As Virgil says, there are two approaches. Here's the other approach.

David Vandervort Architects AIA · More Info

Polished concrete floors are much better looking and much more durable than stained floors. Perhaps the OP will consider polishing her/his floors for better effect and less maintenance.

Get that mess ground off of there pronto is what everyone is politely dancing around. They don't have a clue how to do stained concrete. A kindergarten fingerprinting class would do better. Looks like they used opaque paints rather than a chemically reactive acid stain.

I was thinking the same thing, Sophie. I think I am going to leave it and budget to put the floor I want over it next year.

R

What flooring do you want to go over it? Because if it involves adhering to the slab, that slab will need that mess ground off. Better to do that now without the house being full of people and furnishings.

When I finished my old basement I used a concrete stain on part of the slab where we had the exercise room. It came out like yours. Worked for the exercise room but honestly it's a bit rough. When we put the house on the market we removed the equipment and carpeted the room.

We did our office a few years ago, I'm very happy with them. We had carpet before, so prep work before staining was brutal. How was yours applied? Hard to tell not seeing in person, but it looks like an issue with prep work and/or application.

We used Kemiko products.

Yes, they used Kemiko. We figure we will have to strip it to put down tile or put wood flooring over it.

Frankly, we have been at this for two years and I would rather deal with it as is and just cover it next year than tell them to fix it because I am tired of the delays.

R

Russ, do it now because it will be an even greater problem once you have furniture and stuff in the house. The extra time now will pay off in the long run.

I cannot do anything now. The budget will not allow another 10k more in flooring. Thanks, but it is what it is. I will fix it next year.

Get some pretty rugs for now. :)

Do you have a price for polishing the floor? It would radically change the appearance of the stained slab, making it look more like terrazzo, and be durable with minimal maintenance for a very long time.

Regardless, did you have the slab saw cut as a means to limit and manage cracking?

Virgil, I appreciate all your input, I really do.. but if I had known enough about stained concrete to know to cut the slab or whatever, I probably would not have been in this mess. You are totally right about the state of the floors. Just doubt I can really do much with them. MAYBE they can cover them with a darker stain.. but that too will really darken the entire house.

I totally do appreciate the input, but I think my only recourse right now is to have them strip it and then leave it so I have more options after they get the heck out of my home.. heh

Sorry.. just in a grumpy mood atm... burnt two sides of french toast trying to use the crap appliances they have in this apartment and no contact from the builders as of yet after two days since I sent them an email, so I am not sure what options I have other than I know "I" can install engineered wood later and cover the mess up.

If I can get them to strip the sealer before they do anything else, since it is a good time to do it, that will at least leave me with an option of Tile as well. We will see.

Again, thanks for the input, really, I just am pretty much stuck with this junk now.

R

Yay!!!

Fingers crossed for you, for a happy ending!!!

Oh, just so you can see the other really bad shots...

Just to give you an idea of the depth of crappyness :P

Great news. Now make sure they do it the way Virgil suggested.

Oh my - I hadn't seen how they missed everything. Did someone only give them a pint of stain and said "make it last?"

Glad it's going to get some attention.

Hang in there!

Yea, the frustrating part was we told them "artistic license.. thrill us".

I told the builder, my mistake was not knowing they were monkeys, not artists.. lol

We flat out made a promise to ourselves we were not going to keep going over budget. We wanted 2 colors, Vintage Umber with a Cola accent. We had seen that and thought it was nice. They wanted another 2000-3000 to add the cola accents. We said no, but sent them photos of floors with just Vintage Umber and told them not to make it a solid color.. just to swirl it and give it some pizazz...

What we got was laughingly embarrassing. They did not clean off the excess acid/stain, they sprayed water over areas that had not been allowed to absorb any stain. They applied it by pouring it in areas and swashing it around. They did not do the entire floor. They did not allow the stain time to dry. They applied sealant before it had dried.

And what they DID do....just was horrible.

The builder defended them, until they saw the photos and then they were like, "omg!"

