Coating Removal
If a coating or adhesive must be removed from the floor, the quickest method is to grind the material off. This is often called concrete prep. There are many tool options on the market for concrete prep, but selecting the right tools depends on these main questions:
- What type of coating are you removing and how thick is the coating?
- Will you be re-coating or polishing the floor?
If you are putting down a new coating or overlay, it is critical to ensure proper bonding with the floor surface, so you need to prep the floor to a specific concrete surface profile, or CSP. CSP range from CSP1 (nearly flat) to CSP10 (very rough). For more info on these CSP guidelines, developed by the International Concrete Repair Institute, visit www.icri.org.
If the floor will be polished, you should be careful with very aggressive tools during the coating removal, because they can damage the surface, leaving deep scratches. There are also few extra steps to plan for, including cleaning and filling joints, repairing spalls and cracks, and determining concrete hardness to select the best grinding tooling.