*UPDATED* Bare concrete floor in house? *Help Needed*

[gregs]

My wife's side of the family has a 2 story house that was recently affected by the flooding from Idailia. The house has been flooded once before. The first round of flooding from Hermine was a few inches inside but Idailia brought closer to 6". Since the odds are very good that this is going to happen again in my lifetime and the rehab falls to me to I am looking at many different options to mitigate damage and make it easier to repair. I am going to post in other areas about different ideas for other parts of the house that need repaired.

Currently all of the flooring has been removed and the slab cleaned. The surface condition of the slab is really nice. It was slick finished and other than the nail marks from the carpet tack strips its almost flawless.It has a few hairline cracks that you have to look for. Most of the floor was covered with vinyl sheet and we have 95% of the glue scraped off. I'm thinking of running my floor buffer over it with some sanding screens as a final prep.

The current plan is to leave the concrete bare and to use area rugs that can be rolled up and carried upstairs. Money is tight but I think it should at least be sealed. Some are wanting to paint it but I explained that unless we use epoxy or some other commercial product the wear will look bad after a few years. And between the furniture and area rugs there wont be much that you will actually see. I thought about acid staining it to change the color. Anybody have real world experience with bare concrete floors in a house? My other concern is slip hazard for wet areas. Another inexpensive option I am considering is using acrylic floor wax. It would seal the dust and prevent spills from soaking in and also provide some protection from slipping.

 

[P0234]

Basic one step epoxy paint from the big box stores will work ok for what you are looking for. Normal foot traffic won't affect it, I've even gently slid appliances over it. That said, IMO it would look rather ugly in anything but a utility room.

Something like a Spreadrock or Daich Terazzo might look decent depending on what's down there.

 

[dcg9381]

I've done two residential floors and about 4 different garage/shop floors.

We stained our home's concrete (I've done acid and water based). Sealed it with polyurea, which is substantially less expensive than commercial epoxy. I am super happy with the floor. I'd just "caution" that polyurea does off gas when curing and some people have been known to have a sensitivity to it... Not just this product, but anything that has VOC offgassing. For the first day or two, I probably wouldn't want to be in the house, but that's just me.

With polyurea you mix in an anti-skid agent and that solves the "wet floor" problem.

 

[kyrbz]

I realize I’m probably a small minority, but I love concrete floors in houses. My wife and I are big fans of mid-century modern/brutalist architecture and are doing radiant heat concrete floors in the residence of a property we’re currently renovating. There’s a tool called a “Diamabrush” that fits on floor buffers and does a great job of cleaning up adhesive and other imperfections in concrete. My local Home Depot rents them. Additionally, me personally, I wouldn’t use a solvent based sealer in a house. There are many good water based products that won’t kill you with off gassing.

 

[P0234]

I realize I’m probably a small minority, but I love concrete floors in houses. My wife and I are big fans of mid-century modern/brutalist architecture and are doing radiant heat concrete floors in the residence of a property we’re currently renovating. There’s a tool called a “Diamabrush” that fits on floor buffers and does a great job of cleaning up adhesive and other imperfections in concrete. My local Home Depot rents them. Additionally, me personally, I wouldn’t use a solvent based sealer in a house. There are many good water based products that won’t kill you with off gassing.

I'm an MCM fan too, but I can't say I've seen any originals with bare concrete. Terazzo maybe, but holy smoke that is expensive.

 

[lmg]

My wife's side of the family has a 2 story house that was recently affected by the flooding from Idailia. The house has been flooded once before. The first round of flooding from Hermine was a few inches inside but Idailia brought closer to 6". Since the odds are very good that this is going to happen again in my lifetime and the rehab falls to me to I am looking at many different options to mitigate damage and make it easier to repair. I am going to post in other areas about different ideas for other parts of the house that need repaired.

