sanding concrete..?

You'd probably be looking at a floor grinder, not sander. You should be able to rent one at your local big box store.

http://allgaragefloors.com/how-to-grind-garage-floor/

C

Home Depot and lowes both rent them I rented one a few weeks back from Home Depot to strip off paint on my parents garage floor to put down epoxy. If I remember it was around $90.00 for two different grinding wheels and the machine for 24 hours

CNeufeld wrote: ↑ You'd probably be looking at a floor grinder, not sander. You should be able to rent one at your local big box store.

http://allgaragefloors.com/how-to-grind-garage-floor/

C

thanks

anyone done it before? I wonder how difficult it would be to DIY. (I guess the upside is I am not really looking for a very smooth, professional finish...? I just want dirty and stuffs to be easier to brush off


(Btw, already looked into epoxy. Not interested, too much prep, too much things usually go wrong. There are also tons of oil stain in my garage since i change oil in there)

M-_-C wrote: ↑ Home Depot and lowes both rent them I rented one a few weeks back from Home Depot to strip off paint on my parents garage floor to put down epoxy. If I remember it was around $90.00 for two different grinding wheels and the machine for 24 hours

Did it also smooth out the floor when u use it to strip off the paint? Or the roughness still mostly stay there?

M-_-C wrote: ↑ Home Depot and lowes both rent them I rented one a few weeks back from Home Depot to strip off paint on my parents garage floor to put down epoxy. If I remember it was around $90.00 for two different grinding wheels and the machine for 24 hours

I've been looking at epoxy coatings. Can I ask what you decided to go with?

pinkdonut wrote: ↑ thanks

anyone done it before? I wonder how difficult it would be to DIY. (I guess the upside is I am not really looking for a very smooth, professional finish...? I just want dirty and stuffs to be easier to brush off


(Btw, already looked into epoxy. Not interested, too much prep, too much things usually go wrong. There are also tons of oil stain in my garage since i change oil in there)

If your already grinding the floor, you're half done the prep needed for epoxy. You'll never have another oil stain after you epoxy your floor..

I rented a grinder from HD before I epoxy coated my garage. Wet the floor first as it gets very dusty otherwise. If you can use a vacuum, then you can operate the concrete grinder. From what I remember it was very easy to manoeuvre.

Very hazardous silica dust. Would avoid sanding concrete, hire someone for it and make sure they clean it all up before they leave. Or just add more concrete to smooth out the high spots.

schade wrote: ↑ If your already grinding the floor, you're half done the prep needed for epoxy. You'll never have another oil stain after you epoxy your floor..

I rented a grinder from HD before I epoxy coated my garage. Wet the floor first as it gets very dusty otherwise. If you can use a vacuum, then you can operate the concrete grinder. From what I remember it was very easy to manoeuvre.

How big was the garage and how long it took to grind the floor?

I didn't want to go with epoxy because
1) I just want something easy to sweep the dirty away, dont' care about the look....and I didn't like the look of most epoxy coating anyway, looks very plasticy
2) The amount of work and time needed to do a nice epoxy coat (multiple days)
3) peeling epoxy looks awful and it seems like all epoxy coating will eventually wear out given enough traffic.

Ideally, I wanted a honed / semi-polish finish, but i think it will cost $2000+ to get someone professional to come in and do that. (2 cars garage, got some quote on the phone, epoxy was even more expensive)
I am not picky about my garage floor (wall aren't even painted), just wanted something I can rinse and brush all the mud and dirt out.

I was hoping for some 1-day weekend DIY job and $100-$200 for equipment/rental

pinkdonut wrote: ↑ How big was the garage and how long it took to grind the floor?

I didn't want to go with epoxy because
1) I just want something easy to sweep the dirty away, dont' care about the look....and I didn't like the look of most epoxy coating anyway, looks very plasticy
2) The amount of work and time needed to do a nice epoxy coat (multiple days)
3) peeling epoxy looks awful and it seems like all epoxy coating will eventually wear out given enough traffic.

Ideally, I wanted a honed / semi-polish finish, but i think it will cost $2000+ to get someone professional to come in and do that. (2 cars garage, got some quote on the phone, epoxy was even more expensive)
I am not picky about my garage floor (wall aren't even painted), just wanted something I can rinse and brush all the mud and dirt out.

