Color hardened floor: Cleaning

[yeldogt]

Had a slab floor poured about 5 years ago with a color hardener applied. Sika Scofield in Ash White --- Powdered product broadcast over fresh concrete and troweled in.

This slab is the lower level of my new house ... idea was a whitish concrete floor. The project was delayed (obviously since the slab is 5 years old). Floor was sealed with the recommended Sika product -- covered in plastic and protected w/ masonite. My guess is the floor is dirty ..... we did have some surface water when a hose failed and brought in some mud.

How would this be cleaned? Can you polish this type of floor?

MY thought was to hire someone to come and clean -- and or polish -- seal. I know you can sandblast hardened floors ... but -- that's not really the look I want.

 

[benwah]

Can you post pics? How was the floor finished, power trowel? Broom finish?

 

[yeldogt]

Can you post pics? How was the floor finished, power trowel? Broom finish?

I can't really as of today (pictures) .... it's still covered. Only looked at a small section of it years ago ..... it just looks like a smooth concrete slab. They floated the slabs and troweled the joints. Not a broom finish.

It's in the lower area of my project -- maybe 1000sf total. We had to dig down to make the project work to connect the old and new buildings -- the project is on a slope. I'm always worried about water -- so i did not want wood ... I'm sort of over big tiled areas. This was a solution ... the architect wanted to use cork. I could still glue this down ... but the heated concrete is what I planned. The spaces are all fully finished and intended to not look as if not bellow ground level.

The product came in bags --- being white the manufacturer required 2x the product vs a darker color. It's some type of concrete and becomes the top surface -- it's done as the floor is poured. Sika makes lots of finish products for concrete --- think this would be like a product for patterned concrete ...same idea except maybe the white is thicker.

I think I need to find someone who cleans concrete -- it may need to just be cleaned .... But, a pro who works with concrete would be able to evaluate other options. Like a minimal polish ..

 

[benwah]

Well if it is concrete, it can be polished. Now whether that is going to be a cream polish or an aggregate polish that depends on the power trowel job.

I would highly recommend taking an hour out of your day and pulling up the Masonite and Builder board in one room. It will be extremely easy to lay it back down and re-tape it. Take some pics I'd like to see what that floor looks like.

Depending on the finish you have a few options.

You can simply clean it with something like a swing buffer with a nylon bristle attachment and some water with a cleaning solution and wet vac it up.

You can gave it a full blown high gloss cream polish, something like, clean floor, 200 (resins), 400, densify, 800, 1500, topical or penetrating sealer, burnish 400, 800, 1500, 3000.

If the trowel job ***** you can give it a small aggregate polish which would include all the steps above but would require some prerequisite steps, including something similar to: 60/80 steels, 100/120 steels, grout with epoxy or polyurea, 50 transitional diamonds, etc.

But what I would suggest is a "honed finish". This is about 1/2 the work as a full blown polish, but still gives amazing results.

It would include: Clean floor, densify, 200 resins, densify, 400 resins. Mop on -or- spray on sealer. Burnish with boars hair pad. Re-apply sealer every year or every other year depending on traffic/wear&tear.

 

[yeldogt]

Benwah -- really appreciate you taking the time to post.

The pictures were to give some idea of the size of the spaces -- obviously covered you can't see the floor to recommend something.

Will pull some of it up shortly -- my previous builder installed the walls over the masonite. He did at least put plastic down first. So that's why I did not open up some of it -- it's locked in

know there was some damage to that top layer --it's limited to two small corners. The previous builder used one of those power guns to nail the walls to the floor w/ glue. They got too close to the edge and it popped two 1/2 dollar size divots. We will have to mix up some of the product and patch.

Will lookup that "honed finish" ..... thanks again. Will post pictures.