Currently all of the flooring has been removed and the slab cleaned. The surface condition of the slab is really nice. It was slick finished and other than the nail marks from the carpet tack strips its almost flawless.It has a few hairline cracks that you have to look for. Most of the floor was covered with vinyl sheet and we have 95% of the glue scraped off. I'm thinking of running my floor buffer over it with some sanding screens as a final prep.

The current plan is to leave the concrete bare and to use area rugs that can be rolled up and carried upstairs. Money is tight but I think it should at least be sealed. Some are wanting to paint it but I explained that unless we use epoxy or some other commercial product the wear will look bad after a few years. And between the furniture and area rugs there wont be much that you will actually see. I thought about acid staining it to change the color. Anybody have real world experience with bare concrete floors in a house? My other concern is slip hazard for wet areas. Another inexpensive option I am considering is using acrylic floor wax. It would seal the dust and prevent spills from soaking in and also provide some protection from slipping.

Acid stained concrete floors have often been a feature of high end homes here in New Mexico. I have seen some very attractive ones:

acid stained concrete - Google Search

 

[niget2002]

My grandparents had stained concrete floors in their house for most of it. The rest of the house had stained brick floors. The story was that the previous owners had gone to Europe and the wife liked all the natural stone floors all over the place in the older buildings, so when they got back, they redid all the floors.

The only issue I had with all the bare floors is that my feet were always cold in the winter. I usually walked around with socks on all the time because of it. The bedrooms all had rugs, so that helped.

 

[kyrbz]

I'm an MCM fan too, but I can't say I've seen any originals with bare concrete. Terazzo maybe, but holy smoke that is expensive.

Terazzo was a popular flooring in MCM houses, but concrete was also common. Unfortunately most MCM houses were altered over their lifetime and in many instances concrete floors were covered with other materials. Not my pic, just an example

 

[duneslider]

Concrete floors are becoming more and more common in residential homes. A good concrete sealer should be all that's needed if you are good with the color but I think most tend to do an acid stain to get to a color they want and help hide inconsistency.

If you really want to make it nice having it polished is the way to go but it is for sure much more expensive.

 

[dcg9381]

You can make concrete look like anything you want pretty much from mild to wild. I've never polished a floor, I prefer to coat 'em. Polyurea has been flawless for me in residential (hey, it holds up in a shop). You can still see the grind swirls in this floor - imperfection is usually part of stained floor. If I wanted a "perfect" floor, I'd pick a solid color. The texture is the anti-slip agent. Cost $2 sq/ft maybe?

 

[MovingAlong]

Had a neighbor with concrete floors and epoxy/flakes covering. He had dogs...

Lived in a house with terrazzo as well, coldest floor I've ever walked on.

With all the new cool coatings, concrete is simply a base to hold them. Should look great!

 

[Ilikeike]

My sister had her last house slab stained and saw cut like big tiles, it looked nice.

 

[P0234]

You can make concrete look like anything you want pretty much from mild to wild. I've never polished a floor, I prefer to coat 'em. Polyurea has been flawless for me in residential (hey, it holds up in a shop). You can still see the grind swirls in this floor - imperfection is usually part of stained floor. If I wanted a "perfect" floor, I'd pick a solid color. The texture is the anti-slip agent. Cost $2 sq/ft maybe?

That looks nice, the issue for me is when it cracks, and it will, its not going to look as nice.

 

[dcg9381]

That looks nice, the issue for me is when it cracks, and it will, its not going to look as nice.

It's the same issue with a polished floor.. Or any bare concrete floor. A solid color you could handle the cracks, assuming it's done cracking. Floors like this are common in my state... Well, at least the stained / stamped concrete is. I've seen multi-million dollar homes with some small cracks, I don't think most people notice.

Of all the concrete I've poured, I think this is the only thing with no cracks at all. I think it's more luck than anything.

To your point, the garage had 12 x 3' diameter by 10' deep piers poured below the foundation, fully engineered. It's got cracks. Dunno.

