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| exterior faux slate |
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| Ardex SD-T (Self-Leveling Floor) |
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| Exterior Overlay Stamped |
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Concrete Floors 101:
Not including overlays because some overlays are not concrete in composite.
Ironically, I became an expert at restoring and maintaining concrete floors because I had to, meaning, people were calling me, a floor and stone care specialist, to help them with problems with their concrete stained floors. Why? Because the contractor wouldn't help them simply because their practice was not taking care of what they provided. There was this "fall-out" between doing the floor and caring for it. The owners were basically on their own, and sometimes this would cause the floor to either be neglected or treated by something totally inappropriate.
There are two types of concrete floors (not including overlays), Stained and Sealed Concrete or Polished Concrete (with perhaps some type of penetrating sealer agent added).
There are few exceptions: Some concrete can be stained or colorized and also polished but this is a rare and unique exception that's out there and exceptions can take on the form of a debating society. That's for another day.
If your concrete is stained it must be sealed with a film based sealer, no expections. Not sealing your concrete will cause the stain to wear and loose its appearance forever. It is highly recommended to apply a wax or floor finish to protect the sealer and stain. Think of your modern car: The paint is the stain. The clear coat is the sealer. The wax protects both the paint and the clearcoat. There are very many different types and qualities of sealers and waxes, we only use very high solid professional products, quite frankly, there's a lot of "junk" out there for the consumer to waste their hard earned money on.
Another caveat: Some protective film sealers for concrete are positioned as both a sealer and wax, well this makes things complicated because sealers are (or should be) permament and once applied can only be removed chemically or mechanically whereas waxes should be simi-permanent and have the ability to be "stripped" off with a water based floor stripping agent, this process is possibly helped with a floor machine or scrubber and stripping pad. An additional point: Some waxes can be easily removed by a mop-off (or rinse-off) stripper agent and don't need a floor machine to assist.
If your concrete is polished, meaning glossy or matt finish, it is not the same as stained concrete. You do not apply the same type of film based sealers and waxes to polished concrete that you apply to stained concrete, you will mess-up if this is done. Why? Because polished concrete is simply maintained by more polishing (when needed), you see polished concrete has a "closed face" meaing the pores of the face have been mechanically sealed and do not require sealer. Exception: Some penetrating sealers for polished concrere provide an addtional protection against another agent penetrating the concrete (like water and oil) but they do not protect from physical contact like film based sealers and waxes.
I guess it helps to understand that concrete is really just a manmade stone, so many of the dynamics for approaching it are very much like natural stone. The trick is to know when to treat it like stone and when not to.
You may have been hoping I was going to tell you how to clean and restore concrete yourself, can you? Perhaps, but that subject is outside the scope of a few paragraphs, sorry.
You can however contract us to do it right.
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