prepping for acid stain, mistake #1?
Hi everyone,
I have a 20 year old slab I would like to acid stain (interior). The floor has some decent cracks with a bit of heaving between the two sides, plus plenty of paint, dwall mud a bit of carpet pad glue and some vinyl flooring glue. I decided to rent a floor buffer with the diamond inserts to grind the top layer of the slab, which worked well. I now have a very clean floor with all of the original concrete "glazing" removed and a bit of a terazzo look showing. I am thinking I created a problem for myself, with grinding the dust into the open pores of the slab.I have rinsed the floor and vacummed the water up but still get a small amount of dust when I run fingers across clean dry areas. So what will it take to completly dedust the floor? also should I expect the acid stain to come out much darker because of the open pore structure? Finally what is typical, cost wise (per square foot) for all the stain/sealers/cleaners etc?
thanks for the input
Thank you for the reply.
So should I not be concened about the dust that remains in the slab? Can it affect the micro topping? If I tried to stain the concrete in it's current condition woul the results be bad?
Thanks again
vacuum the dust up and then damp mop the floor. Acid stain it and see what you get. If there is enough surface left over from grinding the stain might take. Then you could dye the rest if it needs more colour. If you don;t like the results then go the microtopping route. You have these choices ahead of you because of grinding off the previous surface. Or just dye the floor and seal.
I think grinding is the best option which successfully detached the part that would typically recognize the aced stain.
Now you have a perfect surface to apply a mico-topping to aced stain. By grinding the top off your slab you effectively removed the part that would typically accept the aced stain. But that is not a bad thing in this case. Hire somebody to install a micro topping. probably cost you 2.00 a square ft or slightly less as you have done most of the prep. When that is dry, you can acid stain to your hearts content. Acid stain will cost you 75.00 a gallon (approx) and then to seal the floor will cost you 40.00 a gallon for a generic sealer.