 

[Ilikeike]

Actually depending on the stain and pattern the cracks work with it, like natural stone. You just need to see more examples from contactors that know what there doing with these floor. Many business do this to their floors also.

 

[P0234]

Actually depending on the stain and pattern the cracks work with it, like natural stone. You just need to see more examples from contactors that know what there doing with these floor. Many business do this to their floors also.

As with all things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Every time I see I polished floor with cracks, it looks (really) bad to me. I notice it in a lot of places, which is why as appealing as a simple clear polyaspartic coating is for my garage, I won't do it.

 

[duneslider]

Most residential places seem to use a lot of rugs and furniture, so imperfections are much less noticed. But in this case, some cracks are much better than replacing flooded flooring every few years.

 

[pima67]

If your are lucky, you may have a post tensioned slab. No cracks after tensioning.

 

[df1k1]

We built a brand new house and like a lot of builders he gave us a flooring allowance. We wanted to use the money elsewhere, so we just asked the builder to keep the concrete as nice as he could throughout the construction. Of course he didn’t and the floor looked like ****.
We went ahead and just poured sealer over it anyway and that’s the first comment we get when people walk in the house.
we ended up really loving the floor with all its dings and imperfections. It really made the house. Granted, the style is not for everyone but we’ve been happy.

 

[juddspaintballs]

Well, this thread made me change my mind on flooring in my house currently under construction. I was going to do porcelain tile on the entire first floor slab, but a few days before we poured the slab, I decided that acid stained floors looked good and wouldn't prohibit me from doing tile later on in the future if I didn't like the stained floors. The only change on the concrete side of things was that they had to burnish the concrete more than originally planned and we switched from long hair to short hair fiber mesh in the mix.

 

[Walkers]

That looks nice, the issue for me is when it cracks, and it will, its not going to look as nice.

I think my favorite concrete floors are in some local shops that have had several TIs done over the years and are cracked, cut, patched, then acid stained. The wear and patina make it interesting.

 

[tjansson]

Timely thread! I am about to pour a slab for a mudroom addition. I'm going try my hand at smooth or hard trowel finishing it but my backup plan, if it turns out bad, will be to grind it and coat. It's only 100 sf. Seems like something like polyurea would do a better job at hiding my sins, but if I could get away with just some sealer, that seems alot easier.

 

[P0234]

I think my favorite concrete floors are in some local shops that have had several TIs done over the years and are cracked, cut, patched, then acid stained. The wear and patina make it interesting.

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[gregs]

You can make concrete look like anything you want pretty much from mild to wild. I've never polished a floor, I prefer to coat 'em. Polyurea has been flawless for me in residential (hey, it holds up in a shop). You can still see the grind swirls in this floor - imperfection is usually part of stained floor. If I wanted a "perfect" floor, I'd pick a solid color. The texture is the anti-slip agent. Cost $2 sq/ft maybe?

What color stain did you use? Was it acid based?

 

[4xdog]

I have terrazzo in several rooms of my 1936 house, and I love it. But I'm also a fan of bare concrete, cracks and all.

Here's a view in one of the galleries at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe this summer. The cracks in the concrete add to the look rather than take away, IMO.

 

[gregs]

So everyone is onboard for doing the bare concrete floors. The only decision the "group" has to make is whether to stain them or not.

My questions have to do with prep. The floors are really smooth and slick, I would call it a hard burnish. About 95% of the old flooring glue where there was vinyl sheet has been removed and I feel like its at the point that I could sand the floors to make it a 100% clean. When I did epoxy in my shop I used a low speed floor buffer I have and sanding screens and it worked great. It was new concrete no previous finish. I see there are some different type of diamond pads now and wonder if there is any benefit to buying those or just stick to the sanding screens?

If they decide they want to stain it, does the surface need any special attention? I dont want to roughen it up to much if possible.