So, now we go back to the flooring company and we figure out what can be done to fix it.

If they CANNOT fix it, they will need to cover it, at their expense. If that occurs, my rule is.. NO transitions.. and that leaves either a tile floor everywhere OR hardwood flooring, whether that is engineered wood or whatever.

The "fix" cannot be making the floor darker. We cannot and will not let them make it darker.

Anyway, thanks for the input, all of you. It is frustrating because the "fix" could be a hell of a lot of money for 1950 sq ft of flooring.

R

Oh my, Russ. I wish you the best. Those edges are truly awful.

On the bright side, at least your builder agrees and is willing to work with you on a fix. It's clearly inexperienced work with unacceptable results.

Polished could still be a better option depending on professional availability. I would be concerned with any covering finishes (tile, wood) adhesion, if the sealer was applied to uncleaned/neutralized stain.

I've educated myself for years on decorative concrete and am still overwhelmed by the options and techniques so others should contradict me if I over generalize here. Polished concrete is often the best looking and least maintenance, but is not zero maintenance and some professionals still recommend topical guards.

Usually, a more decorative aggregate is added in the concrete mix for polished jobs but increasingly, people are specifying a light paste grind which doesn't expose as much of the aggregate. Still, even a paste grind will expose more sand and aggregate which will not take color like the paste layer of unpolished concrete.

Unpolished, stained and sealed concrete gives you the most opportunity for control over color and offers the most interesting details of variation. The film building sealers and waxes are what make the colors pop and require maintenance to keep them from wearing away. Product availability in this area has exploded in recent years with polyaspartics, polyurethanes and epoxies offering better durability that could result in less maintenance than a polished floor.

Highly variegated and contrasting colors from acid staining are not for everyone and polishing typically results in a more uniform and subdued decorative surface.

So there is a difference in stained concrete vs polished concrete?

Polished concrete is often the best looking and least maintenance, but
is not zero maintenance ....

Re-polishing? Buffing? Coating?

How long between care in a lightly used residential basement?

In one home I built, the polished granite lobby was pristine after six years. The marble baths were all in sore need of professional care.

starting new thread on polished / finished concrete....

Probably called for Jannicone, here it is thanks. Worthy, do you mean the concrete had granite aggregate? Granite by itself is probably the longest lasting building material available. A deep grind into concrete with granite aggregate is arguably more durable than concrete mixes with softer stone aggregate. The bigger the granite gravel, the more surface is exposed and the tougher it should be overall.

Concrete Network has this on maintaining high traffic polished concrete. I think it's mostly about keeping gritty dust and dirt at bay. Roughing up the surface of polished concrete dulls the shine and opens up the pores which makes it more easily damaged. The hardness of concrete is dependent on the mix recipe, installation, it's cure and potentially densification products.

Curious what care was needed for the marble? Grout and caulk lines? I guess marble's porosity can vary and some may need waterproofing sealers more than others?

Russ, stained concrete can be either polished or unpolished. Polished concrete is a big step up in price and arguably performance from typical stained and sealed concrete. Polishing relies on mechanical grinding with diamond pads.

When concrete is finished (smoothed after placement), it results in more cement and finer sand particles at the very top surface (paste layer). Grinding this paste layer slightly or completely away is the polishing process. The paste layer accepts stains and dyes more readily and the more you grind or polish, the more that coarser aggregate is exposed, which generally does not take on the color of stains or dyes.

The concrete network has a lot of good info on polishing concrete. Something to keep in mind is that polishing is less DIY than simple stain and seal. Retailers and decorative concrete pros have more to sell and gain with pushing polishing over the easier techniques. Your unfortunate situation is a good example of why it may be better to hire an experienced professional.

Russ wrote, "...So there is a difference in stained concrete vs polished concrete?..."

You betchum, Red Ryder! That's what I've been trying to tell you...:-)

Worthy, do you mean the concrete had granite aggregate?

No, it was polished granite tiles.

