Meetings

Two juveniles charged after alleged robberies

I received a letter from readers about the failure of a paint they had used on the concrete floor of their basement.
Enclosed was a sample of what was peeling from the floor.
Rather than quote from the letter word for word, I&rsquo;ll give you the gist of what happened:
The couple had bought a washer and dryer that had to go into the basement. A year ago, they went to Lowe&rsquo;s looking for concrete floor paint to pretty up the place.
They told the salesperson what they were doing, and he &ldquo;highly recommended&rdquo; Valspar Porch and Floor Paint. They painted the floor and it &ldquo;looked nice.&rdquo;
The tub into which the washer drains became blocked, and it overflowed. They quickly mopped up the water, which was on the floor no more than a few hours.
&ldquo;The paint had bubbles all over the floor, which started peeling off&rdquo; everywhere, the couple wrote.
They said they followed the directions. It was not inexpensive paint, was called &ldquo;high performance&rdquo; on the label, and now these senior citizens have to clean up all the loose paint before they can paint again.
They won&rsquo;t, however, until I can reassure them that it won&rsquo;t happen again.
Let me talk about my experience. My first rule is no matter what product I use, I assume there&rsquo;s always a chance it will not fully live up to the promise on the container.
I live in southern New Jersey, land of the high water table. I use Behr&rsquo;s 1-Part Epoxy Concrete &amp; Garage Floor Paint on my basement floor, following all the directions on surface preparation and application.
I keep the can handy. Why? Because sometimes the floor underneath the paint is damp from the rising water table, or someone spills water on it, and the surface bubbles.
I scrape off the old paint, prepare the surface and repaint &mdash; sometimes every six months.
I use it even though it clearly says on the label it is not recommended for surfaces subject to hydrostatic pressure &mdash; in places that are, I know I&rsquo;ll have to provide more frequent maintenance.
It&rsquo;s part of the home-ownership routine, as far as I&rsquo;m concerned.
Deborah Zimmer at Dow&rsquo;s Paint Quality Institute in Spring House, Pa., said she and the institute staff agree &ldquo;that water is a big issue&rdquo; and recommend using an epoxy paint to reduce the chance of product failure.
The underground water table can especially be a big problem. Of course, before painting, surface prep must be complete, Zimmer said.
Some websites I checked out recommend sealing the floor with an acrylic sealer. The next step is top-coating with an acrylic paint.
After an Internet search for incidents similar to what the readers reported, I came to a site called www.epoxyandepoxyflooring.com:
&ldquo;Migrating moisture, as opposed to simple standing water, creates a more difficult problem. The common sign of this kind of failure is water-filled blisters.&rdquo;
The site went on to say that this typically occurred while the paint was curing, and my readers didn&rsquo;t say how long after they painted the accident occurred.
This excerpt from the website gives the rationale behind my regularly maintaining the basement floor:
&ldquo;Water in the concrete is a major cause for premature epoxy floor coating failures. Floors can have dry areas and damp areas, including some damp areas that never dry out.&rdquo;
What should the readers do? Well, if the paint had performed well until the accidental overflow, then I would scrape, carefully prep and repaint. If unaffected areas showed signs of similar stress, I&rsquo;d write to the manufacturer to see if compensation is in order.
There&rsquo;s no harm in trying, especially if the directions on the can were followed and the paint was recommended by the retailer.

It’s Bubble, Bubble, Toil – And Repaint – For Floor Your Place Alan J. Heavens