Also there are a couple of rooms that had carpet and nailed on tack strips. Is there a good product that can fill those nail holes and still accept the stain? Theres also a couple of areas that the floor was cut out and the house was "leveled" decades ago. The hole area is rougher concrete and slightly lower 1/8" +/-. So I am looking at possibly filling those as well. They are near the center of the room and will probably covered with an area rug anyway.

And taking suggestions for sealers. Since its just foot traffic I dont think we need anything crazy and I would probably like to stick to water based but thats not a deal killer either as the house is empty during the week and can air out. I am still considering high solids acrylic floor wax. I used it as a top coat over my epoxy and it has held up well and makes it easier to clean. And if there is a worn spot I just mop on a thin coat and its good to go. It also solves the issue with being slippery when wet.

 

[FJ4FUN]

You might consider our AcryliSeal 3501 nano-polymer sealer. Extremely versatile and durable product...

 

[dcg9381]

What color stain did you use? Was it acid based?

This is a water based stain. I've done acid also. This is a combination of colors, a lighter "tan" with a darker brown over it - sorta colored to match. Stain is a bit unpredictable - you can always go darker, but producing the exact same result would be a challenge.

 

[gregs]

This is a water based stain. I've done acid also. This is a combination of colors, a lighter "tan" with a darker brown over it - sorta colored to match. Stain is a bit unpredictable - you can always go darker, but producing the exact same result would be a challenge.

It looks great. Do know what product you used?

 

[MongoTA]

My questions have to do with prep.

If they decide they want to stain it, does the surface need any special attention? I dont want to roughen it up to much if possible.

If moisture is an issue, either because there's not a vapor barrier under the slab, or because of the potential for slab saturation due to future flooding, consider using a vapor permeable treatment on top of the slab.

If the top of the slab is sealed and moisture tried to come up from below, the moisture can lift the film off the slab. Or you can end up with stains and discoloration under the film. It can turn pretty gnarly.

The product you choose will dictate slab preparation. You can fill any imperfections with a thick peanut butter consistency portland slurry/paste. Do a cleaning of the slab. Some products want an acid etch to remove some of the cream and to open the surface up a bit and provide a bit of tooth. A good rinse and vacuum with a wet vac, let the slab dry, then move on with surface treatment.

Some products can be brushed or rolled on. Some, like an acid stain, may give better results coming out of a 2-gallon pump sprayer. With the sprayer you can walk around the room and add a little more here and there to increase depth of coloration. Spiked shoes can allow you to not leave footprints as you move around.

Water based dyes can sometimes fade with UV exposure. Acid stains can be more durable.

An acid stain for color followed by a simple buffed wax might be the easiest and most forgiving long term, depending on the slab. If moisture from below is not an issue, then sealing with a true moisture impermeable film finish will be more bulletproof. Any roughening of the surface due to the use of an acid for prep will be smoothed out by the film finish.

Regardless, good luck with it.

 

[dcg9381]

It looks great. Do know what product you used?

Sure. @LegacyIndustrial

The stain is Delta Dye.

I believe it's a base of bronze, we let that dry. Then oversprayed with one of their browns to suit. I have it listed as Mahogany (it may be listed as Walnut Brown now).

It's coated in 2 or 3 coats of Nohr-S® Polyurea Coating (same Vendor) with an anti-slip agent added on the final coat.

Last time I checked they had a pretty good instragram page (if you can get to that) with all sorts of creative floors with their products.

 

[jives]

When out home was half built we kicked out the carpenters and stained the slab. Used a new Rustoleum stain for concrete. We prepped, etched, cleaned -- everything according to the directions. Looked awesome. Wore terribly. It never cured and even after 15 years still softens when wet and has worn extensively in some places. Rustoleum gave us our money back, but not our time. We left it, with the thought that we would put something down in the future.

Our slab is hydronic radiant heated and serves as a thermal mass for our solar-tempered living room. But the unforgiving concrete is getting less and less favorable in our old age.