H&C Concrete Sealer

[HotShoe]

Just thought I'd post about my experience in case there are any of you thinking about going this route.

I'm renting a space and will be doing a lot of welding/fab work, etc. so I didn't want to spend a fortune. I love epoxy floors and would gladly invest in the finish if I had more of a showroom environment. Heck, I've designed a warehouse for a collector that had gorgeous maple hardwood flooring. For now I just need something cheap and easy.

I did spend the time grinding the floor down with my local HD's diamond grinder rental. It work beautifully but easily took the whole day to do 1,000 square feet and made a TON of dust. If I was going for a perfect epoxy finish I probably would have spent another day getting it perfect and patching holes but I need to start making money and stop spending it for once.

I bought the xylene based H&C concrete sealer in gull grey. Went on easy and soaked right in. It did dry slight darker than the color swatch. The fumes were very strong and required a respirator but the sealer dried super fast. Of course, it was 95 out so I'm sure anything would have cured fast in that heat.

I don't have any pics yet but it came out great. The old concrete needed two coats to get an even, matte finish. I'll probably go back and add some type of graphic breakup with different colors for a little style. The next day I had the door open and it rained hard. The water just beads right up. I also spilled some coke that cleaned up easy after sitting a day because I hadn't seen it. We'll see how it handles other spills over time. I don't expect it to hold up to gas or break fluid but I'm not worried about it.

Here's the bottom-line, I dropped a hammer 16' down from my scaffold when I was doing the lights. It left a slight mark and I didn't have to have a coronary about a $$$$ finish. I just touched it up with a brush and it was gone. I know it will take a brutal beating being a working space and all I have to do is roll on a touch up and it will look brand new. I wouldn't recommend it for a showroom space or for a "wow" factor but it is worth the money for a working shop. The space I was in previously had a very, very expensive beautiful epoxy finish and I would have an ulcer every time I marked it, which was often. Now I can worry about other things instead of my floor!

 

[Edger]

Hi Hotshoe,

Good points.

Have to agree with you after having been a floor coating contractor in a previous life because I saw many different coatings that had been applied and what had happened to them over time when I was asked to quote for an epoxy finish.

I would like to add a couple of things if you do not mind.

Chemical resistance
As you said this type of coating does not have high chemical resistance, but who wants to leave a strong chemical on the floor anyway, most people wipe it up straight away.

Peeling
As far as peeling is concerned I think it is exactly the same as epoxy - good prep means it sticks well.

Wear resistance
It does not have anywhere near the wear resistance of epoxy which is a much harder product, but wear is usually only in specific areas, definitely not across the floor. I think these products are fine as long as people know that they will eventually wear out in tracks, mostly where people walk and in factories it usually took around 18 mths of foot traffic to wear through. I wonder how much wear a garage would get by comparison - perhaps the foot touching the floor when a guy gets out of his car would be the most abrasive.

Recoating
There is a problem when it comes to recoating that I saw many times. Typically a floor would be completely coated when it was worn out in the middle of walkways and this results in two coats in the wear areas and four coats outside those wear tracks.

Another recoat a couple of years later and there are six coats in most areas and still only two coats in the wear tracks. When the coating got to four coats and more it was extremely slippery when it got wet and there was nothing that could be done about it.

Anti slip
Generally, two coats were similar to epoxy so when they got a bit of wear they became much less slippery, but more than that and they became dangerously slippery and anti slip granules do not work because the coating is not strong enough to hold them, they just pull out after some wear.

Touchup
So to avoid the slippery surface developing I would strongly suggest that only the wear areas be recoated which could not take more than a few minutes after a few years of wear. It looks odd at first, but it will quickly blend in so that it will not be noticeable.

Difficult removal
Speaking from a contractor point of view I thought these single pak, xylene based sealers were better than most people thought, but they were a complete b*tch to remove! Back then we did not have Soy based paint removers or PCD scrapers so we used diamond grinding and many of us did our b*lls on those jobs because the several layers of paint melted and would not grind off faster than snail pace. I don't think that would ever happen in a garage.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Man, sign me up for this stuff it sounds like a winner!!

 

[HotShoe]

All great points Edger. Time will tell how it holds up but for the money I'm not worried.

If I owned the space I would have gone with a better product from Legacy but for the time being this will be more than adequate for my needs. Right now I need to focus on the AC as a priority.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Hotshoe:

Very good point. Every job has a purpose and a budget. If yours was served well then bully for you.

 

[Edger]

Man, sign me up for this stuff it sounds like a winner!!

Hi Scotty,

Now don't be too negative, it is not in the league of an epoxy, not even close to thin epoxy, but as long as people know the limitations and they can live with those then don't you think it still has a place for some installations as Hotshoe pointed out? Probably not, huh.

 

[HotShoe]

Hotshoe:

Very good point. Every job has a purpose and a budget. If yours was served well then bully for you.

Unfortunately all too true. I'm not anti-epoxy, I love the stuff. I just don't think it's the end all be all that it gets promoted to be. I know it's blasphemy here to mention anything else but sometimes it's not the best solution for everyone.

Just an FYI, your site has been down all day.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

I know. Our hosting renews every year July15th and every year it goes down until my host gets it squared away. I already lost my voice this morning yelling at a technician in Utah. They assured me this would be the last time it would happen. We'll see.

 

[Suzie68]

Hi Scotty,

Now don't be too negative, it is not in the league of an epoxy, not even close to thin epoxy, but as long as people know the limitations and they can live with those then don't you think it still has a place for some installations as Hotshoe pointed out? Probably not, huh.

Hmm...It may not be quite as durable as epoxy, but from my perspective (having had both an epoxy floor, and now a floor coated with H&C) It is a very cost effective alternative. I've had mine down now for 3 months or so, and haven't had ANY peeling and trust me I've been pushing it as best I can to get it to peel (even to the point of a posi burn out on it). The Sherwin Williams dealer I purchased mine from had their outdoor pad coated with it for 9 years now through WI winters with it being salted almost daily, and plowed not shoveled, and it has held up extremely well. All at a cost of a 1/4 that of epoxy. I have already used floor jacks and jack stands without any chipping. Like others have stated, just like an epoxy floor, the finished product is only as good as the prep. It did have a strong odor, but still not as strong as a 2 part epoxy. The only thing I worry about, are certain chemicals being spilled on it.
I highly recommend it.

 

[indyjps]

Ive got a Xylene based coating on my floor, dont remember the manuf. got it on clearance from menards and bought all they had.
Brake fluid and gasoline turn it back to jelly, so any spills need to be wiped up right away.
peel areas under tires during winter, dont know if its due to frozen concrete. tire contact areas need to be retouched. not total peeling, spotty.

I need to get more and will try the H&C, see if its compatible

EDIT, just looked up H&C, that is what I used. prep was on new concrete floor, cured for one year (new construction), washed / scrubbed with degreaser rinsed well, dried 2 days with fans, applied in summer, rolled on, 2 coats cross applied.

 

[Marky Mark]

Sorry to dredge up an old post, but after a lot of research, I've narrowed my choices and am seriously considering the H&C for my garage project. It will likely never see a hot tire, only a couple motorcycles parked on rubber or carpet mats - it's mainly a light duty workshop/cave on a tight budget. What is the coverage for this stuff? I have a 2-car garage that's about 360 sqft. I was figuring 2 gal, but the guy at the Sherwin place said 1, also, is the clear gloss sealer worth the extra coat?

Thanks.

 

[bdamico]

Meh. My house came with it. This is 3 years after it was put down. To each his or her own, I guess.

This is my floor now so you can guess my opinion of H&C sealer is low