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Applying Epoxy. First step acid etching the concrete. Part 1.

7:42
205.9K views

Video by The Idaho Painter

The Idaho Painter

What happens here

This project details the process of preparing a concrete garage floor for the application of epoxy coating. It involves acid etching the concrete to create a textured surface for optimal adhesion, followed by thorough rinsing and high-pressure power washing to remove all acid residue and fine concrete dust, which are critical steps for a durable epoxy finish.

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In this video, we're going to be prepping an epoxy floor to get it ready to put tile clad high solids epoxy on it. And we've been spraying the moratic acid on the floor to acid etch the floor. You want the floor to be acid etched well so it has a good profile and be rough enough for the epoxy to bond to the concrete. If the floor is too smooth, then the epoxy won't get a good bite to the concrete and there's a good chance that a car pulling into the garage could actually lift up and peel up the epoxy if the tires are too hot. And in order to spray this floor with Moratic acid, we use just a regular plastic weed household weed sprayer with just plastic nozzles. And I just use a RL Flowmaster weed sprayer, just lawn insect weed sprayer. And we'll be using, we have been using just moratic acid. And on this floor, and it typically takes me about a gallon of moratic acid to do a twocar garage. And I mix the moratic acid. If the floor is really, really smooth, I'll use it 100%. If the floor is fairly rough, a little bit rough, I'll mix about 70% moratic acid, 30% water. If it's, you know, this floor is really, really smooth and it's going to take a lot of etching to get it rough, I'll just use 100% moratic acid. And you can see we've sprayed this floor with Moratic acid. And it's still yellow where it's actually etching the floor. Once the floor is etched, we'll actually start washing all the moratic acid up towards the front of the garage. We don't want to wash it down the driveway. If you wash it down the driveway before it's diluted, you could actually etch and discolor the driveway. This is a brick paver driveway. So, we want to take and wash all the wall all the moratic acid up towards the front. And then we'll begin rinsing it down the driveway. And we got a water hose all set up and ready to go to do the rinsing. And then once it's rinsed, then we'll start power washing it with our power washer. items to have that are pretty important is while you're acid etching in an enclosed space with moratic acid, it's pretty hard to breathe and it's good to have a 3M charcoal filter mask and a set of rubber boots. Otherwise, if you get moratic acid on your shoes or clothing, it could actually eat holes in the shoes and clothing. So, good set of rubber boots that go up pretty high are pretty important. Heat. Heat. The floor has been now power washed really good with a rotating nozzle. You want to make sure you power wash it extremely well with a rotating nozzle. As when you're acid etching it, it creates a lot of fine, silty concrete dust. And that concrete dust, if it's not power washed out of the pores of the concrete, will cause an adhesion problem with the epoxy adhering to the concrete. So you got to make sure you take your time and power wash it extreme.

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