Curious what care was needed for the marble?

The surface was greatly dulled. I haven't used marble since then except for a couple of lightly-used guest baths. Instead, polished or honed quartz and slate; porcelain tile and wood. Luxury homebuyers here soured on polished marble lobbies after the '80s, when they were everywhere. However, they've come back with a vengeance.

(Aside: the biggest local marble mistake here was cladding the 72 storey First Canadian Place in Carrara marble when it was built in 1975. Amazing dazzling in the sun! But barely 35 years later, the 45,000 slabs were discolouring, fracturing, curling and falling, resulting in a $100 million makeover in 2011.)

I considered using polished concrete for basement flooring in 2004, but couldn't find anyone interested in even quoting. Maybe, I was ahead of the curve!

I have learned a lot today.

Okay, I contacted the Kemiko mfg. They were super helpful and are reviewing the photos to advise on what options we may have as well as what could possibly have gone wrong...key word possible as too many variables they do not know about.

I got an email from the builder to call the floor company.

I called the floor company and they were super nice as they tried to explain how the "chemicals in the wood" possibly leeched onto the concrete and caused the stain not to affect the concrete close to the wood.

They said the concrete had "dips" or "indentures" in it that caused "pooling, the black spots.

I listened and explained that 1 - the "pooling" has outwards flows showing that it started there. If it all pooled down to those areas, then show me where the streaks are going INTO the pools..they are all going OUT of the pools.

Secondly, the wood "seeping chemicals" is something experience should have taught the installer to look/watch for.

Lastly, I stated, bottom line, in the end, this is an embarrassing floor install and it needs to be fixed so we should look at what options are available to fix it. If I bring in the 3-4 Kemiko distributors in Austin and ask them their thoughts on this floor and whether they think a person that may be contemplating using this product would be swayed to do so by this floor, the answer would be "hell no!". So...he said he will call me back.

He has the guy they had install the stain call me.

He, again, very nicely explained "this happens every time I try to do someone a favor..." and states "you wanted it to look like it was two colors".

My answer to him is:

1 - I never met or spoke to you or the flooring company, so I am not sure what favor you think I asked for.

2 - I have the email I sent to the builder, it specifically said I wanted the "swirling effect".. i.e. a standard install, not two colors.

He told me again about the dips, the wood, the concrete blah blah blah..

My answer was, again, at the end of the day, and nothing personal, this is an embarrassing floor. It needs to be fixed. I am only interested in whether that happens and it does not happen on my dime.

I looked at the timeline and email chains.

We got an email at 4pm on Monday that they needed us to pick a color.

We emailed at 6pm the color. We said we wanted a Vintage Umber with Cola accent, but when we found the price was 2k more, we said all we wanted was the "swirl" effect. We even sent them photos that said like this:

What we did NOT want was this:

Both are Vintage Umber.... applied differently.

We went by the house Thursday morning to get the kids on the bus and saw the floors had been stained, but it was too dark for us to take pictures.

We showed up that afternoon/evening about 5:30pm and the guy was applying the sealant to the floor.

So, we spoke with Kemiko and they stated that for THEM to do an application like this (the swirling effect) is a normal application and they do about 800-1000 sq ft max per day.

They test the sample on a hidden area to make sure the amount of stain needed to effect the color desired.

Then they apply a first coat.

Then they apply a second coat

Then they apply a 'deactivater" to stop the chemical reaction occurring between the concrete (actually the lime in the concrete) and the stain. Without this step, the stain can keep working and change colors etc.

They then wash off all the excess stain etc and then let it dry for at least 48 hours.

Then they come back in and add whatever sealant is required, there are more than one choices.

They come back later and add a wax.

So, based on the timeline, the concrete could not have been really prepared and/or cleaned, and 2000 sq ft in one single day tells me there was nothing but speed applied to this install, not art.. not professionalism, not care.

Nothing but incompetence accounts for this... or lack of experience and neither of those were what we paid for.