I was hoping for some 1-day weekend DIY job and $100-$200 for equipment/rental

Mine was a 2 car garage, about 18x22 I think. It took me a few hours to do it, my garage floor was new (6months old) so I didn't really need to remove any buildup or Anything major. I also used a small 5" disc to do along the corners as the machine can't get right tight to the wall.
After that I power washed the floor and squeegeed it to get rid of all the dust, then I acid etched and power washed again. Let it dry for a day, then I applied my epoxy paint. That took roughly 2 hrs. There is nothing hard or scary about applying epoxy paint to your floor. If you've painted a wall, you can paint your floor.
It's been 3 yrs since I did my floor and there isn't one spot that is peeling or chipping, and I'm fairly hard on it at times.
You can get a clear sealer to apply to the concrete that will stop things from getting absorbed into it if you don't like the look of epoxy. But if your already willing to put the time in to grind your whole floor, your a day or 2 more work and $3-500 away from having a finished floor that you won't have to worry about anymore

engineered wrote: ↑ I've been looking at epoxy coatings. Can I ask what you decided to go with?

I used the kit from epoxy-coat, I think they were out if Michigan. Costco sells a decent kit at times that I was looking at as well. They key part is to use a epoxy that is 100% solids.

I painted my garage floor with porch paint when we moved in 10 years ago as I used it for woodworking as well. Made an 80-90% difference in smoothing it out and easy to sweep etc. I used concrete acid and 2 gallons of porch paint for a 2 car garage. In today dollars it would be under 100 bucks

schade wrote: ↑ I used the kit from epoxy-coat, I think they were out if Michigan. Costco sells a decent kit at times that I was looking at as well. They key part is to use a epoxy that is 100% solids.

I was also looking at the epoxy-coat.com kits ($300usd). It looks pretty good but the armorgarage.com stuff looks even better (though pricier at $570usd).
https://www.epoxy-coat.com/full-kit-sta ... lakes.html
http://www.armorgarage.com/epoxy-floori ... tions.html
http://www.armorgarage.com/epoxy-floori ... tions.html

engineered wrote: ↑ I was also looking at the epoxy-coat.com kits ($300usd). It looks pretty good but the armorgarage.com stuff looks even better (though pricier at $570usd).
https://www.epoxy-coat.com/full-kit-sta ... lakes.html
http://www.armorgarage.com/epoxy-floori ... tions.html
http://www.armorgarage.com/epoxy-floori ... tions.html

I purchased my epoxy-coat kit from Lowe's in Buffalo, it was alot closer than going to Michigan to get at.
Legacy Industrial is another good brand. I used their clear coat with the epoxy-coat kit.
One thing you should get to make application easy is a v-notch squeegee... It makes spreading the product super easy.

Buy from these guys. Cheaper and much superior quality than lowes. Contractor grade stuff. There are only handful of epoxy manufacturers in North America. All retailers and wholesalers pretty much buy from the same manufacturer but price their products vastly different (some are marked up 600%).

If you compare technical data sheets from Armourgarage and Epoxy superstore, they are exactly same products manufactured by the same company but sold at vastly different prices.

http://www.epoxysuperstore.com/store/in ... 1j7290cfs1

engineered wrote: ↑ I was also looking at the epoxy-coat.com kits ($300usd). It looks pretty good but the armorgarage.com stuff looks even better (though pricier at $570usd).
https://www.epoxy-coat.com/full-kit-sta ... lakes.html
http://www.armorgarage.com/epoxy-floori ... tions.html
http://www.armorgarage.com/epoxy-floori ... tions.html

TTony wrote: ↑

Actually that video kinda made me more weary about doing it myself...

I can see a lot of circular groove on the floor after he sanded it...which looks like it will make it worse than before in terms of trapping dirty and dust...

Imsmarterthanyou wrote: ↑ If you use a grinder on the garage floor you will end up with very fine dust all over the walls. Basically everywhere in the garage. I used an air compressor to remove all this dust from the wall. It is a very dirty job. Almost the kind of job you would be happy to pay someone else to do.

Don't really care about dust...
The garage is drywalled already, I can have it completely emptied. And much of the drywall seam will need to be patched, sanded and painted anyway. (The builder did a piss poor job on taping and mudding the seams...i.e. big dip)

Floor also slope outward so I can just take a rinse the floor with water and use a blower to get rid of dust on the drywall.

Keep the floor wet while you are doing it and you'll have hardly any dust

Thread bump

I found a place that rents a dual disc grinder (for $150/day)
I wanted to try to do that before winter is here...
Any recommendation / tips especially those who have done it before?