LESLIE: Alright. Now we’re going to Ohio where Rita is looking to experiment with paint chemistry. (Tom chuckles) What’s going on, Rita?
RITA: Well, we have a basement that has a little room in it. It’s kind of like a cellar. And I had different paints and I want to paint the floor and I want it to look like stone.
LESLIE: OK.
RITA: What I have is a brick color that is gloss, I have some cream color that is flat and then I have some brown and some cream that is satin. And my question is, I want to use them up and I want to know if I can take the gloss and the flat and mix it.
LESLIE: Mix them together?
RITA: Uh-huh.
TOM: Bad idea. Hmm. Bad idea.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) It’s going to mess with the adhesion.
TOM: (overlapping voices) First of all, it’s not a good – this is a basement floor?
RITA: Yes.
TOM: Yeah. And this is not basement-floor paint, is it?
RITA: No, this is just an indoor …
TOM: Yeah, yeah, not – first of all, you’re not going to have the durability that you need for a floor paint, because you’re talking about a wall paint.
LESLIE: Well, unless you put like a million coats of urethane or something on top of it.
TOM: (overlapping voices) On top of it, yeah.
RITA: OK.
TOM: Yeah, bad idea. I would save it and look for another wall to apply it to. But for a basement floor, you want to use an epoxy paint today. Basically a two-part epoxy; it’s the epoxy and the hardener. You use that because it adheres well to the concrete.
LESLIE: And it deals well with that moisture issue that you get from concrete.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Right.
RITA: OK.
TOM: And it’s also very durable.
RITA: Even though we have a dehumidifier in here?
LESLIE: Yes.
RITA: OK.
LESLIE: Because the moisture that that concrete floor is going to sort of absorb and wick up is coming from the ground underneath your house and surrounding the foundation. So no matter what you do to control the moisture level inside the basement room, you’re still dealing with everything that’s on the outside.
And coming with the winter season, you’re just going to get a ton more of that moisture coming up through because of the heat differences: the heated basement, the cold outside, the cold ground. So you really have to be careful with that.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t get that epoxy coatings and buy two or three different colors and create your stone pattern to get that same look, with that ultra-durable finish.
RITA: Sounds good. Well thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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