theroaringeagle

Hi.

My garage was converted to a living space. The house is a typical San Francisco home, the garage makes up the whole ground floor. I took out the carpet, the plastic sheets underneath and I am left with a black coated cement floor. My neighbor believes this to be asphalt emulsion. I, for the life of me, cannot remove this stuff.

I prefer to have a nice clean cement floor. I've used all kinds of chemicals, scrapers, sanders but it just muddies up my tools without actually coming off. How can I resolve this??

I'm reluctant to use a sand blaster and a floor grinder, as they are both expensive to rent out here. If it's not feasible to remove this coating, can I just paint over this stuff with concrete paint?

handyguys

Yeah, if it wont come off with strippers or mechanical means then you are out of luck. Even if you did get it off it would never really look like fresh concrete to give you the look you are after. No, sorry to say, i don't think you will have much luck painting it either.

The easiest and cheapest thing to do is just go back to carpet.

To get those really cool looking concrete floors that are polished and have neat colors would be to bust out the floor and start again.

There is a concrete overlay process, i dont have any experience with it. This guy might, give him a call splash

good luck and let us know what you end up doing and post some pics.

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nealtw

New houses have poly under the concrete to protect it from water. No one puts it in the garage. The people that closed it in made an effort to solve this with an inside seal.
I think you need plan "B"