The floors in my basement furnace room and storage room are mostly bare, super smooth concrete. There is some black mastic left in spots, from tiling that was removed years ago and I'm looking to put a coat of paint down to make it look a little better before we sell the house.
Last summer there was a bit of a flood in the basement and a whole lot of silt covered the floor. It was shop vac'd and mopped until it looked clean enough to our eyes.
Now I'm trying to prep it for paint and am having issues with an endless amount of dirt I'm picking up. I've been using Krud Cutter (alkaline degreaser) diluted at about 2 cups/gal and mopping with a sponge mop. Mopping on, letting it sit, and mopping again before mopping with rinse water. I started in the furnace room which is maybe 6x10 and have gone through at least 5 buckets with KC in them and at least another 6 buckets of just hot water....I still end up with brownish mop water. It just....doesn't....stop.
Is there any hope of me getting it clean enough to paint and still keeping my sanity? The dirty water has been getting lighter, but oh so slowly, and it's getting to be a drag having to change the mop bucket every 5 minutes.
Is there a better product I should be using? Should I just jack up the KC:water ratio and let it sit longer? Or would my best bet to be doing small sections on my hands and knees making sure to scrub and deep clean each bit? At which point I might say 'screw it' and not paint at all
Last summer there was a bit of a flood in the basement and a whole lot of silt covered the floor. It was shop vac'd and mopped until it looked clean enough to our eyes.
Now I'm trying to prep it for paint and am having issues with an endless amount of dirt I'm picking up. I've been using Krud Cutter (alkaline degreaser) diluted at about 2 cups/gal and mopping with a sponge mop. Mopping on, letting it sit, and mopping again before mopping with rinse water. I started in the furnace room which is maybe 6x10 and have gone through at least 5 buckets with KC in them and at least another 6 buckets of just hot water....I still end up with brownish mop water. It just....doesn't....stop.
Is there any hope of me getting it clean enough to paint and still keeping my sanity? The dirty water has been getting lighter, but oh so slowly, and it's getting to be a drag having to change the mop bucket every 5 minutes.
Is there a better product I should be using? Should I just jack up the KC:water ratio and let it sit longer? Or would my best bet to be doing small sections on my hands and knees making sure to scrub and deep clean each bit? At which point I might say 'screw it' and not paint at all