What is the easiest way to remove paint from concrete walls?

Question

the walls are the exterior walls of a walkout basement. It is painted white but i need to take it down to the bare concrete agian. It will look better with the brick home. Any ideas.

Answer 1

It's darn near impossible. Pressure washing won't do a thing, the concrete is way too porous. Sandblasting would work if it is a finished concrete surface or brick and morter but not on cinderblock (it'll really damage the surface of the cinderblock). There will be some damage to the finished concrete surface giving it a rough texture similar to a paved road. If the surface is brick and morter and not extremly old, sandblasting is definitely the way to go. Although if it is too old, it'll blast away the powdery morter.

It also depends on the type of paint. If the paint is acrylic, you might want to try scrubbing in some kind of solvent (Lowes and the like have plenty of them) and then pressure washing it. If the paint is oil based, scrubbing it with a solvent would just leave an oily mess and pressure washing wouldn't help. Then it would look worse than when you started.

If the walls are brick and morter like I imagine they are, they will be a different color than the rest of the brick on the house because of the newly exposed and un-weathered surface. Sandblasting a whole house isn't exactly practical for something like this.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Easiest way is to watch and wait.   The paint will flake off eventually.   Or you could paint it concrete grey(color that is)you decide on the shade of grey.

Answer 3

Wow!  Concrete is really porous.  This would be way too much work for me!  I'd just paint it the color of natural concrete with concrete paint.

Answer 4

The easiest method would be to rent a pressure washer.

Answer 5

I would sandblast it.

Answer 6

there are a few ways this can be acheived depending on what you want the end result to look like.

the best way to remove paint from a concrete surface and not cause serious damage to the substrate would be to chemicaly remove it.  do a search in your area for prosoco products.  

now you have to keep in mind that these paint strippers are very industrial and if mishandled can cuase damage to the suroundings well as yourself.

if you decide to go this route get a pressure washer, wet suit, heavy duty chemical resistant gloves, a face sheild and rubber boots, hide the wife, kids and pets.

these strippers can litterly burn/melt your skin off, so be carefull.  apply as per manafactures specs, rinse off with low pressure. when you are satisfied with the rinse down, powerwash off and repeat these steps.  finanly since most of these stripper are a very high akline product (i think 12-13 on the scale) you will need to neutralize the surface.  prosoco sells a concrete cleaner that is acidic base and shoud work.

chemical stripping of paint is or has got to be the most sloppiest jobs i have ever done, the paint litterly melts and gets on everything.

other ways are to sandblast, but this will make the concrete more porous and prone to future water damage.

soda blasting is another option and will not harm your surface as much as sandblasting will.  the city of chicago uses this technique to remove graffiti.

you can sandblast or grind off the paint and hire companys that will refinish the concrete.  they can make it look it brick or a stone.

you can alwasy morter and tile the walls.

last option would be to again remove the paint via sandblasting or a grinder and add  a layer of culture stone or brick over it to make it more appealing.

http://www.culturedstone.com/

http://www.eldoradostone.com/flashsite/m...

concrete refinish like this:  http://www.creativecrete.ca/index.html

Answer 7

Maybe a heat gun and and then a sand blaster for cleanup?

Answer 8

The best you will be able to do is have the surface sandblasted to remove most of the paint, then skim-coated with grout to hide the rest. It would be cheaper to paint over it with a grey color to closely match the color of concrete if that is the effect you are looking for.