Colored Concrete

[cory b]

Hello everyone. I have been surfing around this forum for a while now, while in the process of building a two car addition to the house, so much great information on here. I was 100 percent sold on the idea of a good epoxy coating on my garage floor. After speaking to my concrete guy, he suggested I go with stained concrete with sealer on top of it. I hadn't seen anything on here about that and was just wondering if anyone had experience with it. I am thinking about trying it out, knowing if it doesn't work out I can always epoxy over it. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Cory

 

[Drev]

I was in the exact same situation and was sold on epoxy until I read about all of the prep work involved. While I still love the look of a nice epoxy with the flake added in I just didn't have the desire or the time to do all of that so I investigated acid stain instead. Prep work consisted of a general cleaning with Neutraclean and putting the actual stain down with a sprayer was easy. The clean up of the residue was the most time consuming part of the process (a lot of scrubbing and shop-vac'ing), but after putting the clear down it looks really good. It's a different sort of look and most imperfections in the concrete will show up, but it adds character in my opinion. I put two coats of Kemiko black stain down mixed 50% stain/50% water as suggested, but if I had more stain left over I would have put down a third coat to get it darker and even out the colour in some spots. I chose to use a latex based acrylic polyurethane product called Clearseal from Rainguard and I couldn't be happier with how easy it was to put down and clean up afterwards. I'm from Ontario, Canada so I'll be interested to see how the floor holds up throughout a winter full of salt exposure, but I think it will be fine since the product is rated to protect again chemical spills and other garage mishaps. You can't argue with the price difference either so you definitely get a lot of bang for the buck compared to some of the higher quality/higher priced epoxies out there. Good luck with your decision!

 

[AlphaGarage]

The prep work involved for an epoxy coating, and an acid stain isn't that much different. In fact with the acid stain you are essentially doing the prep work up to the point of the acid etch, but instead of using muriatic acid you're using a different acid.

And as Drev pointed out, with a stain you don't need to do some of the fixes, like smoothing out rough spots and existing spots, that you would probably want to do with an epoxy, because that "patina" can add character to a stained floor whereas with epoxy it'd look like a blemish.

 

[49stude2r6]

I don't know what colors you are looking for but you can order concrete in my area with the color mixed in. Extra of course but there would be nothing more than adding a sealer once it was setup. Just a thought.

 

[cory b]

Thanks for the responses. I said stained but what I meant was what 49stude2r6 is talking about. The concrete already has color added to it before it is poured. It is about 40-45 dollars more a yard, but no prep work involved. I have not seen it, but my concrete guy says it looks great and with sealer it is very shiny.

 

[49stude2r6]

The concrete guys that we talked to when doing a patio recommended the same thing. They were also plenty willing to provide references and examples of the work.