Preparing the floor

[slacker]

Hi. we have recentle moved to a new house and the previous owner had painted the concrete floor's downstairs with that nasty red paint they use on garage floor's.
I plan in tiling the hallway and kitchen floors myself and i'm hoping there is a way of doing it with out having to strip all the paint as i know it's going to be a pain in the backside.
My question is, will i have to get stuck in and strip the paint, if so what would you recomend or is there a way round it?
Thanks, Slacker

 

[jay]

Sorry but paint has to be removed

 

[White Room]

As above, remove paint...

 

[bugs183]

If you have an angle grinder Tradetiler sells a really useful cupped grinding wheel, that'll shift the paint, but will fill your house with dust so mask up, and seal the doorways.

 

[kilty55]

as bugs.......and definately mask up and seal up

 

[bugs183]

If your you, your house/partner are particularly dust sensitive try your local tool hire shop they my have a grinder with a dust extractor cowl fitted, hire one of those and an industrial vacuum cleaner and you'll have loads less mess and dust, well worth the money.
[h=1][/h]

 

[slacker]

unfortunately i am dust sensative and have asthema, Guess im going to have to teach the mrs to use the angle grinder. she can take the paint off while i keep clear of the dust, The pub should be a safe place for me to hide out in.

 

[Mike Mike]

I am going to be controversial here and say you do notneed to strip the paint.

Instead, you can put acrylic primer on it (e.g. Uzin PE260) and then trowel out a thin layer of smoothing compound such as such as Uzin NC182 UZIN: Product Search

That sticks like REMOVED to a blanket, if you're handy you can trowel it nice and smooth, and it dries in an hour so you can start tiling. If it's your first time you might need to sand it a bit before tiling, but it's pretty easy to use (just don't mix a whole bag in one go because you've got MAXIMUM 10 minutes to work with it before it goes rock hard!).

We use this stuff ALL THE TIME on all sorts of substrates when we lay vinyl (which we lay underneath tiling installations, to act as a 100% waterproof tanking system). Old paint, old glue, old anything, it really doesn't matter. This smoothing compound is the dog's....

 

[jay]

Substrate preparation:The substrate must be sound, load-bearing, dry, free from cracks,
clean and free from materials (dirt, oil, grease), that would impair
adhesion. Cement and calcium sulphate screeds must be abraded
and vacuumed and in some circumstances primed. Test the
substrate in accordance with applicable standards and bulletins
and report any deficiencies.
Any deleterious or unstable layers, e.g. release agents, loose adhesives, compounds, covering or paint residues etc. must be removed,
e.g. by brushing, abrading, grinding or shot-blasting. Thoroughly
vacuum off loose material and dust. Select a suitable primer from
the UZIN Product Guide according to the type and condition of
the substrate. Prior priming is not required for certain substrates,
such as old screeds with dense, well-adhering, waterproof adhesive residues. Primer generally to be applied for thicknesses over
3 mm. Allow any primers that are applied to dry completely.
Refer to the product data sheets for other products used


http://www.uzin.co.uk/uploads/tx_dddownloadmatrix/NC182__GB__01.pdf




😳

 

[slacker]

Thanks for all the advise. The mrs isn't too keen on the dusty method and im not too keen on cleaning the mess up afterwards. Definatly like the sound of the uzin product's, going to go with the easiest method afterall i got a user name to live up to. lol.

 

[Mike Mike]

Jay, the key words are "Any deleterious or unstable layers".

If the paint is flaking then it needs to be scraped, or sanded (the quickest and most effective method is a rotary floor machine, like a Janser Columbus, with 24 sand paper. Sanding a 25 m2 room takes 15 minutes to get any loose paint off. He won't have one of those, but maybe they can be hired? Sanding Technology

If the paint is not flaking, and slacker does not mention that it is, then vacuuming, priming and spreading a 1 - 2mm layer of smoothing compound is perfectly acceptable.

We use a pallet of the stuff every week and have never had a problem. (Mind you, we sand every floor before we do anything, because it is such a quick and easy process when you have a rotary floor machine...).

 

[jay]

Nah i would still remove it

 

[itidiot]

You know you have to remove it 🙂 I would buy myself a heatgun and big tin of paint stripper if worried about the dust. Makesure you remove all traces of paint and stripper before starting.

 

[Mike Mike]

ROFL @ r13.

 

[jay]

Any deleterious or unstable layers, e.g. release agents, loose adhesives, compounds, covering or paint residues etc. must be removed,
e.g. by brushing, abrading, grinding or shot-blasting. Thoroughly


Think if you read it again it doesn't mention a quick scrape it says remove (grinding or shot blasting) might be worth your time to contact there help line as it is not clear in the wording

 

[Mike Mike]

No, you're okay Jay. As I said, we use a pallet a week of Uzin smoothing compound and know how to use it, and that it works.

