Residential Garage Floor Stained & Polished

This customer wanted to renovate the concrete floors in their garage. The owners requirements were: the floors had to be done in two different sections because they did not have any where to put the stuff they had in the garage, the floors had to cure fast enough to allow the cars to be put back in the garage. The solution was to stain the concrete with a acetone based dye and then polish the concrete with a concrete grinder. The floors were also sealed and burned into the concrete with a floor burnisher.

Stained concrete and polished is a alternative to other garage floors such as epoxies and polyurethane's that need a very fast turnaround.

Check out are website at MVL Concrete.

Stained Concrete & Polished

Stained Concrete & Polished

Polished Concrete

Polished concrete is a popular flooring choice for commercial areas; however, it is becoming a popular choice for residential areas as well. Polished concrete is not just the plain gray floors home depot has; they can be very decorative when acid stains and concrete dyes are used to color the floor. The steps for polished concrete are:

1. Grind the concrete with a 25 grit metal bond diamond, this helps flatten the floor and removes any small humps in the concrete.
2. Grind the concrete with a 40 grit metal bond diamond.
3. Grind the concrete with a 80 grit metal bond diamond.
4. Grind the concrete with a 50 grit resin polishing pad.
5. Grind the concrete with a 100 grit resin polishing pad.
6. Grind the concrete with a 200 grit resin polishing pad.
7. Grind the concrete with a 400 grit resin polishing pad.
8. Apply the acid stain or concrete dye.
9. Densify concrete with lithium silicate densifier.
10. Polish concrete with 800 grit resin polishing pad. 
11. Continue polishing with 1500 grit or 3000 grit if a higher shine is wanted.
12. Apply protectant guard.
13. Burnish floor.

Polished concrete offers a very durable floor that is easy to maintain. Maintenance requires weekly dust mopping and wet mopping with a ph-neutral cleaner found at home depot. 

You can view more photos at MVL Concrete.

Before Concrete Was Stained & Polished

After Concrete Was Stained & Polished

Concrete Patio Resurfaced & Acid Stained

The most common type of concrete problems we see are cracks in the concrete and the top surface of the concrete spalling off. Spalled concrete starts of by a small crack in the concrete allowing water to penetrate deep into the concrete where it starts to rust the steel reinforcement. When the reinforcement starts to rust it produces gasses and expands and starts to shed; this is what causes the top surface of the concrete to pop off. Often you can hear a hollow sound in the concrete where it is about to spall off.



In this picture you can see where the rust from the steel was starting to spread into the top of the concrete. It is very important that water does not reach the steel embedded into the concrete. When pouring the concrete there should be 1.25" of concrete above the steel to prevent water from rusting the steel. It is also a good idea to seal the concrete with a penetrating sealer to add more protection.



If you have areas in your driveway or patio that the concrete is spalling, there is options for fixing it. The first step would be to chisel out any weak concrete and expose the steel rebar. The rebar should then be clean and any rust removed prior to placing a repair mortar.



Once all of the weak concrete is removed, a high strength repair mortar is placed into the area with a minimum thickness of 0.5". 

After the repair mortar has set, a polymer modified cement is applied to the whole concrete patio to hide the area that was repaired. This gives a nice clean surface where it can then be acid stained.

Almost any concrete surface can be repair and acid stained, as long as the sub grade of the slab is structurally sound and is not causing the concrete to uplift and move. Again, most of the problems such a areas of the concrete surface spalling off is cause by water rusting the steel reinforcement.

Please feel free to check out are website at MVL Concrete.



Spalled Area Chiseled Out







Area Filled With Repair Mortar





Concrete Patio Resurfaced & Acid Stained









Flooring Options

There are many different options for flooring, they don't have to be the usual tile or carpet in a house.

Concrete staining is a growing trend for flooring in the residential housing market. Staining the concrete has many unique options that the homeowner can customize and choose how they want their concrete floor to look like; whether, they want a antique look, or a modern look they can achieve these wants with concrete flooring.

Concrete staining is a very durable floor, that is easy to clean. There a number of different finishes that can be applied after the concrete has been stained; from water based acrylic sealers to high end polyurthane sealers. The concrete can even be mechanically polished with a concrete grinder after the concrete has been stained.

The color options for staining the concrete is nearly endless with the capabilities of combining colors and using different products (acid stains with acetone based dyes).

If you would like to learn more information about concrete staining visit are website MVL Concrete.

Cleaning the concrete before staining.

The most important part of staining concrete is the prep work. The prep work is the most time consuming part of any concrete staining job. If you are pulling up carpet in your house some things to expect to find under the carpet is:

• carpet glue
• paint
• chips in the concrete
• cracks in the concrete 

Some tools that you will need for cleaning the concrete is:

• scrapers
• shop-vac
• mop & bucket
• floor machine
• black scrubbing pads

The first step is to start scraping the paint off the concrete around the walls. This is best achieved by using a small handle 4" scraper, the long handle scrapers are easier for your back, but you cannot put as much force on them as the short handle scrapers. 

After you have scraped along the walls, you can begin to scrape the carpet glue. Carpet glue is one of the hardest things to get off the concrete. You might have to use a solvent to help loosen the glue up. Be sure you have gotten all the glue by splashing water onto the concrete floors and checking to see if any more shows up. 

Once you are done scraping, you can begin to use the floor machine with the black scrubbing pads to get all the residue and anything else left behind on the concrete. Begin by pouring some water on the concrete in a small section then start the floor machine and go over the concrete in a controlled manner. Be sure not to let the water dry on the concrete floors. Use the shop vac to get the dirty water up.

Again, the most important part in having beautiful stained concrete floors is doing a good job in the prep work. The concrete stain is transparent and will show any left behind paint or glue that was left on the concrete floors.

Next post will talk about how to patch chips in the concrete and repair cracks. Stay tuned!



Thanks for reading,

Michael
MVL Concrete

Welcome to MVL Concrete's Blog

Welcome to MVL Concrete's blog!

MVl Concrete is a concrete company serving San Antonio, TX. We started of by providing services to homeowners, but we are starting to build relationships with general contractors and designers. What does this mean for you? We will be blogging and helping those home owners that love to tackle their own home renovation projects. Mainly providing helpfull information to those who are about to stain their concrete floors, pour a small concrete sidewalk, or do general concrete repairs.

We will also post pictures that will help you design your next project, and post videos showing you the steps that are needed in completing a certain task. Feel free to ask questions about how to do something, and if needed request a video demonstartion on how to do that task is done.

Decorative concrete is a very fun and a very easy task to accomplish with the right information on how to complete the job.

Here is a picture of a job we did in the past, we colored the concrete using a concrete acetone dye and sealed the concrete with a solvent based sealer.




Have a good day,

Michael
http://www.mvlconcrete.com/