Etching Concrete Floor With Muriatic Acid

Muriatic hydrochloric acid is typically used for concrete etching.

Etching concrete floor with muriatic acid.

You roughen such a floor by etching it with muriatic acid. These sorts of products give the concrete a professional looking sheen and also resist water grease oil and other common spills making the floor easy to maintain. If you don t like the idea of working with acid you can read about some safer alternatives to acid etching here. If you re just removing mineral deposits efflorescence use a much weaker mix 10 1 or 16 1 for muriatic acid.

A smooth concrete floor must be roughened before paint will stick to it. The good thing is that there are safer alternatives that are just as effective available in the market today. 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. Phosphoric acid which is a mineral acid works almost as well and isn t as dangerous to work with but it is harder to find and more expensive.

Both will remove rust from your concrete. It also reduces the surface alkalinity of the concrete that can cause some paints to adhere poorly. Muriactic acid is one of the most dangerous chemicals you can buy for home use and it can damage nearly everything it touches. Acid etching is the process of applying hydrochloric muriatic or buffered phosphoric acid to a slab then rinsing it off with water.

Eco friendly products are available as well which are biodegradable and easier to dispose of in most communities. Some homeowners shy away from acid etching of their concrete floors for fear of the harmful effects of using and handling muriatic acid the main component of acid etch flooring. Muriatic acid acts like liquid sandpaper by roughening the surface of the concrete. Many acid etching projects are carried out to prepare a concrete floor for the application of a synthetic epoxy or sealant.

These solutions are for etching the concrete.