Concrete Epoxy Floors

welcome back to marshall remodel this is the  mad county build series and on today's show we   are going to be talking about how we finished  our concrete floors when we're talking about   concrete floors there's a couple of things we  need to understand first concrete floors are   extremely durable they're strong they're amazing  way to heat your house when you have radiant   radiant tubing in them but there are a couple  issues with concrete floors that we need to   understand and one of those is it cracks  and i know i've talked about this before   that's why i cut so many uh stress cut relief  cuts in my concrete four by four squares and   the second thing we need to understand that can be  problematic with concrete is that it's very porous   so that means it stains easily there are a ton of  products out there that you can seal your concrete   floors with there's different ways you can finish  it the reason i chose what i chose is because   i wanted to make sure that i had a really good  coverage on my floor to keep her from staining   i've used epoxy in the past on concrete counters  and it's worked amazing and the thing i like about   epoxy is it gives you this illusion of depth that  i think is pretty cool it fills in um where your   grout is and the surface of your concrete it  fills that in and levels it so when you're   sweeping or you're mopping you're not loading  up those um joints with dirt and stuff like that   so those are some reasons why i chose epoxy now  um epoxy will leave a really really high gloss   if you don't do anything else so we went one  step further and used a polyurethane satin over   our epoxy just to kind of kill some of that high  gloss and get the look that we wanted as we go   through the show we'll talk about each step  that we took to get our floors the way we did   the problems we had how you can do avoid those  problems how you can do a little bit better job   but at the end our result is exactly what we  wanted we have kind of a rustic this is a post   frame home as you all know we kind of have more  of a rustic kind of feel here so there are some   imperfections but um you know they go right along  with the house and they're you know unless you're   really looking um you can't see them so we are  extremely happy with results so let's go ahead   and jump in how we got our floors the way we got  them so step one is to grind your floors and this   is a machine it's got diamond grinders on it and  you can grind it at different levels the more   aggressive you are grinding it the more accurate  aggregate that's in the concrete will show up   but this is the first step what this does is it  cleans all of the grout off it cleans all the   paint it cleans all the debris off your floors  and prepares the concrete to accept the epoxy   this portion of the project we hired out at 50  cents a square foot so it cost us a little over   a thousand dollars to have our floor ground but  after watching the process i think next time i   would rent the equipment do it myself i did find a  place in town that has this equipment that's that   you can rent at a reasonable price and i think on  my next attempt at this i will try it on my own step two was to clean so we started out by  vacuuming the entire house and then we came back   and mopped now one thing you'll notice about  mopping when you mop the first time it's going to   leave streaks so we ended up mopping three times  and you can see our concrete is really dry and it   it sucks in that moisture really fast and we had  no problem with the floors being dry enough the   following day to start our epoxy but it is  extremely extremely important that you get   your floors dust free and debris free so after  we got done mopping and vacuuming we went ahead   and cleaned the floor with an acetone and that  was the final step before our seal coat of epoxy   so for the seal coat of epoxy i just had a  squeegee and then a small roller and a big roller   so you're just going to dump the epoxy on spread  it out with the squeegee and then back roll it   all right guys it's time to put down the epoxy  and we're using epoxy from z counter form   they were actually nice enough to  provide the epoxy for this project   we originally found z counter form  uh a house that i remodeled i made   concrete countertops and we used their epoxy  forms and their epoxy to finish off the   concrete and it worked out awesome so we're  partnering with them on this project and we're   going to get going with our seal coat so we  got two clean buckets here and then we got   our first um epoxy kit which is a three gallon  kit we have two part a and one part b that's   just the ratio you have to mix it with so as we  go through this i'll show you how you mix it up   and how we're going to apply it we got all the  floors clean like emily said but now it's time to   put our first coat on and that's the seal coat  so we'll start out with part a and then we'll   add part b we'll mix it in this bucket for  a couple minutes and then we will pour it   into a second bucket and then mix it again and  that's just so um anything that didn't get mixed   by pouring in another bucket it's kind of getting  moved around and then we'll mix it again and then   pour it out onto the floor and we'll move  around with a squeegee and then back roll it oh so this process went fairly smooth  i would say if i was to do it again   i would have a second pair of the slip-ons  with the spikes on them as you can see i'm   wearing those right now so that emily  could help spread the epoxy faster   one thing i noticed is wherever i would  stop and let it sit for any amount of time   it would soak into the concrete at a different  rate and it would be just a slight bit darker   than where i would pour the new epoxy on so just  keep that in mind it's nothing that is noticeable   throughout the house but you can see here in the  master bedroom here where i went across the room   it took me a few minutes to get to that other  part and there is a light line across there   so just keep that in mind it would be very  helpful if you had two people two squeegees   and if you're going to stop your poor stop it in  a doorway or something like that where it's less