Removing Stuff Off A Concrete Floor

We’ve talked about polishing the concrete before, but sometimes you just want to clean up the floor and coat it with something.  Sometimes tile, sometimes paint or even carpet,  whatever you decide you still need a good clean surface to start with.  The biggest problem we usually have is getting off whatever was on before!  Sometimes that is as simple as a little drywall mud or as difficult as ceramic tile.   Lets look at a few of the common floor jobs we encounter and the options for cleaning them up.

One of the more common things we encounter, especially in new construction is dried drywall mud or splatter.  The good news is that this is usually cleaned up fairly easily, depending on how big the area is.  For the big chunks a simple tile scraper can be used then followed up with water and a rotary machine of some sort.  For small jobs a 17″ Floor Machine with a scrub pad works fairly well, but as the job get larger cleaning up the water can be a real hassle.  If you don’t mod it up before it dries, you may have to do it all over again!  That’s where the Auto Floor Scrubbers come in, an Auto Floor Scrubber puts down the water, scrubs it AND sucks it back up in one pass.

Another common flooring issue we run into is glue down carpet or vinyl.  Getting these up can be a bit more challenging.  You will need a hand tile stripper for sure (works great for cleanup and corners even if you have moved on to something larger).  If the hand model isn’t cutting it you need to look at the wonderful world of powered tile strippers.  These come in models that start with a handheld power unit, chipping hammers with attachments, air powered tile stripper, walk behind strippers, self propelled tile stripper, heavy duty self propelled strippers and finally riding tile strippers.   That’s a lot of strippers to choose from!  It really depends on the size of room you are doing.  So now that the flooring is up usually you are stuck with left over glue residue.  That’s were the hand tile stripper comes in, but sometimes that’s  just not enough.  So now we get to play with some heavy duty equipment.  An 11″  or 22″ Concrete grinder set up with Carbide teeth is a great way to scrape the glue off.  There may be some residue left over even after this step and you may have to use the same machine with diamonds to get a completely clean floor.  Using the 11″ or 22″ Concrete grinder with diamonds will really expose the concrete and leave a scratched up finish that is absolutely perfect to apply a coating or a new floor.

The last flooring type we run into is ceramic flooring or tile.  Basically you will use the same equipment as with removing glue down flooring but with a different tip.  With the glue down flooring you can scrape a fairly wide area where as with tile, you are going to be scraping a smaller narrow area as to apply the most power possible for removing those stubborn tiles.  That is going to leave you with some stuck on grout etc.  Again the same equipment applies.  Start with carbide and move to diamond.

Dealing with concrete floors can be a frustrating process, sometimes what you think will work on one job won’t touch another.  You need to do the research and get the best equipment to start with and give yourself plenty of time.  There is no one magic tool that will do everything, as you can see sometimes it takes a few steps with a few different tools to get the job done correctly.

Give us a call or stop by, we are here to help you.

Aurora Rents
206-659-7368
Shoreline – Greenlake – Lake City
AuroraRents.com

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