Plenty of ventilation if using acid. A couple of squirrel cage blowers should help. Along with a straight hoe and a bucket of elbow grease.

Time and materials my friend, time and materials.

I would get a concrete staining guy in there to bid the job for you. Dont try and wing it, the floor may need to be grinded down to get it absolutly clean. Sometimes its not stainable and you might want to tell him to use VCT instead.

Meetre said:

I am currently finishing up a contract to remodel an office space. The owner came to me today and asked about removing the glue-down carpet from the showroom area to prep the concrete for acid staining. I am leery of this (I know that the glue HAS to come off, concrete may have residue from carpet cleaning that will effect the final look of the floor, etc.) but would like the extra work. If it was you, what would your approach be to make sure the glue is gone and concrete is CLEAN? I am planning on a floor scraper, have thought of using muriatic acid to clean it after scraping. Any other ideas?

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Beings its comercial you can bet they used real glue.........youl have to grind the concrete even if it looks like you got all the glue off the solvents from the glue will show trowel marks when stained.......been there done that, and grinding sucks Ive done that too

Talk em into an epoxy coating if you want to save some frustartion........not the cheap garage fllor diy crap but a real system

Don't use muriatic acid if you plan on acid staining. muriatic acid will deplete the lime in the concrete and affect how the acid stain reacts with the concrete. If it's an acrylic "stain" this may be ok. I'd check with the manufacturer.

You can use strippers to get up the glue (although I never have luck with 'em), but keep in mind the residue left from the strippers can be just as tough to remove as the glue.

I got the impression from your post that you're just prepping for the acid stain and not staining it yourself. I would get with the company doing the staining and find out what they will require for adequate prep. I looked at a job a couple of months ago where the gc ground the concrete for a stain guy but he left such horrible swirl marks that the job turned out horrible. No sense in spending all this time and money trying to preserve the original slab if an overlay is the only option for a decent stain job.

We would only be doing the prep work on this, it's a customer who is comfortable working with us, and we with him. Otherwise I would most likely refer him to someone else. I have told him about the pita it will be, he has it in his head to go with the stained concrete. Far be it from me to tell him how to spend his money.

I've been doing a bit of research and found this, http://www.ecosafetyproducts.com/Soy-It-Polyurethane-Stripper-p/ste-4011-5.htm Looks like it may be the ticket. The guys that would do the staining and I have both told him that we may have to grind the floor, as the adhesive may not come off completely with out it.

Not too sure about the epoxy finish, do you know of any websites with pictures, so I can show the differences and what the final product will look like?

Thanks for the input guys. :thumbup:

Some people have told me they've had success with franmar's soygel. That product looks similar. If it doesn't come up easy with just the stripper, you can cover the area with 6 mil plastic to prevent the stripper from evaporating then scrape in a couple hours and it should come up easier.

Also, be careful because that stuff is extremely slippery.

Again, all stripper residue has to be removed. It'll act as a bond breaker and could cause your sealer to fail.

Good luck and I'd try a sample area first to see how the stain will react if possible before tackling the entire area.

Decided that he didn't want the price to get it stained, going with carpet again. Thanks again for the input.

To add to Tsb's post.... I've used franmars soy stripper once. For the most part did nothing but turned the adhesive to a hard gel. I'm not sure what form of adhesive I put it on but didnt do much for me that one time. So it might be have success just depending on the toughness of adhesive. We ended up wet grinding it off. I have used some eco's sealers but not there soy stripper.

For future reference.