CGD glue removal from concrete

hogjowl

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Architect has stipulated that the carpet glue MUST be removed from the concrete subfloor before new carpet squares can be installed. HUH?

Anyway, contractor does not want to buck the architect, so ... what am I to do?

Sandblast

Grind it with something? What ...?
 
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cameron demille
Yes I believe you can use those with a 1.5, but it may get hot. I have never used those so I don't know how much stress they put on the motor.

A scarifying brush would be good too but you're better off using a planetary like suggested.
 

floorguy

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Doug
yea, it even tells you that in the little video....

and if they can be used on autoscrubber motors...3/4 hp i think....then your 175 should be fine....

how sticky is the glue do you know??? cuz if its still kinda tacky....these tools will gum up
 

hogjowl

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I have not idea yet. The contractor just called me about this yesterday. I really don't want to do this job ... REALLY ... but this guy gives me tons of work, so I may have to. He's in a real hurry, and I refuse to let him rush me on this, since I have no idea what I am doing. So, I may end up telling him to find someone who can do it sooner.
 

FloorPizza

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Brandt
Wow, a thread I might actually be able to contribute to...

My wife and I used to own a bagel bakery. It had a very old VCT tile floor. A year after we had been in business, the poor old VCT was too shot to keep. A few stores around us had dyed-cement floors that I fell in love with. So the VCT had to come up. As such things always seem to do, a "three day project" turned in to ten days (bakery shut down for two weeks.. ouch). The majority of that time was spent cleaning the VCT tile adhesive off of the cement to the point that the acid based concrete dye could work on the actual cement; any adhesive residue (*any* adhesive residue, even just a light film) would keep the dye from working on the cement. I tried a hundred different methods before finding something that worked....

I used a citrus based solvent. I applied it very liberally to the adhesive and let it dwell for about thirty minutes. I then covered the area in silica sand, and worked it with a 175 machine with a long bristled brush attached. The silica sand did a great job of "encapping" the solvent/adhesive mixture, which I then vacuumed up with a shop vac. It was fast, easy, and thorough.. it left the floor clean enough that the acid dye worked beautifully on the cement. An important caveat, though... silica sand is a pretty nasty inhalation hazard... make sure you wear the appropriate breathing protection.

Surprisingly, not a lot of dust was created using this method. I did, however, use max filtration on the shop vac (filter bag, and a foam filter/paper filter over the vac motor). As long as you don't get too heavy handed with the silica sand over the top of the solvent, not much dust is created when you work it with the 175.

For what it's worth... I'm sure other guys will have better ideas, but this worked for us.
 
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FloorPizza

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Brandt
Where does one go to purchase silica sand? Home Depot?

I believe Home Depot carries it. We got ours from a Mom and Pop lumber yard that went out of business shortly after Home Depot came to our small town.

If HD doesn't have it, any place that carries cement/mortar products should.
 
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hogjowl

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I gave the contractor a price and he about fainted. He said he would approach the Architect and see if he would allow the glue to stay down. Flooring contractor and I both told him the glue didn't really need to come up. The contractor said he didn't think he would be able to convince the architect to allow him to skip that step, but he would let me know. I told him not to call me one day and tell me he needed it done the next.

I hope I don't hear from him.
 

Concrete Guy

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There are many ways to remove glue. Bean-e-doo from Franmar works very well if you want to go the "chemical rout. It is made from soy beans and is non toxic.

My favorite is using power tools. Onfloor sells the Diamabrush for their planetary machines...they also fit on the Cimex machines. The Diamabrush with a little bit of sand will take off the existing glue or mastic and also prep the floor at the same time. I have had plenty of people come in and tell me that the Diamabrush they rented at HD doesn't work, but the same tool on a planetary is amazing.

Here is a video of the Diamabrush and sand on an Onfloor machine.

Onfloor 20 Pro Series + Diamabrush + Sand = No more nasty carpet glue
 

Concrete Guy

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You can rent these machines, or something similar.

Your 175 machine and the $40 rental diamabrush from Home Depot and some sand will do it.

Or chemically with Bean-e-doo.
 

DIY and PRAY

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Ellen
October 2013 updates on Diamabrush method

You can rent these machines, or something similar.

Your 175 machine and the $40 rental diamabrush from Home Depot and some sand will do it.

Or chemically with Bean-e-doo.

Hi! I am new here and my husband and I are DIY types. I learned about diamabrush and so much other useful info from this board, so I wanted to share some info that might be helpful to others.

First - Home Depot no longer rents the Diamabrush. They still have the videos on their website but the rental center manager told us that people were bringing them back trashed after only one use so they weren't able to make any money on them because they had to keep replacing those expensive blades each time. However, you can buy the larger sizes from UnoClean. Great customer service and reasonable prices and free shipping. So that's what we did and the 5-blade, 16 inch brush was $290. Be sure you order the clutch plate or it will be useless. That $290 was including the clutch plate.

Second - the HD people don't always know which floor maintainer to give you. It is the Clarke American FM1700.

Third - you can buy the smaller (4.5 and 7 inch) Diamabrush at HD for the edges and corners, and you can rent or buy an angle grinder.

Fourth and probably most critical - WATCH THE DIAMABRUSH VIDEO. IT IS MUCH BETTER THAN THE HD VIDEO, WHICH DOESN'T EVEN MENTION WATER. THE DIAMABRUSH VIDEO SAYS YOU MUST USE WATER AND BOY ARE THEY RIGHT. At first we tried a light misting. Then more and more water - the problem being that it can get slippery - not good when you are trying to control a heavy machine. So be super-careful. But water was the key to the operation!

And that brings me to the last point - do NOT assume you need multiple passes. We had 1,000 sf in three rooms and based on what we read here and elsewhere, we were thinking 7-8 passes. That would have taken days! So in the first room, we did three passes and it looked like there was still mastic on the floor. Well, there was. We were getting discouraged. But it turns out it was just ground-up mastic that we were just spreading around! I'd been wet-vacuuming the slurry and when an area became too dry, I used the sprayer to re-wet an area. As I sprayed, it became obvious that there was clean concrete under the slurry. We took a mop and a nice, big squeegee and cleaned up the slurry and sure enough - we were done. Yes, there were a few small patches remaining but repeated passes didn't remove them - there must be small dips in the concrete. We'll hit them with the hand tool but I can't imagine that the shot-blasting won't get most of that off anyway.

So the next day, in the larger room, we did one pass and then washed and sure enough - one pass was sufficient. Same result - a few patches (that again, remained after a couple of repeated efforts) and otherwise, bare concrete.

So finally - a helpful hint - this is a two-person job. You really want to get that slurry cleaned off as quickly as you can. Concrete is porous and the water will carry the water-slurry mix down into the concrete. It probably dries fairly quickly but the whole point of this exercise was to get the concrete ready for (in our case) sheet vinyl so the last thing we want is MORE moisture. We have a week before we shot-blast and another week before we apply the epoxy but still, we sure don't want to be saturating the concrete with water. And by the second day, we were hitting that concrete floor with a garden hose so we kept at it with the squeegee and the wet-vac so we wouldn't have any water standing on the concrete.

Also - do the clean-up with a hose, not buckets. There is SO MUCH slurry that you end up emptying and refilling the buckets constantly. By the time you get back to the spot you were cleaning, the slurry has started to get absorbed by the concrete and you end up cleaning the same spot over and over. Not to mention the huge amount of time in emptying and refilling buckets or sprayers.

I hope this info helps other DIYers.
 
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Lorenzo

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Ernie Kosar
Soy-jell stripper
Google it I forgot the manufacture but is a green product and works ausome on stone
 

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