Dissolving *caulking* off concrete

Alright, so some of the regs might remember my troubles with the whole eminent domain situation. Well, we're getting closer and closer to moving into our new building, but we've hit a wall. After months and months of trucks and people moving through the new building's warehouse, dirt has been tracked everywhere. The floor has since been cleaned pretty well, but there is still dirt embedded onto the concrete floor. We can't/don't want to seal the floor until it's spotless.

Bottom Line: Anyone know of a good way to dissolve the dirt off the concrete? Any chemicals that would work without damaging/staining the concrete? We've tried scrubbing, mopping, power washing, and even those big floor washers that you ride around on. Nothing has worked so far.

*UPDATE* It's not dirt. It's caulking that was spilled onto the concrete, and became covered with dirt. I've been able to scrape the dirt off the surface, but now there is just white caulking spills all over the floor.

Edited by ¤ Råp¡Ð F¡rè ¤ - 20 July 2007 at 5:19pm

Pressure washer? Those things are crazy powerful.

The old style floor buffers used to come with a straw-bristle type head that nobody usually used because they weren't sure what the heck it was actually for.  The one thing it was good for, was removing ground in dirt from rough flooring surfaces.  One pass in each direction on a wet floor usually did the trick.  However, I don't even know if they make those things anymore.

I note by your edit that it is actually caulk, not dirt.  No idea. Good luck.


Edited by Mack - 20 July 2007 at 5:38pm

Grader?

2500psi or greater pressure washer with the pencil nozzle on it.  You could cut a toe off with one of those....

 

Evil Elvis wrote: I assume you mean the pourus rough texture concrete. My House in Puerto Rico has a cement car port built in. While most of these have marble tiles the ramp going up to it. It's made of concrete. I'd have the similar problem and how we'd fix it was to pour a new thin layer over the stained part. just enough to hide the blemishes.

I'm not a concrete expert, but the surface feels pretty smooth to me. And anyways, pouring another layer wouldn't be an option for us.

FlimFlam wrote: 2500psi or greater pressure washer with the pencil nozzle on it.  You could cut a toe off with one of those....

The power washer we tried using was 3500 psi with a 40 degree nozzle.

*UPDATE* Re-read "Bottom Line"

Edited by ¤ Råp¡Ð F¡rè ¤ - 20 July 2007 at 5:20pm

get one of those torches used to melt ice, burn the caulk, the pressure wash the ashes away

i read the edit, and my solution still stands.