​Can Epoxy Floor Coatings Be Removed?

While we sell the epoxy floor coatings that are meant to last, that doesn’t mean that all concrete floor sealants are going to hold up. Some simply wasn’t applied properly, while some of them have been damaged beyond repair by dropped car engines, and others were barely there in the first place (we’re talking about hardware store garage floor paint, which doesn’t have enough resin solids to hold up at all).

So what do you do? Can epoxy floor coatings be removed, or is the garage floor destined to be ugly forever? No worries, because there are solutions. Let’s take a look at typical ways in which garage floor sealants are removed.

Chemical Strippers

The most common method for amateurs to use is the chemical stripper method, the reason being that they are the easiest to get and use. Options include MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone), but use of it has dropped because of its extreme toxicity and flammability. There are other types of strippers that work but might need multiple applications, such as Soy-Gel Paint and Urethane Remover, Gp 2000 Coatings Remover, and DoradoStrip.

You won’t be surprised to hear us saying that you should carefully follow all instructions on the bottles and use them with proper safety equipment such as rubber gloves, masks, and goggles. While they’re quite as dangerous as MEK, they’re still flammable and dangerous to the eyes and lungs. Consider the ventilation. Chemical strippers are often left overnight and then removed the next day.

Floor Disk Grinding

This is a mechanical process that uses a machine that is specifically made for the task of removing epoxy. In many ways it looks like a floor buffer, but instead of a soft disk there’s one made out of metal and coated with diamonds that’s rotating at a great rate of speed, usually around 2000 rpm. This simply scrapes the epoxy off, and the dust it creates is either collected by the machine or an attached vacuum.

Shot Blasting

Shot blasting is another way of removing epoxy floor coatings. The abrasive itself is often tiny bits of metal that are forcefully and repeatedly shot at the floor in order to remove the epoxy.

If you’ve ever seen a building being sandblasted...that’s not it. With vertical sandblasting on a building’s brick, the sand hits the building and is lost. Shot blasting uses a special machine that keeps the metal contained within the unit with only the epoxy in question being subjected to the force from the metal. A shot hopper feeds a high-velocity blast wheel with steel shot, and then the shot and the removed epoxy are vacuumed up. Because it’s so contained, there’s very little dust involved.

In the end, we tend to think that a professional is the way to go when it comes to removing epoxy floor coatings. They have the equipment, they have the knowledge, and there are no chemical to deal with (or risk catching fire). When it’s all taken care of, the floor will be smooth once more and ready to have a new garage floor coating applied...and with Floorguard Products, you’ll be sure to get it right this time.