us why you went with that floor to begin with.... Did the sales guy not tell you it will be like glass if wet. Floors like that are awesome indoors!

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

The Diamabrush Hand Tool, 7" with shroud and vac is also a good way to go. Remember, people install these because they are tough and therefore the removal is slow going. This is beyond the mastic removal tool, IMO.

It can be salvaged and the floor can be made to look like the show place you wanted using your original floor as a base as Shaun mentioned.

 

[Money2536]

You should be calling the company back, and getting them to warranty their work -Unless you specifically asked for this type of floor. OR at least pay them to fix it properly (sanding down the floor, and applying a UV stable coating with anti slip. Or a flake floor) You could also get them to grind the floor again to prep it for tile.

If you're going to tackle it yourself you want to rent a grinder, and use PCD tooling to scratch off the epoxy, and not get gummed up like grinding tooling would - http://www.dynamicdiamondtooling.com/files/product/DYNO-H2012021010390405.png

Those bits will scratch off the epoxy, but not grind the floor any. It goes really fast, and isnt too messy -especially if you have dust collection of some sort.

Now be honest and tell us why you went with that floor to begin with.... Did the sales guy not tell you it will be like glass if wet. Floors like that are awesome indoors!

I know I should be calling back and complaining. I just don't have it in me. I've been trying to turn over a new leaf and leave projects like this to the professionals. To this point, I've always done everything myself. If I have a patch of grass that needs replacing, I get it done myself. If a pipe bursts, I figure out how to fix it.

I did some research and came to the conclusion that I wanted "polished concrete." We've all seen the photos of the guy's garage condo out in Minneapolis where they ground down the concrete and sealed it to make it look like a museum floor.

I set out to find someone to do that for me. I ended up finding a somewhat local guy's website and gave him a call to ask about polishing and sealing the concrete.

He recommended strongly against it for two reasons. One, the cost would be substantial to bring out the industrial grade machines to grind/polish the concrete on such a small job. Two, polished concrete will still stain and absorb things like oil or grease. The other problem he mentioned is that the floors would have to be repolished every-so-often.

It made sense to me. I simply wanted the "concrete" look but a little better finished in prepartion for doing Lista or Moduline cabinets. So he suggested we do a clear epoxy topped with a few coats of urethane. I thought that made perfect sense. He warned me that since we were going clear, we cannot do too heavy of a sanding job on the floor as you would be able to see the sanding marks. He suggested I degrease the concrete before he came out to sand it.

I bought some industrial grade degreaser for Home Depot, got on my hands and knees, and scrubbed the two year old slab. A few days later he came out and gave the floor a light sanding.

He rolled the clear epoxy on the floor, and I knew after a few hours I had made a mistake. It turned the floor about 10 shades darker grey and amplified any imperfection. I called and asked for suggestions. I told him this isn't going to work. He agreed. I was paying about $1,500 to do the clear and urethane.

I had told him that I'm not a huge fan of the chip systems, so we settled on paying the extra to do a metal epoxy system. This would work out great because we already had a coat of clear on the floor. I asked what he would do if it were his garage. He said this was the way to go.

So I paid about $2,000 or so extra to do the metal system topped with a few coats of urethane. He laid the metal system down and it looked pretty cool. The epoxy was nice, thick and very finished looking. We let is cure for a few days, and then he came out to put the urethane on.

I wasn't there. I came home in the evening and noticed about a quarter of the floor was pinkish. I called him and nicely asked why my man cave is pink. He said he thinks the red roller he used reacted with the urethane. Unluckily for me, the pink area is right at the doorway to the house where I walk in and out ten times a day.

I also said I can see every single roller mark and shoe spike in the urethane. It looked like someone touched up a semi gloss wall with flat paint. So he came out and grinded down the area by the door and got most of the pink out. The only problem is that the area by the door looks even worse than the rest of the floor from the sanding.

He rolled another coat of urethane on the floor to help with the imperfections. I called him a couple of times afterwards, but could tell he didn't know what to do. I'm one to cut my losses rather than stress out about a few thousand bucks.