So, I am going armed with knowledge tomorrow and, in the end, they will make this floor right. If they do not, THEN it becomes an issue I take up with the builder and I know they will do whatever makes me happy....

I will let you all know what happens tomorrow!

Russ

yup! I have timestamps on the photos and everything ;)

Good luck Russ. Your build is turning into everyone's worst nightmare and it sounds like the guy at the floor company has developed a line of BS to avoid dealing with his mistakes. I'm so sorry.

It will be fine. I am finding everything they do wrong. With my experience, and a lot of good help here on these forums, I catch everything that is important.

It's only a headache till I make them fix it.

The line of BS from the flooring folks in epic. They must get away with such nonsense SOMETIMES or else they wouldn't try it, right? It's a sad statement that someone buys that crap.

I can paraphrase their excuses into: (said with best whiny voice) "yeah, but this is hard..."

Life is hard. Know how to do work professionally, or find another line of business.

Just have them grind it off and polish it. If densifiers were not part of the mix, it may be porous and stain for a while. Like a garage Floor. But, if you want wood or tile later, there won't be anything to grind off then to be able to put that wood or tile down. Because if you have them go through the process all over again to glop it up, you will still have to have it ground again before they can glue down wood or tile. If you're only talking 1200 sf, then you might be talking 12K for wood. But you'd be talking at least $2500-$5000 for grinding off whatever you put on it now.

Thanks Sophie. That was what I was going to suggest. It is about 2000 sq ft, a little under. They have spent at least $6k on it so far. No matter what, they will have to sand and grind it down, even if all they want to do is apply more stain. That, like you said, would/should run them another 5k, easy. Now, since it is so bad, my mind is, they have not earned the first 6k, so.. if you add it all up, they could be better off just saying to hell with it and laying wood over the entire thing.

But, I will give them the option to fix it any way they wish, so long as it is done right, and I do not have to give up anything I should have gotten before.. i.e. no transitions, quality work, and a floor that is not darker than the Vintage Umber.

I do not mind going a tad darker, if it is matching the tile that is supposed to go all upstairs.

R

Update: Okay, so we got out there and it was quite interesting. Just an FYI - here is a tip for when you meet with people like this.. lol

They normally see me in shorts and/or a Hawaiian shirt etc. Yesterday, I wore my jeans, boots, long sleeve shirt and black Stetson. When dealing with a working-class person, they tend to look at the laid back look at city slicker etc and an outsider.

The builder and the contractor, whom I have met more than once, did not recognize me.. lol.. threw them off their game ;)

Anyway, the contractor that did the work was there and he had brought samples of what the work should look like, to prove it looked like what he had done.

The builder had sent a representative, and we had time to talk beforehand and he was very helpful and on my side.

The owner of the flooring company also sent someone, may have been him, but all I know was his name is "Bill". (literally, that is all I know.. heh)

I was calm, nice, polite, met them tit for tat on every excuse. It shocked them that I was able to finish their sentences when it came to "Fly ash" and "lime" and "chemical reaction" etc, because I had already spoken to the tech guy at Kemiko/Quaker Chemicals.

They tried to use the same excuses etc, and I flat out ask, "Did you do a sample area?" To which they replied, "no, you got us there, we should have done a sample area" and had they done so, they would/could have discovered the issue.

At this point, it was one of two times I got "nasty"... Bill goes and finds a nice spot in the kitchen along the only wall that has a good area and says, "Well, we normally find a spot under a kitchen cabinet and if we had tested, this is what you would have seen."

I played along for a second and pointed at all the other sections in the kitchen and said, "okay, well you may have tested here...and this would have been bad, correct?"

To which he replied, "no, we would have tested here.. and you would have signed off on this."

That was when I got nasty and told him, "Look, don't play this d&^n game of semantics with me, Bill. You could have tested anywhere. You found a nice spot and claim we would have signed off on it if you have. You could have done it there, could have done it anywhere, but the bottom line is, you did not test, you did not follow the process, so stop telling me what you might have done and focus on the things you did or did not do." and he shut up.

