Removing Paint

custom patios

hello everyone. I own a small company in Pa designing and building outdoor living spaces. I am bidding on a 1300 sq cabana floor. The existing floor has been poured concrete and has been painted. I do not believe it is a latex paint, or at least it has not been applied to the point of sealing the matrix of the concrete. I plan on installing the Ditra membrane over the concrete and then install travertine over the uncoupler. in this type of situation in the past I would grind/sand the paint well enough to ensure a strong bond with the thinset. However, I dont feel that sanding 1300 sq is all that productive or efficient. Does anyone here have any direct experience with a chemical solution for me that will not be a disaster in the mess department. There is and will be new landscaping around the area and other hard surfaces to be protected. The goal I suppose is to cut some labor time down. this economy sucks balz btw!

rustyjames

I would try an area with some high test paint remover; maybe hitting with a pressure washer after the stuff worked for awhile. Any process you use is probably going to be a mess.

jomama

The best advice I can come up with is:
- Find a company that does industrial floor coatings, like epoxy.
- See if they can media blast it for you. Usually the machine sucks the media right back up & re-uses it, cutting down most mess.
- See what they'll charge you to blast, it may not be in the budget?

lukachuki

Buy / Rent a Low Rpm floor machine figure out what kind of paint you are dealing with and then apply the appropriate stripper. I bought my floor machine off of ebay for 100.00 and use it all the time for the same sort of scenario. You can also get the right profile with this type of machine using using sandpaper in many instances although on a painted flloor you just gum it up.

Something like this....make sure it is not a high speed burnisher/buffer.
http://tinyurl.com/d9kg25

__________________
"The problem with internet quotes is, you never know if they are authentic." -Abraham Lincoln-

Less with the jaw more with the paw!

custom patios

i appreciate your responses. The paint on the floor is not like a layer that is chipping or peeling, or like it was just applied to the surface; rather it looks more like a low viscous penetrating paint. Does that make any sense? Regretably I do not have pics right now. For those reasons I did not think a comm. sander would remove all the paint. I thought I heard of a chemical that you pour on the surface and it actually pulls the paint up from the floor to be scraped off but I do not know what it is or where I heard of it. I was hoping someone may know what I'm refering to or used something similar. Your help is appreciated.

custom patios

that is an interesting thought. do you mean like sandblasting? that will probably be above budget but something I will definately look into. thank you. My concern with that is protecting surfaces but I'm not familiar with the process.

jomama

Same idea as sandblasting, except it uses a metal "shot" usually. It's the cleanest way to do it IMO. It will actually remove a little of the concrete surface, giveing you an ideal cbond. I would be concerned about residue with any chemicals. You could check out WR Meadows or Euco brands for a product called Orange Peel if you like. It works as a stripper for concrete use, but my experience with it still used a lot of "elbow grease", power washing, & mess. The media blasting should leave very little mess at all, it's intended to be used indoors actually.