Cleaning A Concrete Floor With Muriatic Acid

Muriatic acid should never be used indoors and has to be thoroughly neutralized before disposal.

Cleaning a concrete floor with muriatic acid.

It is excellent for cleaning away rust stains and efflorescence but must be used with extreme caution. If you re just removing mineral deposits efflorescence use a much weaker mix 10 1 or 16 1 for muriatic acid. It also reduces the surface alkalinity of the concrete that can cause some paints to adhere poorly. The paint will not stick efficiently to the concrete unless you roughen it up a bit first with the acid.

Muriatic acid is the strongest acid available to the public. Muriatic acid is a strong acid cleaner used on masonry surfaces to clean stains. A smooth concrete floor must be roughened before paint will stick to it. These solutions are for etching the concrete.

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. Hydrochloric acid also known as strong water or muriatic acid is a chemical normally used for cleaning hard surfaces and surfaces which are hard to clean such as brick concrete and others this is a highly corrosive product should be used with extreme caution otherwise it may damage your skin or the objects of your home. If you plan on painting your basement s concrete floor you need to prep it first with muriatic acid. Muriatic acid can work wonders on filthy concrete and it can also be very useful in cleaning excess smears of dried mortar and grout or when attempting to alleviate tough rust stains.

It is however one of the oldest and most pervasive methods of cleaning concrete used by coatings installers and powerwashers. Cleaning concrete bricks and pavers with an acid most often referred to as acid etching or acid washing is a very bad idea and no longer recommended by many coatings manufacturers. Muriatic acid acts like liquid sandpaper by roughening the surface of the concrete. With proper use it removes stains when other cleaners fail.

Always wear a carbon activated mask. Prepping a concrete floor with muriatic acid. You roughen such a floor by etching it with muriatic acid. If the acid comes in contact with skin wash it away with large amounts of water.

Mix 3 to 4 parts water with 1 part acid or follow label instructions for a 10 concentration 15 for hard smooth concrete.