THEN.. the contractor, a few minutes later, goes, "Well, I am going to say something and it will make a few people mad, but here it is...I get tired of people that go cheap and expect a high end product". That got me riled, "I said, Let me stop you right there. We did not go cheap just because we decided not to pay for two colors, we paid a good price for a good product and we expect a good quality installation. If you did not want the money or the job, you did not have to do it. This is a $400k dollar house, this is not a damn trailer. Don't justify us choosing a product that is better on our budget as the reason you did not deliver the quality this product can give."

He too let that go.

In the end, they blamed it on too much lime, bad mixture of the concrete, high concentrations of fly ash (30-40%?).

I countered that with "you did not test. You went too fast. You were hired as experienced and should have known."

The icing on the cake was the contractor made statements that "the acid did not fizz and should have fizzed. The color appeared, so he continued." Also, "I saw it was having problems and almost stopped, but decided to continue and should have stopped".

They claimed they did 2 coats and a neutralizer and then we proved the acid had not been neutralized because even the owner goes, "this is darker than when we saw it last" and it was darker than the pictures we had from after it was sealed.

They are going to strip it down as much as possible and then try a lighter color to try and blend it. The goal is "all the way to the edges" and the "Nebula" effect of clouds, not all strong edges.

We kept going on and on about how I wanted it to be "uniform" and when I say that, I realize there is no symmetry.. I love that about it.. what I told them was, "we had originally picked a product that was an epoxy cover and it would have been uniform through the house. We had 2 hours to pick a new color, not product. When I say uniform, I mean, I want the bathroom to resemble the kitchen and the kitchen to resemble the room next to it...somewhat....ALL of it to to resemble a nebula effect...not one room look like a nebula while the other looks like water had been sprayed on it after color dye.

They cannot make it perfect and we do not expect that, but they have to make it look like something we do not have to explain away.

If they cannot do that, they will cover it with an epoxy type flooring that gets it done.

We will see. I will get to approve it before they seal it.

They admitted, at one point, "yea, I admit, I just wanted to get this job done and get on to the next"...i.e. they did it too fast. They stained 2000 sq ft "with two coats and a neutralizer" in a day and a half then sealed it. Oh, and they had no electricity, evidently, and did not tell us.. so did it all by hand...no way they could do that sort of space in that short of a time and do a quality job.

TY for all your help and input!

Russ

It took us a week to do one room. Granted, we had a day of prep work, but still.

Thanks for the updates, sure hope they make it right. Love that about putting on your Stetson. :D

Good for you. Love how they tried to make it everyone's fault but their own. Russ's fault, heck, even the concrete's fault.

Sigh.

Yea, I verified the electrical pole is not working for some reason so they should never have started the job if they did not have that to be able to do it right.

Just spoke with the concrete company and yes, the slab has very high concentrations of fly ash in it. So, no way they will be able to "fix" it with a stain.

Since they made the change at the last second, and then screwed it all up, still their fault. We had planned to use an epoxy floor cover. They do not use that as it chips and they said they were tired of fixing it.

So, the option it leaves us it to replace it with all wood flooring or all tile or all vinyl.

We would opt to do all tile to match the flooring upstairs.

So, would still have to strip the entire thing.

Now, we have to see if the builder and the flooring company can come together and pay for the tile.

Fun stuff.

I hear ya, problem they deal with is that they can't remove the stain... just can't be done.

Right now, the question is, if they remove as much as they can, sand or buff out as much as possible, will a concrete DYE be able to cover it up and make it look nice...that is the big question.

I know Fly Ash does not affect a dye like it does a stain, so it is possible they can strip it and add a dye, but it does not "cover" what is already there, so not sure.... can't find any information on it.

R

BTW - I proposed something to them.

The 1-2 weeks it will take them to figure out they cannot make it look good, is not worth the cost/hit we would take on the value of that home.

At this point, the appraisal value of that home will be affected by whatever they think they will come up with, vs us making it look GOOD.

