[Long] Arsecarrots! Or, Asphaltic crap, floor planers and general brutality - and builder related death

[Tim S]

Question:

What (bloody big) machine do I look for in the hire shop that will scrape, in a violent and deadly fashion, the top couple of mm off a strong sand/cement screed? Thinking something with carbide teeth that move about, and a f*ck off big motor or petrol engine.

Got quite a large area to do. If the machine can hack its way through not well attached cement levelling compound, all the better.

Ta

Tim

[The scenario...]

Not a happy bunny today...

The long saga of dealing with the crap that is my new kitchen floor:

Previously, on Planet Squidward:

1) I asked builders to flatten a lumpy floor. I took a load of old wooden tiles up for them.

2) I asked if they would deal with the residual gunk under the tiles. "No - it's not a problem - Latex gunk sticks to anything..."

3) 3 months ago, I noticed a couple of hollow sounding bits.

4) I noticed they been fobbed off with Cement/silica (Cempolay) rather than latex (Cempolatex) by the tit in Travis Perkins.

[Steve Walker]

[Phil L]

I hate to say I told you so, but I did, on several occasions that this floor was nothing but a bodge waiting to go wrong and it has, and it will again and it has already cost more than a new floor, with insulation, and now you are going to throw even more money at it for a floor scrabbler (which don't work BTW) and yet another lot of screed that will also crack up.

Ever heard the phrase 'bite the bullet'?

Scrabblers work (slightly) on clean, soft sand/cement screed, but even then they take days to get anything close to a few mm off, with this bituminous layer, you are wasting your time and money as the grinding stones will clog up within seconds.

Hire shop owners will tell you anything you want to hear, but you don't get your money back an hour later when you drag the piece of crap back through his door.

[george (dicegeorge)]

xxxxxxx

Dynamite?

[g]

[Bolted]

Why not just give F Ball/Ardex/Mapei etc a call and ask their tech advice people which product they recommend and stand behind for this application*. They will all have one. This is not an unusual issue - you just need the right product which will adhere to the bitumen adhesive. . If the SLC is coming up OK, remove that and go over the adhesive again with the right product which will bond to it.

[*Do not go into B&Q or Wickes and try and find advice in a leaflet or walk into any old tile shop and ask a shop assistant].

[NT]

More or less nothing adheres to bitumen. If you want to go this approach you'd need to blind the bitumen. Heat it till it melts and sprinkle sand on it. Then adhesives can stick to the sand. But whether this is a good route to take is another question.

NT

[Bolted]

That isn't true - maybe it was, but it isn't. For instance:

other contexts, there are parquet adhesives which are compatible with bitumen, for reno/reclaimed work.

[Bolted]

ardex.co.uk/arditex.asp

And add (epoxy) resin bound gravel to the list of apps - cycle lanes, etc.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, dont.

Rip it all up somehow.

Id suggest a kanga type thing to chisel great gouges in the floor. As long as the new cement can get past the bitumen in enough spots - and gouges are very good for adhesion - then a little bit here and there wont screw things up.

[Jules]

Roto-tiller? :-)

[Tim S]

Bolted wibbled:

That's a very good suggestion - I'll give them (F Ball) a call. After using Stopgap 300, I'm sold on their stuff.

No indeed...

Cheers

Tim

[Tim S]

Very interesting day...

Here's the floor:

you zoom in, you may just be able to make out chalk contour lines in red (low) and blue (high). Each line is +/- 2mm by laser.

Well, me and my labourer got 1/3 of it up in a couple of hours. The bond failures are a clear case of delamination due to:

a) Odd bits - the asphaltic gunk

b) Front of fire and long bit down the middle of the room: In both cases these are due to there being brickwork under the floor, one I guess from an old fire hearth and the other was the old garage wall foundation and first course of brick.

Those are rock hard and solid but the numpty back in the 70's leveled them off with what looks like a 1:10 mix (really - it crumbles to sand between fingers).

The rest of the floor screed in both the garage area and the old original room seems rock hard and stable enough. Going to core drill a sample to see what the DPM looks like (probably a bit of bitumen under the screed judging by the other floors).

The other interesting fact is that with the crap knocked off, the floor isn't much out of level *over all*. The bay which seem high is actually at the same height as the hall the other end of the room.

The core problem is that the covered over centre wall is high and there are two dips in each half of the room.

I do believe that I can make this level, completely, afterall.

So all I need is a suitable compound and preparation method.

I spoke to F Ball, RWI, BAL and a distributor in Maidstone called SIG.

We are all agreed that I should scarify the asphaltic crap to expose >75% of screed (and obviously take out the sandy bits over the old wall).

After lots of interesting discussions, the first suggestion was to use RIW Toughseal followed by one of BALs levellers.

Unfortunately, Toughseal, which is a 2 part epoxy, costs £586 for 20 litres(!).

So, moving on... SIG suggested that some customers had reported success on difficult floors with either Everbuild 710 or 708 levellers. Reading teh data sheets, both can be used in cases of rising damp if the area is treated with "Everprufe liquid DPM" first. Ironically, this *may* be "Blackjack 908 DPM" but I need to call them to confirm it, in which case I expect sand blinding to be involved.

