Stained concrete floor in work room

[jakesford]

So what would this cost /sqft labor and materials?

[CJ]

Documenting it might be kind of hard since the most important work is in the prep. I've done our game room and another commercial building we use to lease though so I'll document what I did.

I got the stuff from Decorative Concrete Supply. As long as you don't have any paint/trash on the floor it should be good. Once you start prepping, do not wear tennis shoes in that room. I used these aerator type shoes with spikes that strap to the bottom of your tennis shoes. This prevents transfer of oils and such from your shoes to the concrete. I had tons of paint to remove from the game room. I guess when it was built, the carpenters that made the shelves decided to paint them in the game room so there were outlines of thick paint. The best thing I found to clean the floors was one of those rotating janitor machines with a black course pad pouring water on the floor. Once clean, I used a shop vac to get suck up all the dirty water...I could almost eat off that floor.

Spraying the acid stain was easy. I made sure the floor was completely dry from the cleaning phase. Just to be safe, I probably waited a week to allow any moisture that may have penetrated the surface to evaporate. Just fill up a garden sprayer and go to town. I'd let it soak in then repeat the process two or three times. The stain store will tell you how much stain you need so just keep reapplying till it's all used up. I also masked the walls about 24" up from the floor. Let it dry for a day or two, then went over the entire room with a scrub brush, bucket of water, and my shop vac, scrubbing off the dried residue.

the clear coat (I forgot the name of it) can be a little tricky. It's thicker and requires the best tank sprayer you can buy. The cheap little tank sprayers aren't good enough to pump/spray it in a fan pattern. If you don't get the fine mist/fan pattern, you'll end up with little droplets all over and trying to fade that in is a PITA. I was using the $25 dollar sprayers at Home Depot and was still having a hard time getting an even spray. Come to think of it, Decorative Concrete Supply sold a metal tank sprayer but I didn't use it. I'm sure it would do a better job, just be sure to have the stuff to clean it so you can reuse it as I remember it costing quite a bit more.

Once you spray the first coat, you'll spray the second coat while it still tacky. You'll be able to see the evenness and can apply more in areas that seem to need it.

My game room wasn't the smoothest surface after I cleaned it. If I did it again, I would have filled in the pits with mortar then use a scraper to smooth it out leaving the filled in pits. I also made about a 12" border around the room. I did this to fill in the holes made when pulling up the tack strips and since that would have shown in the stain, I floated the border to cover up the holes and stained it a different color. I also bought a 1/4" thick blade for my saw and grooved out 4x4 sections to give it the "tiled" look.

All in all, for my first time, I learned a lot. I would have invested in the better tank sprayer and would have smoothed out the floor a little better. Also, in my previous attempts to clean the paint from the floor, I had used chemical paint removers which I think may have changed the aggregate in the flooring...just use the floor buffer if you have a lot of crap on the floors.

The commercial building was a lot easier. The floor was nice and smooth, no pits. I went straight with the floor buffer to prep and just kept scrubbing the floor till I was happy. Working in a much bigger room probably made it a lot easier. I still used the HD tank sprayer and probably went through three of them. I had pics at one point but I think I lost them when my house was burglarized...I'll double check. I might actually have pics of the game room when it was finished. Over the years, the rug and the furniture moving has scuffed the clear coat(again, forgot the correct name) in areas but IIRC, I think I spent less then $400. So as much as I'd like to say I wouldn't do it again, knowing the going rates for this, I probably would.

With all that being said, I can see why it costs what it does. Especially if the floor requires a lot of prep work. The scrubbing, operating the wet vac, constantly emptying the wet vac, etc can be brutal on your body. I was wore out afterwards.

Hope this helps.

edit** and since you mentioned industrial carpet, that means it's probably glued down. If it were me, I'd try the floor buffer and the black pad. The water and scrubbing should break the glue down.

Awesome info. I actually had planned on using a floor wet sander to get a very smooth surface. I would assume it will be even more effective.