I’m still working on cleaning up the floor. There is SO much paint that has been spilled on it over the years (previous residents), along with roof tar and I don’t know what else (some of it hasn’t been identified). I was thinking about putting epoxy on the floor, but the floor is below grade and I’m 99% sure that epoxy will delaminate from moisture seeping through the concrete. However, I’ve been looking at moisture-cured urethanes as an alternative or as a primer for a solvent-based epoxy. In particular, Aluthane. I’m not thrilled with the color (silver), but it looks like it has tenacious bonding properties and does well in moist environments. I’m still planning a BLT mat, but the Aluthane would cover areas not covered by the mat and probably reduce humidity.
This weekend I started replacing the fluorescent lighting. Previous residents had hung 8′ long dual T12 lights from the ceiling. Unfortunately, they were not done well. One of them fell recently, thank goodness my car wasn’t in the bay! The wiring was nowhere close to code; solid wire with no wire nuts, wrapped in electrical tape, run to a wall outlet with a hand-assembled plug. To turn the lights on, the plug had to be inserted into the outlet (no switch was wired). That outlet is trashed from the gazillion insertions/removals of the plug, I bought a replacement. Worst of all, the 8′ lights were FULL of rust and very heavy. When I took them down and tipped them, many pounds of rust went from one end to the other inside the lights, and poured out of the holes. They’re ancient, and have noisy magnetic ballasts.
My replacements are 4′ dual T8 shop lights with all-weather electronic ballasts (good down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit). They have 5′ cords with molded plugs. On the wall near the ceiling, I’m installing outlets and running all of the wire (14 gauge) inside flexible conduit. Having outlets makes it fairly easy to add more lights if desired, or replace the lights.
I intend to replace the single-gang switch for the incandescent lighting with a double-gang box. This will make for a nice clean installation and I’ll be able to turn the fluorescent lights on/off with the flip off a switch instead of messing with a difficult plug that is wired to solid wire.