Painting can be an economical way to protect, brighten and facilitate easy cleaning for your basement or storage room floor. You will find that applying paint to your floor will seal the concrete so it will no longer create dust, and allow you to personalize and enliven-up an otherwise boring space. Our floor coatings can be tinted to any colour, so let your imagination run wild.
1) Whether bare or previously painted, your floor must be cleaned using a strong detergent like Dap’s Tsp or an eco-friendly cleaner like TSPeco. Always be sure to rinse well with clean water to remove any residue. Quite often your basement floor is equipped with a drain that will make the rinsing process much easier.
2) New or previously unpainted concrete should be etched with an acid solution to remove the impurities that work their way up to the surface of the floor. These impurities will impede the adhesion of the coating and lead to paint failure. We recommend using Dynamic Concrete Etch or, for a product that cleans and etches in one application, use Value Chem’s Crete-Clean.
3 a) If your floor has been painted before, do a test to determine if the coating is water-based or oil-based (see Q&A for test). If the paint is oil-based (alkyd). we recommend that you recoat with the same type of product. Ventilation is required when using this kind of coating and it’s recommended that if you’re painting in your furnace room that you turn off the pilot light on your furnace.
3 b) For first-time applications, we have many different types of coatings that are suitable for floors. These include water-based, epoxy reinforced, oil-based polyurethane and user-friendly waterborne epoxy coatings for heavy traffic floors. Talk to a Steeles Paint Expert to determine the best product for your home.
4) The paint is applied with brushes for edging while the bulk of the product is applied using a paint roller and extension pole. Be sure to work toward your exit doorway to prevent painting yourself into a corner! Two coats are recommended for durability and re-coat times vary depending on the product.
