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Sealing over mastic on basement floor.

14K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  EddieD 
#1 ·
I just had my basement waterproofed from the interior and need to seal the new concrete. I figured I would just do the whole floor, so I bought some behr floor stripper to remove what I assumed was regular adhesive. After two applications, the majority of the adhesive still remains. After some research I learned that the black adhesive is mastic. I want to seal the floor and paint it, but I don't want to go the full mile and remove the mastic beforehand. Here are my thoughts:
1) Can I even seal over mastic?
2) Should I just paint it if a sealant won't work?
3) Should I apply a self leveler beforehand?

Thanks!
 
#2 ·
Your wasiting your time and money.
Even if you got the mastic off paint would never work.
Even if you had a bare floor, paint would have a hard time staying stuck.
Your going to have to go with tile.
 
#3 ·
Hi guys,

Yes Eddie, you're wasting your time. Should never use strippers, even if in the end they actually remove the mastic. Strippers desolve and drive the material deeper into the substrate along with the stripper which of course creates a bond-breaker.

You may now have to grind and/or somehow neutralize the floor in order to bond anything to it.

Jaz
 
#6 ·
Hey Jaz, thanks for the input..I'd like to seal it against moisture. I'm also concerned about asbestos in the mastic. I've read that it can be a problem so I'd like to seal over it. I'm eventually going to paint the floor, although Joecaption here says it wouldn't work now that I've stripped it. I'm going for the cheapest solution here. I could put tile down, but I'm concerned about moisture coming through the floor.
 
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