So, I suggested to them that we ALL eat a little cost. If they take the cost of the floors we paid for, and the flooring company kicks some in, builder... and us.. we can tile it with the same thing they have upstairs and the entire house will look beautiful.

The appraisal value jump will easily cover our cost, and all they have to do is spend a day or so inside stripping the hell out of the floor and they can move on rather than spend 1-2 weeks of no more jobs but this and no more pay than they already earned.

We will see what they say.

The flooring upstairs is this:

Wood Trails Appalachian Trails

Change in plans.

I TOLD them, just do it. Tell the flooring people to strip it all off. Pay them a fair price for that, stripping it. No more than $1000. Take the rest of the money and buy the tile.

I found the same tile upstairs for like $173 a sq ft in bulk and I said I will pay half the cost of the installation.

The floor, if we let them do everything they want, will not add value to the home. It is so bad that anything they do flat out will not add value OR it will take away value.

The time it takes them to do it, a week or two, will be time we do not move forward, they will lose money, time they could make money on other jobs, materials, delays on everything etc. That has a cost.

The new tile will ADD value, especially compared to the current floor or whatever they think they can do. The not losing time and spending labor and the stress over wondering what will happen next.. well worth an extra 1-4k for my part.

So, let's see what the builder says, but I told them to make it happen. If the flooring people balk, don't pay them a dime and hire someone else or send your own crew in to strip the floor.

R

Figured to give an update, if anyone cares to see these.

They got started early cleaning up the floors. They tried to show me (not the builder, the contractor) what they look like now.

So, they are not near as bad as they were, but the light makes them look all green when a picture is taken, but to ME.. when I am in the house, they are a dark dark purple/redish color and very flat.

Now, maybe they would be somewhat nice after all is said and done, but, as I told the floor guy, every time I look at them, if we left them this way now, I would grow to hate and resent them as if we settled for these...hence we are sticking with our choice to put in the tile.

But, here are the pictures.

They should be done with the "cleanup" by today and start putting in the insulation today and then sheetrock.

The bottom line is, while they may turn out fine, they are not what we asked for AND not what we like. What we picked out a year ago is different and to settle would be to allow them to choose what goes in the house and that would not be right. The builder has done an excellent job on the rest of the house and we do not need a "weak link".

R

Good for you for sticking to your guns. At the end of the day it is your dollars and your house.

Looks like they got the swirl effect figured out but for some reason it turned green. Perhaps the mfg knows the answer? I remember reading that they were to test it in an area and see how it reacted with the concrete, perhaps they didn't do that. Looks very difficult to achieve that perfect look. Need someone with extensive experience and a lot of patience, like that of someone staining wood needs extensive wood finishing experience. Different wood species cause stain to look different. I would think different concrete composition would produce different stain looks.

Worst part about flooring is that while it is being done you start to get OCD about it, I know I did when I was doing my floor. I cant see a problem with it now after a year has gone by and furnishings applied.

So, it looks like it will be about 12k for the new floors and I agreed to pay 4k of it. I think that is a fair cost, even if it was not our fault. I could get something else for a lot cheaper, like carpet etc.. but I like the wood-looking tile more so.. tile it is!

R

I think you're going to be a lot happier with tile than concrete, stained or otherwise.

I think so too. Wife is not happy we are paying more. We keep inching higher on the budget. I think the house is worth more (appraisal) with the tile vs that ugly stain, so it is a wash....add in the fact it would easily cost us 12k to do this after we closed, vs the 4k to do it now, it is a good move...imo.

R

Congratulations on getting the tile you always wanted, at a bargain cost!

Yep, what I thought too.. AND.. the poor contractor that got stuck with the short end of the stick on getting the job by the flooring company, gets to make the money back by doing the tile.

I saw some of his other work and the guy has amazing talent. It was not his fault the flooring company that sub'd to him did not plan ahead and swapped the product out at the last second, so we get to let him make the tile work show some quality work he can do.

R