Basement water proofing
Our Cape Cod has a basement rec room. It's a nice room, with a fireplace, deep window wells and a stucco like ceiling. As I've seen in all previous houses that I've owned, the former owners didn't properly prepare the walls and have used a hodgepodge of paint and mortar the waterproof the walls.
My previous house had green latex over Thoroseal seal, over more green paint. It was awful. To waterproof that basement I used a grinder ( two actually ) and a wire cup ( 4 total ) to remove all of the layers. It took me a week of 8 hours a day to remove it all, and Ohhhhh the dust. We coated it with UGL and that seemed to work pretty well.
This house is no different, 3 or 4 layers of paint, 2 white, one green, and the bottom layer is a mysterious brown coating. It's the same old story of mildew in the corners, efflorescence on the lower bricks, peeling paint all over.
In my new house, and with the arrival of our first child, I did not want to grind off the paint. I looked at a lot of paint strippers. I wanted something that would work (duh), not be caustic, and not smell to bad, as I'm doing this in winter and I'm not opening any windows. I decided on the Peel Away line of products. The website for PeelAway isn't the best, but I'm a sucker for things I see on This Old House. I emailed the company about my situation and what I was looking for and they offered to send me 2 samples, Peel Away 8 and Peel Away 21. I did a couple of test areas with both 8 and 21. 8 uses the Peel Away paper but 21 does not. My results were that 8 worked really well, but 21 kind of dried out in a 24 hour span. I assume that the paper is what did the trick. 8 does not have much odor at all, no need to wear masks or gloves and it sure did munch through the paint after letting it soak, under paper, for 48 hours.
After discussing, with Barry (NY), that in Ohio we pronounce it SOUTH-ING-TON and not SUTH-IN-TON. I purchased 10 gallons of Peel Away 8. It's a bit pricey at about 30 bucks a gallon.
The Peel Away ( goop ) is nice to work with. The goop is a little thick to use a roller on but using a large paint brush ( 6 inches ) worked great. We put it on thick and then covered it with the supplied paper and waited 48 hours. It works pretty good. After removing the paper (48 hours later) the paste was still wet (in most places) and the paint was bubbly. Pulling off the paper actually did "peel away" some of the paint down to the concrete block. Scraping and using a wire brush (for the cracks and crevices) took care of the rest of the white and green paint. It looked good, EXCEPT for this mysterious brown "paint".
Thinking that the brown stuff was just more stubborn paint we re-applied more Peel Away and reused the same paper. 24 Hours later we removed the paper and wire brushed the wall down to the masonry and washed off the wall. Looks Great.
I kept wondering about what that brown stuff actually was. It sure didn't act like paint. More Peel Away would soften it so we could remove it more easily but it didn't act like the other layers of paint. Even when using a wire brush it would come off the wall with lots of water and in little teeny tiny chunks. So, it's not paint, and I don't want to be wasting my premium paint stripper on..... on What?
I've come to the conclusion that my mysterious brown coating is actually CLAY! I've heard of Bentonite Clay used for waterproofing on the outside... but the inside??? So, instead of more Peel Away it's just more water and wire brushing. I might even breakout the grinder again to help remove it ( gently of course ). Walls to look great though. I have a hard time with focusing on brushing the efflorescence away too. I might use the grinder for that as well.
Questions:
My previous house had green latex over Thoroseal seal, over more green paint. It was awful. To waterproof that basement I used a grinder ( two actually ) and a wire cup ( 4 total ) to remove all of the layers. It took me a week of 8 hours a day to remove it all, and Ohhhhh the dust. We coated it with UGL and that seemed to work pretty well.
This house is no different, 3 or 4 layers of paint, 2 white, one green, and the bottom layer is a mysterious brown coating. It's the same old story of mildew in the corners, efflorescence on the lower bricks, peeling paint all over.
In my new house, and with the arrival of our first child, I did not want to grind off the paint. I looked at a lot of paint strippers. I wanted something that would work (duh), not be caustic, and not smell to bad, as I'm doing this in winter and I'm not opening any windows. I decided on the Peel Away line of products. The website for PeelAway isn't the best, but I'm a sucker for things I see on This Old House. I emailed the company about my situation and what I was looking for and they offered to send me 2 samples, Peel Away 8 and Peel Away 21. I did a couple of test areas with both 8 and 21. 8 uses the Peel Away paper but 21 does not. My results were that 8 worked really well, but 21 kind of dried out in a 24 hour span. I assume that the paper is what did the trick. 8 does not have much odor at all, no need to wear masks or gloves and it sure did munch through the paint after letting it soak, under paper, for 48 hours.
After discussing, with Barry (NY), that in Ohio we pronounce it SOUTH-ING-TON and not SUTH-IN-TON. I purchased 10 gallons of Peel Away 8. It's a bit pricey at about 30 bucks a gallon.
The Peel Away ( goop ) is nice to work with. The goop is a little thick to use a roller on but using a large paint brush ( 6 inches ) worked great. We put it on thick and then covered it with the supplied paper and waited 48 hours. It works pretty good. After removing the paper (48 hours later) the paste was still wet (in most places) and the paint was bubbly. Pulling off the paper actually did "peel away" some of the paint down to the concrete block. Scraping and using a wire brush (for the cracks and crevices) took care of the rest of the white and green paint. It looked good, EXCEPT for this mysterious brown "paint".
Thinking that the brown stuff was just more stubborn paint we re-applied more Peel Away and reused the same paper. 24 Hours later we removed the paper and wire brushed the wall down to the masonry and washed off the wall. Looks Great.
I kept wondering about what that brown stuff actually was. It sure didn't act like paint. More Peel Away would soften it so we could remove it more easily but it didn't act like the other layers of paint. Even when using a wire brush it would come off the wall with lots of water and in little teeny tiny chunks. So, it's not paint, and I don't want to be wasting my premium paint stripper on..... on What?
I've come to the conclusion that my mysterious brown coating is actually CLAY! I've heard of Bentonite Clay used for waterproofing on the outside... but the inside??? So, instead of more Peel Away it's just more water and wire brushing. I might even breakout the grinder again to help remove it ( gently of course ). Walls to look great though. I have a hard time with focusing on brushing the efflorescence away too. I might use the grinder for that as well.
Questions:
- Can anyone tell me about Bentonite ( or any other ) Clay used on the inside for waterproofing masonry?
- Any suggestions for removing efflorescence other than muratic acid, TSP and elbow grease. I would prefer not to use the grinder, and get more into the pores of the block.
posted by Bonk at Home at 9:00 AM
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