Hello,

I've been lurking around these forums for the last few days trying to get as many of my questions answered. I'm planning to have 430 sqft of 5" engineered wood flooring glued down over concrete. I don't plan to do the installation myself but would like to save some $ on getting the slab prepped as much as possible.

We've pulled the carpet and padding and removed all tack strips. The problem we have now is that there is a ton of paint and wall texture overspray on the floor! It can be scrapped off easily enouth...but it won't all come off. There's also the issue of removing the carpet pad adhesive.

I've seen the word SKIMCOAT be thrown around on several other threads. Seems like this would be my best solution. The only problem is that I don't know what this stuff (skimcoat) is or where I should go about getting some.

Will Home Depot or Lowes have it? Is it called "skimcoat" or does it go by another name? Brand examples? I'm really confused in this particular area. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thank you!

Josh

Scrape all the wall mud and especially the latex paint. Wet scraping does a better job, but then you add more time before installation happens to be sure all moisture is gone.

Once it is all scraped down, then I check to make sure the concrete is "flat" level doesn't matter, and is a different thing. Although I hope your slab is level.

Once all the high spots are ground down. I then map the floor for low spots that will need to be filled. I use Mapei: PlaniPatch(you can find it at Lowe's, now) Using a long ridged straight edge, I drag my mixed PlaniPatch with the straight edge, like a big trowel.

Once all the low spots are filled and smoothed, I then mix up some more PlaniPatch and using a flat 2' mason's trowel I skimcoat the entire installation area. This not only encapsulates all the left over paint and wall mud residue, but it fills in even the smaller low spots(If you use Boskik's BEST adhesive, you'll thank me, as it slimps and doesn't hold its trowel ridges)

Now you can undercut doorjambs and any other thing that won't get trim molding. Or you can let the installers do that, because they know what they like.