How To Remove Concrete Sealer (Strip And Re-Seal Old White Acrylic Sealer)

hey everybody mike day here with everything about concrete.com so in this video we're going to show you how to remove concrete sealer from concrete in specific old white acrylic concrete sealer whether it's a water based or a solvent based sealer so if you're watching this video you probably got some concrete that looks kind of like this it's got some old sealer on it it's flaking off it's peeling off it's turning kind of white and you want to know how to remove it what's the best way to remove it well in this video i'm going to show you a couple different ways to remove that actually three ways um there's and there's some other ways to do it but these are the three ways i've found is the best ways to do it so concrete acrylic concrete sealer turns white like this if it's been on the concrete too long uh it degrades in the sun if it gets moisture underneath it it starts turning white it starts peeling off from the concrete so that's why it looks like that so the first thing we're going to want to do is we're just going to want to clean off the concrete get any loose dirt and debris off it just get it cleaned off best you can you can use a leaf blower like i'm using here you could use a push broom but just get all the all the dirt off it and stuff like that and then we can get started the next thing we're going to do is we're going to figure out how if it's a water-based sealer or if it's a solvent-based sealer and the way we do that is with some xylene like i got right here so we're going to take a little bit of xylene and we're gonna dump it on the concrete let it sit for 20 or 30 seconds and then we're gonna wipe it off and if it's tacky under the concrete if it's sticky tacky or gooey then you've got a solvent based sealer if it's not then you got a water-based sealer so that's how you figure out if you've gotten a water-based sealer or a solvent based sealer so if you've got a water-based sealer on there probably the easiest way to remove most of that is with one of these little units here that you just hook to the end of a a pressure washer and you know you're going to want to have a pretty good size pressure washer probably a 3 500 3000 or 3 500 and that goes right on the end of the wand like that and you're going to see here in a second just how much that that white sealer will come off just by using this unit right here and whether you've got a water based or a solvent based sealer this is what i would do first is i'd try to remove as much as i possibly can with this method right here and you can see you can see just how much of that white is coming off that white sealer this is going to remove a lot of it and in the case of water-based sealers once you do this right here let it dry out you might be able to just reseal right over this this is what i did on this job so i got 90 some odd percent of the sealer off just by going over it twice with this thing let it dry out for a couple days and then i resealed right over and it looked like brand new now if solvent based sealers you might not be able to get it all off that way those tend to bond a little bit better but you might remove some of it so i would get as much off as you can just with this method and then we'll move on to uh how i'm gonna show you how to get solvent base sealers off now if you don't have one of those units you can just try pressure washing it like this this doesn't work quite as good but it will help remove some of it and then we can move on to trying to get that solvent based sealer off so if you've got a solvent based sealer again we're gonna use xylene like this right here xylene's going to thin that sealer it's going to turn it back into a gooey kind of a kind of gooey sticky loosen loosened up kind of mess almost but this is one of the best methods for getting solvent based sealer that is that white sealer right there off from your concrete so you can get it cleaned off let it dry out and then reseal it again to make it look like new so you take some of this xylene right here and there's a couple ways you can apply it to your concrete you can you can put it in a pump up sprayer like this that's built for solvent based uh type fluids this is uh this is an extreme pump up sprayer it's stainless steel and then you can just spray it on like this apply it you know quite liberally to your to your white sealer let it soak in for a little bit and then you're gonna brush it around so this is one way you can apply it and again you're going to want to have you know rubber boots on you may even want to have a mask on just so you don't want to breathe the fumes but put that stuff on really really good or you can just dump it right out of the can like this dump it right on we're going to want to you don't want to let it dry up so you're going to want to do sections at a time you know you don't want to do a very big section and then just brush it around scrub it in work up that sealer is what you want to do get that sealer nice and loose you'll feel it it'll start loosening up pretty quick um that xylene is pretty pretty pretty strong so you don't want to you know you don't want to get any on you you don't really want to breathe the fumes but it'll it'll definitely loosen up that sealer and then once you give it you know scrub it around for a little bit like this then you go back to pressure washing it and you're gonna just go over and over at each section do a section at a time and that's going to stop loosening up and removing that sealer and then the sealer the sealer is just going to kind of work its way off the deck if it doesn't then you can just kind of rinse it off you'll see it coming up you'll be able to tell see that white kind of foam that most of that is sealer right there that's coming off if it doesn't run off you know if the water doesn't take it right off the deck so you can see some of it's running off right there on its own then just do your section like this and then just get your hose out and spray that section down just to get it cleaned off so it doesn't dry back on and then we'll you'll see right here in a minute what it's going to look like after you're done now look at the edges see the edges that's all that acrylic white concrete sealer that's come off and now the concrete is really nice and clean and after that dries out it's going to look really really dull but you can just seal back over it and it'll look brand new again so here's the next method is just using some type of sandblast or soda blast or a wet media blast there's three different types there and this is going to completely remove any type of sealer whether it's water-based or solvent-based acrylic sealer it's going to take it right off take take it right back down to bare concrete you can see that right there it's taking it right down now what this will also do is it'll remove any color imperfections too you can see it's taking whatever color is on the surface it's taking that off with the sealer so you may have to re-color it after but that's pretty easy nowadays with a there's all kinds of manufacturers out there that make products that'll recolor the surface before you seal it um t-quash is one that comes to mind permateac so you can just re-re i'm going to show you here in a minute just how to do that but this is the wet blasting method this is a little bit less dustier but it's still it's still somewhat messy you can see how he's removing all that sealer right off the surface it works really really good this is going to get probably you know 99 of the sealer so when you're done when you get all the sealer removed this is what it looks dry you can see it takes the sealer off and it takes some of the color off and then you can use these companies who have these sealers have this have these same type of re-uh t-quash methods to recolor it again you just brush that stuff on and it puts the color right back on the surface and then you can seal right over that once it dries so you give it a day or two to dry out and then you can roll your you roll your acrylic sealer right back on and it's going to make your concrete look like new again and you can spray it on too this is what i prefer is to spray it on with another one of these stainless steel sprayers and we like using d1 sealer from deco crete supply i'll have a link for them down in the description you can check that out that's a really really good sealer it lasts a really long time you can see here i am on that job again resealing this i'm using the same type of sprayer spraying it on and then we're back rolling it right after to make sure it goes on nice and even we'll typically put on two really light coats of this this stuff dries really fast but this is this is how you remove your sealer guys get that old white flaky sealer off uh clean it let it dry reseal it and your concrete is going to look like brand new again you can see the left part is sealed the right part isn't you can see what a difference it makes just to put the sealer back on and then you're back in business your concrete looks like brand new again i mean look at that you could never even tell that had white old sealer on it um just looks like brand new that's how to remove concrete sealer guys thanks for watching we'll see you on the next one

Channel: Mike Day Concrete

Views: 107,133

Keywords: concrete, how to concrete, diy concrete, how to pour concrete, how to form concrete, concrete finishing techniques, concrete skills, concrete floor, concrete slab, stamped concrete, how to, concrete tools, how to pour a concrete slab, how to pour a concrete floor, how to pour a concrete driveway, how to pour a concrete patio, how to build concrete steps, how to form concrete stairs, pouring concrete, finishing concrete

Id: XkK2Hu5z114

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022