Floor is painted, not too bad

[Steve LaFara]

Nice job! I'm curious how many sq ft you had to do and how long did it take? I have about 500 sq ft to do and was considering renting a walk behind type floor grinder. And how was the dust collection on this? I assume that you were using a shop vac with concrete dust rated bags?

[Phil Thien]

Approx. 550 feet, and probably about 6 to 8 hours over about two weeks. Sorry for the wide range, I wasn't keeping accurate track. Probably towards the higher end if you figure the time it took to do the edges.

It seems like a lot of hours but the adhesive was tough. The grinder just skates around on it for a while before it is able to finally cut through it and to the concrete. As I said before, the grinder cuts the concrete faster than it removes the adhesive. Much faster.

I had thought about renting a machine, but from what I've read on garageforums, it would have taken forever and a day to get through the adhesive. I think the walk-behind machines you rent are designed to not remote stock too quickly, so the average homeowner doesn't completely screw up their floor. If you let the hand grinder I purchased rest in one spot of concrete for any period, you'll really gouge the floor very quickly.

In retrospect, I would have preferred a unit that I could control more and where it would be easier to get a perfectly flat floor, and something that would handle the edges better (the dust shroud on the Bosch prevents getting right up to the edge).

Although I know the swirls benefit me in an anti-slip manner, I guess I just don't like the look of them as I live with the floor. Maybe if they were more uniform.

But I think the units that will provide a glass-smooth substrate would have had great difficulty with the adhesive.

I'd be curious if a shot blaster would have done it. I've seen videos of shot blasters running on youtube. They seem ideal if your concrete floor just needs prep for epoxy or another finish. I have no idea if they will uniformly remove stuff like this adhesive.

The DC is great, BTW. Although concrete rated bags still allow concrete dust to permeate. I had to swap bags (although the first bag wasn't full) and clean the filter halfway through the project.

[Steve LaFara]

How old was the tile and adhesive you had to pull up? My understanding is that anything older than 1980 has a very good possibility of being asbestos based and requires special care during removal. Mine was probably put down in the late 60's to early 70's by the look of the tile pattern so I'm wondering if I need to hire someone to remove everything.

[Phil Thien]

I wasn't sure when my tiles were installed, the work was done by the previous HO. I was encouraged that they were 12x12 instead of 9x9, and I removed one and found it was still pretty pliable (also encouraging according to a friend that is familiar with this stuff).

So I gave him a corner of the tile (with glue) and he sent it into a lab they use at work. It came back negative for asbestos, but positive for "your worst adhesive removal nightmare."