Clean up concrete from old bin

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angus
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Post by angus » Mon. Sep. 03, 2018 3:25 pm

I bought a house that had an old coal stove in the basement, and a half-full coal bin in the garage. One side of the bin in the garage was the concrete foundation of the house, and it's now coated in coal residue. I'd like to clean up the concrete.

It looks like it was painted over after having coal up against the wall for a time. Attached picture shows the painted wall and a section that was behind a 2x4 support unpainted. Top of picture is above the fill line for comparison.

I've scraped at it a bit (the smoother, shiny parts in the picture), but nothing is really loose. I haven't used any liquid yet as I'm afraid of creating a nasty slurry. Any ideas for cleaning this up? Or is it possible to paint over it? Previous paint seems to have cracked but isn't flaking off, just black showing through cracks.

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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Mon. Sep. 03, 2018 5:05 pm

Use a shop vac to remove any loose dust if you haven't already. Scraping it with putty knife or some other flat edge should remove enough of it to paint. You can try scrubbing it with water, once it's wet anything that is going to come loose should come loose. Suck it up with shop vac if you have wet/dry one, don't dump it down the drain as it's like dumping fine sand down the drain, in fact that fine dust is used as replacement for sand in water filtration systems. <gasp>

Run some water through the shop vac to clean out the hose and the tub if you are concerned about it.

You are never going to remove it completely to the point it's bare concrete. That dust is so fine it can get into your fingerprints which can only be removed with good scrubbing. Once you have the loose stuff removed you can paint it.


 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 2:29 pm

I'd just use a power washer on it and then clean up the water with a shop vac like Richard suggested.

 
CapeCoaler
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Post by CapeCoaler » Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 8:33 pm

my guess is that the garage was added after the house was built...
Looks to be asphalt water proofing on the poured concrete foundation...
The line is too crisp to be from a coal pile...
and it was gooey...

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