Ground to a nub
So for my first day of vacation I figured I would tackle the most annoying and difficult job on the to do list, stripping the paint off the garage floor. Months ago Cindy painted the garage floor but did not etch the concrete first. The end result was the paint not adhering well, it started to lift off in various spots. My plan was to use muriatic acid to both etch the concrete and dissolve the paint. I bought the acid, a respirator, and a floor brush to agitate it.
The first step of course was to pull EVERYTHING off the floor of the garage which is a large task in itself. I started very early, removing items and placing them on either side for the driveway. After the space was cleared I used the blower to get most debris off the floor followed by the shopvac to get whatever was left. Finally I pulled the hose in to rinse down the entire floor, the surface you apply acid to is supposed to be wet.
So I put on my acid spraying gear which included jeans, rubber boots, long sleeve shirt, respirator, and safety glasses. Even though it was still early in the morning the outfit accelerated the sweating process. I mixed up my acid solution in 3-1 formula, three parts water to one part acid. I pumped up the pressure handle and started spraying.
It didn’t take me long to question the effectiveness of my plan. When the acid hit any bare concrete it started to bubble and smoke as it should but when I sprayed the painted surface I saw no reaction whatsoever. I continued spraying anyway, covering the entire floor, hoping if I let the acid sit a few minutes I would see something happen. It didn’t. I pulled the hose in and washed the acid off the surface. Apparently my assumption that muriatic acid would surely eat paint if it eats concrete was a bad one.
So now I had to quickly come up with plan two. Cindy had talked to the tool rental department at Home Depot awhile back about ways to remove the paint. They suggested a machine that has a grinding disc. Supposedly it would easily remove the paint and rough up the surface of the concrete at the same time. I wasted little time changing and heading to the store to rent the machine.
When I got there I explained what I needed to do. The clerk showed me the machine and grabbed one of the grinding discs. I assumed operating the machine would not be a big deal. The guy warned me that it is going to be hard work, the depths of that hardness would be revealed to me shortly.
The machine has two wheels so when I pulled it out to the truck I didn’t have a good sense of it’s true weight. When I lifted it up onto the bed of the truck it became very clear that it easily weighed over 100 pounds, maybe even 150. When I got home I lugged the unit up into the garage and again wet down the floor. The guy said the surface needed to have like a mist on it, if you let it run dry it will wreck the grinding fins.
So I pretty much soaked the floor and turned on the machine in the center. I was advised to do some “practice” to “get a feel for it”. Well I sure got a feel, the feel of massive torque wanting to pull the machine to the left as the grinding wheel turned counter clockwise. I could not stop it, the grinder was basically pulling me around the garage. After more frustrating attempts I determined the only way to control the movement was to brace my body in such a way that I was applying torque in the opposite direction, meaning I had the handle sort of wedged against my left leg as I used my core to fight the twisting motion. It was very, very difficult.
Once I got the machine more under control I tried putting it to work. I was not impressed. I had visions in my head of this beast ripping the old paint off with ease. Instead it took excruciatingly long until it would get down to bare concrete. I also discovered that having the floor soaked made the problem even worse as you need friction to get the job done. I started working on the two car sized floor inch by inch.
Within the first half hour of running the machine I was beat up, my entire body was being pushed to the limit to keep the machine going the direction I wanted. I could only do small sections at a time before I had to take a break to recover. During that break I was using the pressure washer to blast off the heavy gray residue from the parts I worked on. The stuff was part floor paint and concrete dust. It looked like wet cement.
By the time Cindy got back from work mid-afternoon I was pretty much losing my mind. I was exhausted and frustrated I still had half the floor to do. When she changed and came out to help I put her on pressure washer duty. Not only was she washing away the sludge I left behind, she also was using the gas pressure washer to blast away small sections of paint as well. So we continued on for hours, removing the paint ever so slowly. It was one of the most physically grueling things I have had to endure in quite a long time.
So finally in the early evening the floor was pretty much done. However now all the shit had to be brought back inside but before that could be done all the gray sludge that was washed out of the garage now had to be blasted off the driveway. I probably spent another 30 minutes just doing that. Finally we started to repopulate the garage, doing some minor organizing and discarding as we did. Despite only being involved in the job for a few hours Cindy was feeling beat up as well. Once the final item was put back in the garage and the truck pulled back in it was something like 6:30 PM, an incredibly long and exhausting “vacation” day.
I told Cindy I would take her and Katie out for dinner. The last thing Cindy needed to be doing is preparing a meal. I was walking around like an arthritic, very, very old man. Every single thing on my body was sore and/or aching. We had a nice meal at Pelican Larry’s. When we returned home it took me very little time before I was collapsed into bed. I slept like a rock but awoke today sore but still mobile.
I truly hope that this is the last time I submit myself to this degree of a grueling home project. I’m just getting too old to hang.