/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Hey /diy/

I'm working on the rust on the steel I-beams under my house (removing rust with brush and then hitting them with that rust converter and then cold galvanizing over everything when done) but I was thinking about how to prevent rust from occurring again.

As you can see in the pics the areas where the I-beam contacts the pylons the rust is significantly worse than anywhere else. Other areas it's just very minor spot rust, but there it's continuous rust and even flaking rust in some of the worst areas. I am still able to fix those bad areas, but I cannot fix those areas on the underside of the I-beams and I'd like to prevent this from coming back if at all possible. Since these bad areas are located where they are I'm assuming that the cause of the rust is water wicking up through the concrete to come into contact with the beam.

What I was thinking of doing was using PC Rot Terminator (an epoxy-resin mixture; I'm open to suggestions) to make the concrete brick around the contact areas waterproof. I was thinking that since it's designed to penetrate what it's applied to (and the label does say it can be used on concrete) if I put enough on there it would soak to the point that it would contact underneath the beam and prevent water from getting to it. If it wouldn't be able to penetrate that far I could always drill at a an angle from one side to create a entrance point for the epoxy, but I'd probably only do this where the I-beam fully spans a pylon.

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