But good luck with angle grinding paint off floors if that's how it's done in Tasmania...

 

[jay]

Yeah always remove paint as it has a tendancy to split once tiled over .better of getting a good key for your work rather than relying on paint

as you said Mike a contraversal post you made

 

[Mike Mike]

Actually I said controversial Jay...

Agree that getting a good key is crucial which is why I said prime it and put down a thin layer of smoothing compound instead of tiling directly onto the painted concrete.

That is what smoothing compound is for: providing a good, flat, smooth, strong key for the finished floor covering, whether it is tiles, glued vinyl / homogenous PVC / linoleum, or whatever else.

We do all those kinds of flooring, not just tiling. Thousands of m2 a year, literally, in hospitals, schools, large office buildings, as well as hundreds of wet rooms with 2mm vinyl tanking on the floor and walls, hot welded.

The advice I gave that chap will work and he will save time, money and mess.

If you want to try and talk him out of it that's fine, but please direct any further doubts and worries to him instead of me. I know that the 136m2 school library I have to sand, prime and apply smoothing compound to tomorrow in readiness to receive linoleum on Friday will also work, and that if I tried to use an 8" angle grinder it would take me until Christmas to get the concrete clean of all "deleterious or unstable layers".... :sleep1:

 

[Fliselege]

wet rooms with 2mm vinyl tanking on the floor and walls, hot welded.

Find that a bit over the top, I work with Swedes and they say Norway is much stricter than Sweden and we only go up 15cm of the wall in wetrooms with the vynal

 

[Rich]

What kind of area are we talking about here? I would always suggest removing every bit of paint you possible can.

 

[Mike Mike]

Find that a bit over the top, I work with Swedes and they say Norway is much stricter than Sweden and we only go up 15cm of the wall in wetrooms with the vynal

Hello Fliselege,

I don't know about Norwegian regulations but regulations for wetrooms in Sweden say whole floor must be tanked, plus 10cm up the walls. In the Wet Zone 1 (shower +1m either side) the walls must be tanked, and if the shower is on an outside wall then the entire wall must be tanked.

Our firm tanks the entire wetroom walls in vinyl, exactly the same as if the customer was just having våtrum plastmatta as the finished wall covering, except we tile over it. Here are the approved systems. Godkända plastmattor som tätskikt under kakel och klinker - GVK.se

That is in excess of the regulations but thatäs how we do it, and customers are happy to pay for it, for the extra peace of mind. It also means that "Papa Polska" cannot do it, because it takes more skill and specialist tools than tätskiktsfolier, so it differentiates our firm.

I assume if you only use vinyl on the floor then you're using tätskiktsfolier or vätskebaserade tätskikt in Wet Zone 1??? That's fine, we could do it that way too, but choose vinyl instead.

 

[jay]

Its your call slacker you decide but be warned the slc mentioned above is not recommended (by the manufacture) in wet areas and the guarantee over paint stops at the paint ,if the paint fails then you are on your own

good luck

 

[slacker]

well it looks like the paint is going to be removed, found a few places where it is flaking.
I was hoping i wouldn't have to strip the paint and it looks like there are quite a few layers of the nasty red stuff.
I wont be using paint stripper and a heat gun though, If the fumes dont kill me the fire probably will lol.

 

[Mike Mike]

well it looks like the paint is going to be removed, found a few places where it is flaking.
I was hoping i wouldn't have to strip the paint and it looks like there are quite a few layers of the nasty red stuff.
I wont be using paint stripper and a heat gun though, If the fumes dont kill me the fire probably will lol.

Out of interest, when you have done it, would you mind uploading a photo and advising what method you used and how long it took please? I'd be curious that's all...

 

[slacker]

Out of interest, when you have done it, would you mind uploading a photo and advising what method you used and how long it took please? I'd be curious that's all...

Will do, It will be in a few weeks time due to lack of funds at the moment because the person who was going to do the work for me had me waste a lot of money on ditra matting and adhesive that i didn't need probably for one of his other jobs but thats another story.

 

[Mike Mike]

Cheers Slacker, I'm not trying to be funny or anything, I'm just curious to know what exactly the guys here mean by "you need to remove the paint", and how it's done. As I said, in my firm we sand all floors with a rotary floor machine and 24 grit paper, prime and then apply smoothing compound (which is not the same as SLC) then apply the finished flooring to that (tanking where appropriate).

The rotary floor machine gets rid of any flaking paint but does not remove it completely. So, short of a scabbling machine taking the top few mm off the screed, I'm intrigued as to what actually removes all the paint from a concrete screed, and how long it takes. Thanks.