Ok hard floor experts. Chew on this

[daniel@procarpet]

It took me a good 45 minutes to an hour to download photos and post this. Enjoy.

My friend owns a couple tanning salons (multi millionaire by the way). He just opened a new store and the floors look great. This floor however looks dirty, very dull, and lots of scrapes. He told me he wants the floors cleaned (He has no clue how much work is going to be involved in getting this floor to look decent). The floor when installed was sealed and several coats of finish were applied. I am no stone expert but this floor is going to need to be stripped, sealed, and refinished. I will need to use a mild stripper if there is such a thing. I don’t want to strip off the stain. He really isn’t happy with the way the stain came out in this location anyways. I wish I had pictures of the other store. I guess my objective is to get the floors clean and shiny. They were mopping with pine sol and bleach and I told them to stop that right away and that I would get them a good neutral floor cleaner. I do some stripping and it is HARD work. This is a pretty big job and will likely take me two nights to complete. Any comments on procedure, products, and pricing would be appreciated. I am just going to charge high enough that if I do the job I will smile all the way to the bank. No need to be cheap on a job like this. Please do not post if you have never done this type of flooring or don’t specialize in concrete/stone work.

 

[Jeremy]

What FCC said. Looks like stained concrete to me.

 

[floorguy]

We do one kind of like this.... stained poorly, and just looks like overall crap...so we make what we can out of it....

use some type of cleaner, or stripper at half strength, scrub it in, suck it up, rinse really well, and throw some finish on it....Then every, however long do it again..

that is about all you can do with it..

ohhh tell them to quit draggin shit on the floor to...

charge between .30-.50 a ft..or what ever you charge for stripping, its going to be almost identical to stripping normal floors.....only difference is....NOT AS MUCH DETAIL/EDGE WORK!!!!!!

woot

there ya go

 

[Ron Lippold]

clean with judsons mixed heavy red pad rinse and put 5-7 coats of concrete finish on it. if you do this and do it right 1 hr dry time for first coat and progressively less time for drying there after. you will never have to take that floor all the way back down.

just my two cents..

 

[daniel@procarpet]

A floor like this done correctly should look like glass or polished marble. That is usually acheived with diamond pads. Will stripping, sealing, and applying like six coats of concrete finish give that wet polished look? I know a guy that had a job similar to this only smaller and really didn't want to do it. He quoted 5k and they gave him the job which took 4 hours. :shock:

 

[daniel@procarpet]

I've done many of them correctly..................never touched them with diamond pads (did grind a few bad pours).

Do some reading as to how a floor is prepped, acid stained, and how the best visual results are achieved through sealers and waxes. Although similar to say stone work or vct there is enough difference in technique and products to make research worthwhile. Not to say there aren't broke dicks here that don't know but I think you will find better answers elsewhere.

http://www.kemiko.com/do_it_yourself.htm
http://www.scofield.com/decorativeconcrete.html
http://www.decorativeconcreteforums.com/index.php

I did some research and found some great basecoats, sealers, and finishes.

 

[Ron Lippold]

if you want a ultra shine use the platiunm plus it has the highest shine i have seen with out diamond pads.

 

[floorguy]

Without being there and looking as to wether or not they tried to top it with uretheyne, a topcoat finish wax is your best choice...

 

[alazo1]

That floor looks like it's been abused. The white spots, are those areas pitted from crap being dropped?. I'd say the same as most, strip and reseal. If there are pits you can fill and spot dye before recoating. I'd test first though.

Albert