I have a medium size garage with painted concrete floor. The floor itself is mostly level but not smooth (save for a few places. I say this because in places the old paint has flaked or chaffed away and there are places where there or chips and nicks into the floor where heavy objects may have been dragged or dropped. There are also 3-4 places where what seems like iron bars were protruding from the floor but trimmed back to within 7-8mm of the floor surface. I would also expect there to be some grease from when the space was used to repair vehicles but certainly nothing visible. Being that I’d like to use the unit as a prep kitchen for my street food business (cutting salad, washing utensils, storing goods etc), I need to clean the space up and make sure the floor looks presentable and is finished in a way that facilitates easy cleaning and is free from trip hazards. The local council team have said that the floor could be painted concrete, tiles or vinyl. I’d like to ask what would be the most economical way of going about trying to achieve the above. The space is 5m x 9m with a small intrusion to the rear where we have a small WC room. To the front we have an access door and wide roller shutter. I don’t own this unit and could be asked to leave with 3 months’ notice so I’m not keen to spend more than I absolutely need to. Options I’ve considered: 1. Tiling? Ruled out due to cost 2. Grinding the floor back to level and remove potentially contaminated top layer paint and grease before painting? Concerned about amount of dust and wondering if top layer really needs to be removed for paint adhesion and whether renting grinder, vacuum and cost of paint will be economical. 3. Pouring something down to level the floor (latext screed whatever) and then painting. Sees costly but this seems to promise the best results. 4. Cutting back the few protrusions and then paying someone to lay AltroXpress lay safety vinyl. At around £18 per square meter for the vinyl on top of the charge for someone to lay it could be quite costly and being that the vinyl is 2mm thick, wondering about its toughness. 5. Washing existing floor with degreaser and just painting over it. Don’t know if an undercoat is needed or if there will be problems with the paint adhesion but it certainly seems cheap and easy to do if it is viable. Wouldn’t need to take all of my gear out and I really won’t mind the small dents in the floor here and there. Would really love to know what my best option is bang for buck and whether just painting over with decent paint and primer will give me good adhesion or if not, what can be done.
Number 2 is your only real option, you’ll need to remove the old paint regardless of what you want to do, you would probably need a surface dpm and definitely screed for any flooring including tile. Grind off the paint, degrease and paint it if you want to keep costs down. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Cheers for this. Silly question but does the DPM go on before priming and painting? And would the floor grinder not smooth the floor enough to not require screeding or are you saying screed to level up any any cracks and holes?
Company called Watco specialise in those type of floor preperation. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It would probably be cheaper to build a raised floor with dpm sheet under it and then install vinyl Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Dpm for vinyl etc, if painting you just need to grind and degrease. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If you may only be there for 3 months, I would do the bare minimum. I would de-grease (easy), rinse, grind down the rebar and paint over the top. It will be likely to last 6 months to a year, so will probably be ok. I would check before doing that, it will defiantly comply with regs. If your staying permanently it would be worth doing the job once, and properly.
Thanks for this. Definitely starting to sound like grinding down and painting will be the most straight forward thing to do. Hiring a grinder with blade and vacuum was offered for around £120 for a weekend but the 2 part epoxy paint and primer seems really expensive at around £850 to cover 50 square meters?
I hope to be there for 3-4 years but they could issue me with 3 months notice to leave anytime. 6 months to a year seems like an awfully short amount of time. I thought the epoxy 2 part stuff was supposed to be quite robust...especially with good adhesion (abraded floor and primed)
Yes, its good, but it can only be as good as whats underneath it. Thats why others have said grind it all back. Thats the way to go if you are going to be staying for any length of time.
