On A Personal Note - Applying A Stained Concrete Resurfacer In My Home

February 2010 Newsletter

The Crime Scene

It was a dark and stormy night� Ok, not exactly, more like 3 p.m. in the afternoon on a Sunday just before the Cowboys were going to play. Things looked good, the 'Boys' were favorites. My wife had gotten some snacks together, and we were stretched out on the favorite couch - the one that has over time comfortably "molded" itself to my posterior. We were laid out, munching away while watching the usual pregame jibber-jabber with our two dogs (dachshunds) staring intently at us to see if anything would fall on the floor; let's just say we never have to worry about "Cleanup, aisle 4!" with these guys around (see "The Culprits").

The Crime

Sitting there was what every homeowner who ever has mixed dogs and carpets fears most: a hard little poopie (see "The Crime"). I quickly looked around, trying to spot the culprits but they had beaten a hasty retreat. My wife was beside herself. She had turned her back for just a few seconds when one of them had unashamedly taken the opportunity to relieve themselves. And do it after they had been outside all day! It really was the last straw. For months we had been noticing how the dining room was developing a "musk", to use the word mildly. Between #1's, which are hard to spot and #2's, which are obvious, we were starting to feel embarrassed to have guests over. It was time to take action. As you can see to the left, even after scrubbing it down, the stain remained. Of course, the first thing any other person would think would be, "Well, just potty train them and that should take care of the problem."

Rehab

Three weeks later, we were ready to get down to business. We decided to replace all the carpeted areas in the dining room, entryway, and the living room, which was about 600 ft2 total. Carpet tearout was the first step. Here you can see Armando, my Lead Installer, first cutting the carpet into wide, more manageable strips that we then roll up (see "Carpet Removal"). In my case, the carpet underpad (that foam like surface under the carpet) wasn't glued to the floor so it made removal much simpler. Can you see what shape the floor is in? Yep, all those white spots are paint just splattered everywhere (see "Paint Splatter"). Nobody cares what happens to the floor when they're building the house. They figure you're going to cover it up anyway so we find paint, varnish, pipe dope, glue, permanent marker, just about anything that can be spilled, splashed, dropped, sprayed, or dripped on the floor. This is why we often have to do microfinish overlays on remodels instead of a direct acid stain. This project was no exception. What's the difference? With a direct acid stain we'll pull up the carpet, tile, linoleum, or laminate, clean the floor as best we can (and I never guarantee that we will get everything up), stain the floor, then seal and wax it. However, it's kind of a WYSIWYG (those older computer geeks remember this term � What You See Is What You Get). Any imperfections left on the floor will still be visible after a direct acid stain because it's a translucent process. Imperfections includes carpet glue, tile ghost image (a pattern that remains visible on the concrete floor even after removing the tile and cleaning the surface), tack strip holes created when we pull up the tack strips that held the carpet down, and just about anything else that was too tenacious to be removed by the cleaning process. Keep in mind that we can't be too aggressive in cleaning. If we sand or grind parts of the floor, they will look different from the rest and tend to stand out, so it's kind of a delicate balance between cleaning it and damaging it. (Most of our direct acid projects are exterior areas like patios, driveways, sidewalks or interiors of homes that are new construction when nothing else had been installed.)

On the right is a picture from a project we did a few years back that shows what happens when you do a direct acid stain over a floor that previously had tile and carpet (see "Ghost Image"). This homeowner didn't want the microfinish.

The tack strips are another story. These are actually wood strips with nails sticking out of both sides. The nails facing down are thicker and get hammered into the concrete to hold them in place. The nails facing up are smaller but very sharp and actually jab into the carpet from below and hold it in place. The concrete nails don't come out without a fight. When they do, they usually pull up a small chunk of concrete and leave divots behind in the concrete.

The home in the picture above had tile in the entryway and carpet against the tile. The holes you see are from the tack strips that had held the carpet in place. We didn't patch them in this case, however even if we had, the patches would have looked different from the concrete around them because acid staining is a reactive process. The homeowners loved the job, but I took the picture so that you can decide if that look works for you.

Back at my house, after rolling up and disposing of the carpet we went to work on the tile and the tack strips that ran around the perimeter of the room. We like to move quickly with these, so we use an electric demolition hammer to remove them (see "Tack Strips"). It really speeds things up compared to a chisel and hammer, especially when you have to blow out the thinset that held the tile in place. Before putting down the microfinish overlay we'll patch deep tack strip holes (1/2" or deeper) to make sure the overlay will create a uniform surface (see "Patched Holes").

The most important step in applying an overlay is surface preparation. We always grind interior surfaces to roughen it up. This gives the overlay something to "bite" into. Sometimes we may also use an acidic etching solution to open up the pores in floor depending on the circumstances. Whatever is done, we always prep the surface before the overlay. When we grind, we use a shrouded grinder that is hooked up to a vacuum system (see "Shrouded Grinder"). This almost completely eliminates any dust created by the grinding process and removes paint, drywall mud, and anything else we usually find on the floor (see "Ground Floor").

Stay tuned for the "exciting conclusion" next month....