Burnishing concrete has been done for years. It was done to make floors harder and more durable. The process will also bring out different colors and used with diamond pads, will make it look similar to polished concrete. One of the pictures appears to clearly show a puddle of some sort. This leads me to believe there was more going on than burnishing. Also, burnished floors are more labor intensive and no contractor is going to do this without specifying and charging for it. It would be nice to have a couple more up close shots as well as a wide angle shot. Let us know what you find out.
Any concrete experts in here? Or contractors that are familiar enough with concrete?
- Thread starter Teal Terminator
- Start date
I don't have any updated pics but it sounds like they came in a couple of days ago and "sanded on it," per my mom. She said it still didn't look great and now had shiny spots and dull spots. But I think my dad is about fed up with dealing with it and may have worked something out with the GC to where the floor cost may have been subtracted from the job total. My dad may not like how it looks but for a given amount off the price he may be able to live with it. As I told my parents, I think after they get the RV, a car, the lift, the tractor, a lawn mower or two, tables, cabinets, etc in there it may break up the inconsistencies in the floor enough that it won't bother them as much. To be determined...
Based on the pictures given, I think it is hard to comment on the actual "finish" of the concrete. The pictures clearly show that sealer was put on the slab. My guess would be that they used Rez-Seal or Cure-N-Seal or a similar product typical of residential work. It looks to me that they could have done a better job applying the sealer. To speak to the "commercial white stuff", these products are generally strictly curing compounds that are supposed to be dissipating. The reason for this is usually because a floor covering is going to be used and there is a concern for adhesion.
I think the breakdown here unfortunately begins with the GC having a clear expectation of what the customer wanted. Mainly something similar to a Lowes or Home Depot floor. If this expectation was passed on then the breakdown came either the GC not educating the customer on what that would involve or from the GC not passing down said expectation to concrete finisher. If it was passed to concrete finisher then the finisher should have educated the GC what that would involve and give a quote according to the expectation plus a quote for typical residential practices and let the GC/Owner decide what they want. Based on what little I see in the pictures I would say that the customer received typical residential practices.
To speak to the expectation of a "flat" floor. I agree, the customer should expect a relatively "flat" floor consistent with typical residential placing methods. This is assuming that you do not have any floor drains which would then create high spots and valleys in which water would flow to the drains.
To speak to the expectation of a "uniform color/texture". On a steel trowled finished floor it is unrealistic to expect uniformity. The process just does not allow it and the concrete finisher has little control over it (when using typical industry standards for the finishing process when expectations are not conveyed), Basically when the finisher is told to pour a garage slab and they want a slick finish you can expect non-uniformity because they are going to use typically a walk-behind trowel machine and the slab is going to "blackout" differently across the slab with increasing passes of the trowel machine. This is due to multiple reasons whether it is the type of day cloudy/sunny, inside/outside, shade/or sunny in areas, to different concrete truck loads that set at different times and on and on.
If it were to be done over again with the expectation of uniformity I would recommend a couple options. First we would use plastic blades on the trowel machine, we use these especially when finishing an integral colored floor when uniformity is an absolute must. Also i would suggest curing the slab with wet cure blankets. We use PNA Hydra cure blankets, these do a great job of curing the slab uniformly. This is very important as well, I believe you will find that over time your puddled areas will stay darker longer and the lighter sealed areas will begin to "bleach out" sooner based on differential curing. Then if a sealer is still wanted we would roll the sealer like you would roll on paint. Much easier to control uniformity and thickness. My guess is that they put it in a pump up sprayer and went to town (again very typical construction method).
As far as your dad wanting to epxoy the floor, just make sure that what ever product he chooses would be compatiable with a xylene based sealer. I am assuming they used a xylene based product for the sealer based on products mentioned above and typical industry standards.
On to their fix. Sounds like to me that they are trying to buff the floor down in hopes to 1. Knock the sheen of the sealer which will start to actually make the slab surface appear more uniform but it will not get any more uniform than that of the concrete surface below. 2. Knock the edges of the puddled sealer to again make it appear more uniform. These puddles generally appear where they have to stop to pump the sprayer back up and sealer drips out of the tip onto the floor.
Another option to the fix is that they can take actual xylene and re-emulsify the sealer on the slab. (turn it back to gooey) and strip it off the slab. It is possible however it is very messy as you can imagine and time consuming.