So the upshot is, I reckon I can get a flat level floor with a lot less compound and may have found a system that is stated to work with my problems. We'll see what their technical bloke says tomorrow.

[Bolted]

Interesting - I'm surprised they weren't more bold, given you describe it as a brittle layer rather than sticky.

I don't know how the price compares, but Ardex have a primer called P-82 which seems to be recommended for bitumen, as do Weber with PR-301. But with sandy areas...

What's going over the top of this lot?

[Tim S]

Bolted wibbled:

Definately looks like 1-2mm thick asphalt rather than liquid bitumen. Funny stuff - sometimes breaks off clean, sometimes slices off leaving a shiny grey-black layer that seems hard but feels slightly greasy to the finger nail.

P-82: "Use ARDEX P82 on power floated concrete, pre-cast concrete, terrazzo, glazed ceramic and quarry tiles. ARDEX P82 can also be used to prime hard flooring grade asphalt, rigid metal, hard and sound paint thickness coatings, ARDEX DPM, as well as traces of sound adhesive residues on dense impervious surfaces."

That sounds quite interesting... Ardex were one of the few manufacturers I didn't speak to today... 67 quid for 10-20 m2 it seems - that's better than

586 quid!

PR301 looks good too - can't see a web price though...

They're not a problem - that sand is coming off cleanly and easily to expose solid concrete or brick depending on which of the 2 areas. Clearly a quick level[1] off over an old wall base by someone short of cement(!). By default I'd chuck some SBR over those bits unless the primer is rated to cope directly. Now I've dug the 1/2" of crap off the substrate is very solid and unfriable. [1] "Level" in the non Euclidian sense.

20mm Marmox bedded on Mapei Keraquick, then flexible tile adhesive and ceramic (or similar) tiles.

You clearly are very knowledgable (your Stopgap 300 recommendation was just the ticket on th other floors) - wish I'd had someone like you the first time... Thanks again!

The car's being fixed so I have some time to phone these folk tomorrow and sound out these options as well as the Everbuild system.

I feel confident a solution that won;t cost a bomb is at hand :)

Cheers

Tim

[Tim S]

Bolted coughed up some electrons that declared:

Also interesting...

Ball have an epoxy DPM called F76 - have you come across this? Claims to deal with rising damp (if any) and it's not *that* expensive. There's also Stopgap 900 which is used under F76 should the substrate be too bumpy to coat well (that'll be the old wall base and the bit in front of the fire).

Then P131 and Stopgap 300 to top off.

Wonder why they didn't mention those yesterday - I'll ring them again and put it too them. Need scarifying but with the ease the old crap is coming off, taking much of the Blackjack with it, that shouldn't take long with a suitable machine.

Ideally, I'm keen to use a system that finishes with a product I know, for obvious reasons :)

Cheers

Tim

[Tim S]

Tim S coughed up some electrons that declared:

OK - good news...

After a chat with F Ball, the system that they said would work is as follows:

Scabble/scarify to take of all of the black junk;

Smooth off any very rough bits with Stopgap 900 direct to base.

2 coats of F75 (variation here on my initial theory)

P131 and Stopgap 300 as required to flatten.

They said that will cope with any damp that may be present, and stop it dead and will be happy under an impervious covering.

Now I need to go finish cleaning the floor, take a survey of heights and estimate materials, but initial measurements suggest 15kg F75, bag or two of 900 and perhaps 6-8 bags of 300 and 5l P131.

All in it's shouldn't work out too bad on cost...

Cheers

Tim

[Phil L]

HMMmmmm.....

8 stopgap 300 @ £20 = 160 sg 900 ? = about £15 f75 = £66 p131 = £25 Scarifier = £70

Total = £336

Don't forget to add on your other initial costs regarding this floor, and don't forget that the DPM may or may not work, for any length of time, and it's still uninsulated :-p

Skip = 80 concrete = 150 dpm = 15 insulation = 50

Less than £300, brand new floor, dry, warm, flat, solid and above all, cheaper.

[Dave]

What are arsecarrots?

Dave

[Jules]

possibly related to bumturnips?

[Tim S]

Phil L wibbled:

About 4 bags to get 3mm

About 10 bags, get level with this stage as far as possible.

Actually looks more like 10kg needed so at least 130

Yep - with vacuum - but I can de-adhesive several other floors while I have it.

Probably about right.

I don't know where you live Phil, but round here it's more like 200 for an 8 yard.

Need about 1 yard for the screed, 3-4 yards for the concrete and assuming

75mm insularion, another 3 yards for the earth - definately an 8 yarder.

50mm Screed?

I'm really not sure about that. I can at least follow my regime single handed if I have to, but digging out concrete + extra earth, concreting and screeding and a good coat of SG 300 because the last set of screed went down slightly bumpy sounds like a week's worth of hired labour plus me.

I agree it would be better in an ideal world, but I do not believe it can be done cheaper and it is a load more work. As I said, the existing concrete is solid and most of the existing screed is well attached.

All I care about now is getting the job done and I have faith that I can get a perfectly good result this way with fairly little physical effort.

Cheers

Tim