Painting Concrete Floor

My basement has a painted concrete floor. It looks like one of the previous owners used regular house paint on it. One of my projects for next summer is painting the floor in the basement and garage. Will epoxy paint bond to the concrete with that old paint on it? I can power wash the floor but not sure if all of the paint will come up. It's only 6' high so it's only used for storage. It's damp and during heavy rains I get water flowing from the base of the walls into the drain so I don't want to get fancy. Any suggestions?

I saw a "Ask this old house show "on it . The were putting it on plain crete. Fist thing they did was hose it off to find any oil. And scrubbed those surfaces thoroughly, then they scrubbed the whole floor. Next was a acid wash, forget which type. The acid "etched" the concrete giving it a nice rough surface for good adhesion. 2 coats of epoxy. The last coat they had little speckles they spread around that were color coordinated with the epoxy color. This was in garage and had some cracks, between the coats and speckles you couldn't see them much at all...

If it were me at the very least the paint would be coming off.

It was probably "muriatic acid", which they used for cleaning up brick jobs after laying. ... and concrete.

Bill
If the basement floor is not peeling, I would clean it good and use a good floor paint. Benjamin Moore has a good porch and floor enamel. The garage floor if there's nothing on it yet, needs to be etched, then I'd use a concrete stain. It will penatrate the concrete, not just lay on the surface like paint so you won't get the peeling . H & C concrete stains are sold are Sherwin Williams and you can tint it to any color and also add some anti slip chips into the finish coat if you want. My dad stained his garage floor in Florida over 10 years ago and it still looks great. I've been in the painting business for 26 years, so this is finally a topic here I know a lot about.

Dave

My garage is my workshop. The only car that was ever in it was my son's when we rebuilt his suspension. Will concrete stains stand up in a work environment? It's only nights and weekends. Me, myself and I are the workers. Also a lot of the paint in the basement is worn off. Should I use acid to take off the rest or just pressure wash it and repaint?

Floor Armor Concrete Coating:
http://www.por15.com/products.asp?dept=15

A little pricey.

I used the kit thats available at Lowes.http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=p ... lpage=none It worked well except where I couldn't get a few deep oil stains out. It is slippery when wet though. Chris

zeeklu wrote:It is slippery when wet though. Chri

If you use the anti slip chips in the finish coat it will give you some grip to the floor.

billw wrote:My garage is my workshop. The only car that was ever in it was my son's when we rebuilt his suspension. Will concrete stains stand up in a work environment? It's only nights and weekends. Me, myself and I are the workers. Also a lot of the paint in the basement is worn off. Should I use acid to take off the rest or just pressure wash it and repaint?

You shouldn't have any problems with wear, you may have to recoat it every couple of years for added protection depending on how much use it gets. I know the stain is very durrable, they also use it for patios and walkways which are exposed to outside elements and hold up just fine. As far as the basement floor, if you can power wash it that would be your best bet for getting most of the loose paint off. You said the basement gets damp at times so it will be tough to keep it from peeling in the future, but get as much as the loose paint off now and use a good quality porch and floor enamel for the top coat. I've always used Ben. Moores.

Dave

some day i was going to pull up my basement floor. it's only about 2" to 3" thick. i have moisture that keeps it damp in spots. not standing water , just moisture that seeps through the floor from under it. i was going to put in a vapor seal and repour it. well i can't do that now. would sealing it from the top , hurt the concrete over time? thank you , Ken

Yes , no , maybe?

ken wrote:Yes , no , maybe?

Sorry, haven't been back to this thread in a few days


I don't think it would be a problem over time. When you use Dry Lok to seal concrete walls you're basically doing the same thing, sealing the moisture out from the other side of the wall. On their web site it doesn't say anything about not being able to use their product on concrete floors,and after it's sealed you can paint over it. I would call UGL ( Dry Lok ) 570) 344-1202 and make sure you can use the product on concrete floors, then if you want to after it dries, you can paint it with a good porch and floor enamel.

http://www.ugl.com/drylokMasonry/masonr ... /index.php

Dave

thank you vtec