Clean Concrete Floor With Muriatic Acid

Hose the surface in order to remove any tough particles.

Clean concrete floor with muriatic acid.

In order to achieve the perfect finished project you must first clean the floor which you plan to acid wash. If the acid comes in contact with skin wash it away with large amounts of water. Remove everything from the surface and sweep away the dirt. A smooth concrete floor must be roughened before paint will stick to it.

Oxalic citric and muriatic acid are commonly used to clean concrete and masonry. Step 1 clean the surface. Mix 3 to 4 parts water with 1 part acid or follow label instructions for a 10 concentration 15 for hard smooth concrete. Muriatic acid acts like liquid sandpaper by roughening the surface of the concrete.

If you re just removing mineral deposits efflorescence use a much weaker mix 10 1 or 16 1 for muriatic acid. You roughen such a floor by etching it with muriatic acid. Follow these easy steps to acid wash your concrete or garage floor. It also reduces the surface alkalinity of the concrete that can cause some paints to adhere poorly.

Muriatic acid is the strongest acid available to the public. It is excellent for cleaning away rust stains and efflorescence but must be used with extreme caution. These solutions are for etching the concrete. For many years it was a standard method of concrete preparation used by nearly all industrial commercial and institutional floor coating installers depending on the floor size and system to be installed.

Muriatic acid can work wonders on filthy concrete and it can also be very useful in cleaning excess smears of dried mortar and grout or when attempting to alleviate tough rust stains. With proper use it removes stains when other cleaners fail. Muriatic acid should never be used indoors and has to be thoroughly neutralized before disposal. Acid etching is the process of applying hydrochloric muriatic or buffered phosphoric acid to a slab then rinsing it off with water.