So here I am with a pinkish, yellowish, slippery floor that I made myself put up with for a year. Now it's time to fix it.

Sorry, you asked for honesty. It makes me consider working with Legacy, taking a trip down to Winter Garden, and fixing it myself. I think you guys have convinced me to work with the epoxy that's already there rather than making a huge mess grinding it out.

 

[shaun oriold1]

Great info in there! More than I could have asked for. A couple things jump out at me.....

1. He didnt do a thorough initial sanding ( AKA grinding) just a "light sanding" So he did grind the floor down to remove the smooth top layer of the concrete ( which is usually thin, and brittle, and causes the dust people hate) can you elaborate on this.

2. When he coated the urethane, did he sand the epoxy floor first? you mentioned it was a few days after the epoxy coats.

3. When he sanded down the pink area, did he re-coat the floor with anything? -more importantly why did he not address it right away when the roller reacted with it.


Its probably an easy fix at least. Sand the **** out of the floor to remove any gloss or shine. You can rent a floor maintainer at HD. Wipe the floor really, really well with Xylene or an Enamel Reducer ( I buy mine from an automotive paint store) to remove any and all dust. Recoat it with a tinted urethane, and apply some sort of slip additive. Whole job can be completed over a long day, or casually over a weekend. Total cost will be less than $500. You need the tint now to cover up the yellow, and pink.

I prefer to apply my coatings with a squeegee, and back roll. I find it gives a more consistent finish, than just rolling it out.
Tips on back rolling though:
*Practice rolling on dry floor first to get the feel for the below points
*Roll from wall to wall, no stopping
*Dont lift your roller in the middle of the floor, and dont ever stop the roller when switching hand positions.
*Before rolling, wet roller in some product first, you dont want to **** up what was squeegeed out already.
*Dont let the roller drip onto a rolled floor.
*Walk your way out of the garage, rolling behind you.
*work quick, but dont rush.


You could maybe get the company to come back and sand it down for you -out of pity. That would save you a lot of headache, and time.

 

[tncatadjuster]

You should be able to find a qualified person to get you back to where your happy. The first guy was not very experienced, pay a little extra and get a whole lot more.

Good luck.

 

[Oak]

Go to Youtube and type in "shot blaster" I used one to remove carpet glue off of concrete and it did an awesome job. It may remove too much material (concrete) so be careful. I rented mine from Home Cheapo.

When I hired a guy to pour my garage he screwed the concrete up big time. After I decided to epoxy coat it I then went to my local tool rental store and rented a concrete grinding machine and ground down all 1500 sf in a day. It was a big walk behind machine and did a good job, then I read the epoxy coat directions and ended up putting muratic acid on it to give it that 80 grit feel. My wolverine epoxy has held up great for 5 years so far.

 

[Jaguar Fan]

Go to Youtube and type in "shot blaster" I used one to remove carpet glue off of concrete and it did an awesome job. It may remove too much material (concrete) so be careful. I rented mine from Home Cheapo.

When I hired a guy to pour my garage he screwed the concrete up big time. After I decided to epoxy coat it I then went to my local tool rental store and rented a concrete grinding machine and ground down all 1500 sf in a day. It was a big walk behind machine and did a good job, then I read the epoxy coat directions and ended up putting muratic acid on it to give it that 80 grit feel. My wolverine epoxy has held up great for 5 years so far.

Oak, am I correct that you first did a grind & then did acid?

Out of curiosity, did you neutralize with baking soda or soda ash after the acid?

 

[Oak]

Jag Fan, yes I did. My concrete was poured on a hot Georgia day and for some reaseon I requested 5000 psi. Down south they pour monolithic slabs and he had to pour all 1800 sf in a day. By the time he was 2/3 done the first pour was setting up and the completed finish was ****. That is why I had to grid it down only to find out it had to be like 80 grit. So, sorry for the long story, I did use acid and then I used Simple Green to neutralize. I guess that worked because it has held up well except for the small area exposed out side of the garage doors. That part turned yellow and is not sticking as well and I did use the UV blocker they had at that time.