There are two types of products you can use for staining concrete floors.
Acid painted concrete floor.
For many years it was a standard method of concrete preparation used by nearly all industrial commercial and institutional floor coating installers depending on the floor size and system to be installed.
If you re just removing mineral deposits efflorescence use a much weaker mix 10 1 or 16 1 for muriatic acid.
Use a floor buffer for scuffing away the loosened spots of paint.
If the concrete surface is painted or sealed acid stains cannot penetrate the concrete and react with the lime.
A moist surface isn t ideal for further cleaning or painting.
In the end we were left with a surface that was far from perfectly smooth but that we knew would work for the look we were going for.
A floor buffer is a fast moving high powered machine.
Rather than coating the floor in one entire color concrete stains create a pigmented marbled effect.
Here are the pros and cons of each.
Concrete paints completely cover and protect the concrete surface but require a lot of prep work.
Allow the cleaned surface to dry.
Therefore a concrete surface that is painted or sealed cannot be acid stained.
Acid based stain and water based stain.
Acid etching solutions or stains are a different look take more time and skill to transform your floors completely.
If your painted concrete floors scratch touch up with concrete floor paint and epoxy paint.
Painting concrete floors finishes.
How to repaint concrete floors.
Our floor required a mixture of grinding filling divots with concrete crack filler using acid cleaners filling and leveling out tension breaks in our floor sanding and scraping.
Before you can apply a concrete paint clean it with degreasers to get rid of any oil or grease stains followed by muriatic acid to remove any curing chemicals on the concrete s surface.
Solid colors borders or stencils are great tools for painting concrete floors.
Step 2 buff the concrete surface.
You can rent a floor buffer from a hardware supply store.
The chemical stains or acid stains react with the concrete s lime content and produce the color.
Concrete paint can be purchased in either latex or oil based epoxy enamel.
Acid based and water based stains.
It also won t fade peel or chip.
Doing the prep work before you repaint a concrete floor avoids a peeling paint job later.
As with floor paints there are two primary types of floor stains from which to choose.
Acid staining and sealed.
Mix 3 to 4 parts water with 1 part acid or follow label instructions for a 10 concentration 15 for hard smooth concrete.
Acid etching is the process of applying hydrochloric muriatic or buffered phosphoric acid to a slab then rinsing it off with water.
