Basement Progress: The Product That Saved My Sanity...

When it comes to removing linoleum glue let me first say... IT. IS. A. NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, that stuff is the thickest, grossest, most awfulest stuff EVER!!

I had at one point decided to just paint over it. Afterall, I could not find anything online that said that was a bad idea. But then I found some message boards that talked about removing it and how this product made it so manageable... WRONG... maybe I'll post pictures of that some other time. I spent like 5 hours scrubbing the floor with this stuff and made very little progress... Sorry Klean Strip.. not your best review.

Sure, it worked a little, but it was super stinky and gooey and just made the process really hard.

 So I decided to go ahead and paint over what was left. And then, the night before I was going to start painting, I decided to search YouTube and found a video for a product called Orange Sol.

It was AMAZING!!! I HAD to have it.

I scoured the Internet and ended up calling the company. Turns out it's now sold under the name De-Solv-It Contractor's Solvent. 

This was IT!! My sanity saver.

This picture is awful, but gives you an idea of what it did... in LESS THAN 5 MINUTES!!! (The floor isn't this yellow, it's just a basement and the lighting isn't great.)

The goo began to disappear!! I was so excited!
The problem... this product is almost non-existent in Oklahoma. ACE Hardware is supposed to carry it, but they only carry tiny bottles and they are super expensive. I ended up finding one large bottle at a tiny hardware store that is a Do It Best affiliate.
I suggest if anyone else is going to do this they order the gallon bottle straight from the company.

I was getting super excited -- I mean look at this. I wasn't even trying and it cleaned the old goo from the previous product off of my gloves. The bottom one is what the top one looked like when I started working with the De-Solv-It.

The product is not too stinky -- although I would recommend opening a door or windows while using it if possible.
Here's a progression... This is a before picture -- it has the product sprayed on it...

I figured out it works best if you spray it on, leave it for a minute or two, scrub it with some sort of a scrub brush, let it set another minute and then scrub again. If you don't see concrete with this scrub then spray a little more over the area and let set another minute or two. If you can see concrete go ahead and wipe it all off (this does take a little muscle but not too much).

This is after the first wipe off... 

 I wasn't fully satisfied yet .. so I sprayed a little more on all the black spots and scrubbed some more. You can see the edges look a lot better.  Some of the stuff just doesn't come off. But here's the last picture. Compared to the first picture I think this looks awesome!

 I have done the whole floor now. Below is a before picture (with the ladder in the pic) and then under that is the after -- it's a different angle but hopefully you get the idea. To me this looks 100 times better... (update: yes, the top picture is before. To you it may not look bad, but it actually shows just how solid the glue was on the floor. It's also a little dusty.)

It did take several hours over a couple of days. The room is about 350 square feet, so it's not a small project. I would suggest knee pads if you are going to tackle something like this -- also make sure you have a LOT of rags to wipe the product off with. I went through every old t-shirt we had in our rag pile and ended up pulling a couple ratty ones out of Nate's undershirt drawer before it was all said and done.

I have now etched the floor -- basically a deep scrub down that prepares it for priming-- so it's not so brown. Now it's all drying. Next I have to test it to figure out if I need to seal it and then paint it or if I can paint it first and then seal it. I had hoped to have the whole thing done by the end of March, but the change in products definitely caused a major delay. I'm hoping it will be paint ready by this weekend or next. That all depends on how long it takes to dry. Maybe the 80 degree weather we are having will help it dry a little faster.