For a small patio with the typical 3-6 inch thick concrete a jack hammer is pretty quick. Even the little electric ones will do the job. Expansive mortar is very good for thicker (8 inch and up) slabs, or if the vibration from a jack hammer is a problem. A rotary hammer drill (the big one, not the little ones) goes through concrete like butter under its own weight. I bore 1 inch holes up to about 8 inches, and larger for thicker slabs. Thick slabs are still back-hoe or skid-steer territory since the pieces are very heavy. Expansive mortar must be used with care or it can damage things near the edge of the slab. No cracking of basement floors. The walls and footers can be damaged by the expansion force. It is a real cool process though. Drill holes, mix mortar, pour in, return the next day to a broken up slab.

Thanks for the advice - drywall is not an option right now with this timeframe...our son is in college and our daughter is a junior in high school so at this point, we won't be finishing the basement. We do have a bonus media/pool table room on the first floor so this is the usual teen hangout --it's just not big enough for dancing. I did buy some silver tarps and some beige drop cloths to see which one will work better. I was planning on stapling them to the floor joists above. There are some hvac ducts and pipes that we will have to work around so we would need to cut the material to fit around these. I was thinking of trimming this out with duct tape if we use the tarps and with patterned burlap ribbon if we use the drop cloths. Are we safe to have the tarps or fabric next to the hvac ducts? Found a cool large silver ornament that looks like a disco ball on sale at Hobby Lobby and bought 5 strings of white lights so far. The main problem is hiding the storage area. This post was edited by baseballmom94 on Tue, Dec 10, 13 at 11:27

Your photo looks like a surface stain rather than an integral color. Depends on the look you want. We did have some pigment added to ours, just so it would be less "sidewalk" colored. We are really happy with how it turned out. We do have hydronic heat, which is wonderful. That alone requires serious insulation since you don't want to be heating up the earth. Our contractor was extremely fussy with the subs regarding protection of the slab during construction. The whole thing was always covered with a layer of Ramboard and a layer of a felt-like geotextile. (Think of all the things that go on during construction with your finish floor already in place.) I think it was after the interior construction that the concrete guy came back and did the polishing and sealing steps. (We looked at tiling the slab instead, but it was going to be another 10K)

Hi @Lynn Morford, I hate to jinx things, but now three months in, I LOVE the floors. I fact, I admire them many times a day (good distraction from current CV craziness). There are about a dozen spots where there were dings or tiny cracks, which freaked me out at first, but I'm pretty sure it was just from the movers. I do take care of them like a newborn child, though--sweep, vacuum, wipe, repeat. Overall, I'm very happy with them! @everdebz, we ended up gluing down. Definitely harder on my body that floating but I've learned to wear slippers or socks and I have yoga mats in most rooms to give my feet a little vacation as I walk through the house, lol. In the end, I trusted @joseph_corlett's comment about letting the contractor make the call on what is best for the situation. Granted, I still pine for the perfect floating feel of my old Junckers flooring, but apparently theirs were unique and most other flooring can't float the same way, so... Anyway, the sad fact is, you can't remove glue-downs without destroying the boards. So fingers crossed you never have to! (I put fake wood in my laundry room and we've already had three floods, so thank god for that decision.)