“This last winter, our church family built our own building.

My husband and I volunteered and did the entry room concrete floor project in January / february this year, using endurable stain and sealer products. We were very happy with the products and I plan to redo our basement with them in the future.

I spoke with Brian a few times in preparation for the project and told him I’d put together a project picture packet for him to use as a reference, so here is the link to the pictures and below is the description of the job. https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/104015961257311692003/albums/6036774197987610833#photos/104015961257311692003/albums/6036774197987610833

 Job details:

Approx. 1200 sq. ft., new concrete, cut into large squares.

Preparation:

The concrete was hardened with a chemical hardener when it was poured and we discovered it was water tight, so we had to use a concrete grinder to open up the pores (It took about 65 hours of grinding time using one grinder to break through the sealed surface and give it a nice stainable finish). We could not afford to rent the machine another day and there were a few spots we could’ve worked on, but for the most part, it was all ready to go. I did some water tests to make sure and even the spots I was worried about would at that point absorb the water after a little bit.  We then filled the cuts around the squares with dark brown grout. We also found out the concrete had fiber mesh in it, I’ll talk about that later. After grinding and grouting, we cleaned the floor thoroughly and then mopped with a steam vac. (two times) and let dry well. We taped off the walls with painters plastic.

Staining:

We used four colors:

Base color (two heavy coats, then we buffed the floor to remove the extra residue and make sure the stain was not going to wipe right off, and it didn’t) AMBER

The next three colors applied in single coats, lightly sprayed as highlight colors:

Second color RUST

Third color DARK CHOCOLATE

Fourth color OBSIDIAN

Then we used the Endurable Sealer (Three coats)

First coat was sprayed on as recommended. Second coat applied with low speed buffer, which I’m not sure I will use again, because the pad left some little pieces of itself in the sealer. I prefer using the T-bar applicator, it gives a nice finish.

After the second coat of sealer was dry, we discovered a big problem. The mesh fibers in the concrete were being pulled up to the surface by the sealer. They were like little spikes sticking out. So, we realized we had to remove them before adding another coat. We took a risk and tried using a 6” floor scraper. Amazingly, it broke off the little pieces and did not scratch the floor much, so we did the whole floor, cleaned it well, then where there were minor scratches in the sealer (the stain did not get scratched), we applied a little stain with a paper towel, and buffed them with a dry paper towel and it was like the scratches never happened. Then we applied the third coat of sealer with the T-bar. After that process, we used an acrylic topcoat called Liquid Iron (two coats of that). We are unhappy with this product because it is too soft and scratches easily, so we will buff it off and will be applying the Endurable F-1 sealer the next time we recoat the top of the surface. For now, however, the floor looks great and I will recommend your products to anyone who asks.”