I'm sorry that your dad had this experience. I understand that this can be very frustrating and basically a huge bummer from his stand point. I appreciate you posting this up as it is yet another good reminder to us that do this for a living to make sure we communicate effectively with our customers.
I think the breakdown here unfortunately begins with the GC having a clear expectation of what the customer wanted. Mainly something similar to a Lowes or Home Depot floor. If this expectation was passed on then the breakdown came either the GC not educating the customer on what that would involve or from the GC not passing down said expectation to concrete finisher. If it was passed to concrete finisher then the finisher should have educated the GC what that would involve and give a quote according to the expectation plus a quote for typical residential practices and let the GC/Owner decide what they want. Based on what little I see in the pictures I would say that the customer received typical residential practices.
To speak to the expectation of a "flat" floor. I agree, the customer should expect a relatively "flat" floor consistent with typical residential placing methods. This is assuming that you do not have any floor drains which would then create high spots and valleys in which water would flow to the drains.
To speak to the expectation of a "uniform color/texture". On a steel trowled finished floor it is unrealistic to expect uniformity. The process just does not allow it and the concrete finisher has little control over it (when using typical industry standards for the finishing process when expectations are not conveyed), Basically when the finisher is told to pour a garage slab and they want a slick finish you can expect non-uniformity because they are going to use typically a walk-behind trowel machine and the slab is going to "blackout" differently across the slab with increasing passes of the trowel machine. This is due to multiple reasons whether it is the type of day cloudy/sunny, inside/outside, shade/or sunny in areas, to different concrete truck loads that set at different times and on and on.
If it were to be done over again with the expectation of uniformity I would recommend a couple options. First we would use plastic blades on the trowel machine, we use these especially when finishing an integral colored floor when uniformity is an absolute must. Also i would suggest curing the slab with wet cure blankets. We use PNA Hydra cure blankets, these do a great job of curing the slab uniformly. This is very important as well, I believe you will find that over time your puddled areas will stay darker longer and the lighter sealed areas will begin to "bleach out" sooner based on differential curing. Then if a sealer is still wanted we would roll the sealer like you would roll on paint. Much easier to control uniformity and thickness. My guess is that they put it in a pump up sprayer and went to town (again very typical construction method).
As far as your dad wanting to epxoy the floor, just make sure that what ever product he chooses would be compatiable with a xylene based sealer. I am assuming they used a xylene based product for the sealer based on products mentioned above and typical industry standards.
On to their fix. Sounds like to me that they are trying to buff the floor down in hopes to 1. Knock the sheen of the sealer which will start to actually make the slab surface appear more uniform but it will not get any more uniform than that of the concrete surface below. 2. Knock the edges of the puddled sealer to again make it appear more uniform. These puddles generally appear where they have to stop to pump the sprayer back up and sealer drips out of the tip onto the floor.
Another option to the fix is that they can take actual xylene and re-emulsify the sealer on the slab. (turn it back to gooey) and strip it off the slab. It is possible however it is very messy as you can imagine and time consuming.
I'm sorry that your dad had this experience. I understand that this can be very frustrating and basically a huge bummer from his stand point. I appreciate you posting this up as it is yet another good reminder to us that do this for a living to make sure we communicate effectively with our customers.
the shiny spots and dull spots that your mom talked about is probably because the floor is "bumpy" so the floor buffer that I am assuming that they are using hits the high spots more and bridges the lows spots so the high spots look dull and the low spots look shiny.
If you moved to Florida you'd make a killing!!!
I've been in the ready mix producer business a long time, and I can tell you from first hand experience that it's always our fault. Guilty until proven innocent.
The 2 biggest enemies of concrete are water and a bad finisher.................
To the OP, whatever product they use make sure it is not a water based product as the durability is not the same as solvent based products. The problem there is that it is becoming more and more difficult to find good products due to more stringent VOC (volatile organic compound) materials.
LOL, yeah I don't know. May have to look into that. I have heard that the market seems to be turning back around in Florida. Has this been the case in your region?
It's not to the level where it was in 2006 and 2007 (nor should it ever be again!), but things certainly turned around.
We just finished a foundation pour this year (over 11k YD3 continuous) for the Porsche Towers in Sunny Isles, Fl. One of the coolest buildings I've ever been a part of.
Thanks a lot for the input 97svt. I will pass your comments along to my parents. I think the epoxy option is out, which I figured it would be, so he's either just going to live with it or they are going to grind it down.
No problem at all.
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