noticeable everything looks pretty good we'll just kind of take a look at this right  now this is the seal coat and it's looking   pretty good it's a little darker than we wanted  but you know the grout lines turned out great so a couple other things you're going to notice  when you do your seal coat is you're going to see   you might see some streaking where  the concrete maybe was more porous   or it the seal coat soaked in  more you might see some little   like roughness but when you do that final float  coat all that should disappear and if you're   nervous you can always lightly sand and then wipe  it up if you feel like that you have air bubbles   or or whatnot so you can see kind of this how it  it's a little different shade but that should all   disappear when we put this final coat on so we're  good and clean here and we're going to get going   so your second coat is your float coat and that  gets on put on thicker about 10 mils and you want   to be in that window about 16 to 24 hours after  you finish your seal coat that way it'll adhere   properly if you get outside of that window you  have to lightly sand so it's an extra step yeah so right there you saw that  we added some metallic powder   and it we added a very little amount  i think it was one tablespoon per   three gallons so it doesn't take a whole lot  and it just adds a little bit to your final coat anymore so the final coat is going to be about 10 mils  thick and in my opinion this is the easier   part of the process however i did encounter some  problems and we started out really well the master   suite is where we started and the squeegee that  i have has little v's cut into it and as i went   through the process those started to get built  up with epoxy and it started to stick there so   i couldn't get the epoxy to flow through there  properly so i guess a way you can solve that is to   clean it as you go or to have multiple squeegees  ready to go so you don't have this problem all right so i just wanted to talk  about this float coat a little bit more   and the problems i had this was not an epoxy issue  this was an application issue this was my issue um   the float like i said the grooves got built up  with epoxy and i couldn't get it to flow through   thick enough so it would self level i did end up  you know having a pretty good finish but it's not   perfect and that comes down to a couple things  one the float or the squeegee i had was a problem   and two it with an area as big as i had i really  needed a second person with a second squeegee   and a second set of spikes to spread  that quicker than what i did so   like i said i ended up with a pretty good result  however you could improve your results by either   having a different squeegee that doesn't  um build up over time i think a metal one   would work better than the rubber one i had um but  that's neither here nor there this is the first   time that i've done this big of an area and that's  that's the problem i encountered so i wanted to   share that with you all right guys so we've got  the um seal coat done and the float coat done   and we have one final step to this process for how  we want it finished if you like the super shiny   epoxy you could just leave it at this stage but  what we want is a matte finish so what we're going   to do is we're now going to go over this with  a buffer with a 60 grit sanding screen and then   we're going to put a matte polyurethane over the  top of this epoxy and that will give take that glo   high gloss this is what we're going to use here we  got i rented this it's like 44 bucks for the day   we got the pad and then we got the 60 grit sanding  screen so we're just going to go over the whole   entire floor with this and then we will clean it  and then we can roll on our mat polyurethane so   as far as the epoxy goes we're done yeah i mean it  it looks pretty awesome we just want to tone down   that high gloss to a more of a matte uh finish so  where are you going i'm going to get this all set   up and then i'm going to start sanding this and  then in the corners where i can't get with this   round one i'll just use my hand sander i got some  60 grit sandpaper for that and we'll get this all   sanded down and ready to go tomorrow morning we'll  get that polyurethane rolled on and then hopefully   it will be what we want and we can move on um  to the rest of the finishing up the inside of   this house so i guess uh let's get going and  hooking this thing up and get uh get sanding so i went through the whole house sanding  with this buffer and sanding screen and then   emily followed me up with the shop vacuum   and once we got it all cleaned up then we mopped  again i think we mopped two or three times   and then allowed it to dry overnight  and then we applied the polyurethane all right guys so now that we have this done  we are pretty happy so some of you are going   to ask why would i put a polyurethane over  the top of this epoxy well i wanted the epoxy   for the depth and the protection of that concrete  surface i like the way it looks i like how it   flushes up all the grout lines and then you put  that polyurethane over to tone that shine down   and you get the uv protection of a polyurethane  over the epoxy and you end up with a really solid   uh flooring system that i think will last a  really long time so we're pretty pumped about it   it turned out really good the when you're putting  down that polyurethane that can be a little tricky   you just have to uh roll north to south and then  follow up by rolling east to west making sure that   you kind of hide all your lines so it is a little  bit tricky but as long as you take your time you   can get good results so i hope guys that this  video was enjoyable if you have any questions   um about this process that we did feel free  to put them in the comments and uh we'll do   our best to answer them but again thanks for  watching and we will catch you on the next video

Channel: Marshall Remodel

Views: 36,327

Rating: 4.9644794 out of 5

Keywords: Midwest, Iowa, Home, Design, DIY, Construction, Self Build, New Build, New Constrution, Post Frame, Pole Barn, Barndominium, Farmhouse

Id: oe2jlgu8OsQ

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021