How to Restore Faded Stamp Concrete!

what's up guys and welcome back to job site conditions right here on Deco Creek TV my name is Jeff and on today's episode we're going to show you guys how to restore old faded stamped concrete sealer uh applying little to no new sealer now this is going to be a step-by-step video covering prep work weather conditions proper equipment and applications so stay tuned and you're going to learn all about it [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] so today's project rates is a three on our DIY meter and the product we're going to be using is this rejuvenator from Deco creep I mean man I gotta tell you guys damn concrete sealer can be a real nightmare sometimes you know that could be because it got over applied sealed at the wrong time or man sometimes there's nothing wrong with the sealer at all it just needs something to bring it back to life now the thing about rejuvenator is it's not a sealer at all it's actually more above a blend of solvents that's going to work with your existing sealer and not against it now rejuvenator does have quite a few different uses so we're going to go over a few of them here in the studio I mean this job that we're heading out to today is really only one of the ways that rejuvenator can be a lifesaver now the number one the thing to remember about it is that rejuvenator will only work if there's actually sealer on the concrete so just make sure that you test this first and if your concrete is completely bare I mean honestly rejuvenator is going to be kind of a waste of time now that's not a bad thing at all that's actually a good thing it just means you get to skip this step and go straight to the ceiling now the first one is just over application and this could be from putting too much sealer on at one time or it could come from sealing your concrete too often and that's honestly one of the most common thing common things that we hear from homeowners is that they've been sealing their concrete every year now if this is you I mean don't worry this isn't your fault I mean you didn't really know any better it does make a lot of sense I mean sealer protects concrete and you just want to do what's best for it now there might also be other cases where the contractor that poured it for you they may have told you to seal it every single spring but no matter what the reason too much sealer will cause some problems and that's just the one thing that I can tell you for sure now another problem that comes up is sealing the concrete too soon after it's been poured now this usually ends up trapping a little bit of moisture under the sealer and it generally is going to show up as some big white spots now another thing that happens is just unexpected weather conditions I mean even though you plan really carefully I mean sometimes the weather just doesn't cooperate and you know getting caught in the rain is just never a good thing when you're sealing concrete but on stamped concrete where you notice every little detail I mean you're probably just getting done up with a really bunch of really noticeable little white spots the size of those raindrops now direct sunlight can also car and high temps can also cause problems on stamped concrete usually leading to bubbling now the last thing here I mean isn't really a problem that happens during installation but it can definitely lead to problems down the road and that would be just unrealistic expectations and this usually comes from the level of Sheen and it mostly happens when using high gloss sealers I mean it is so shiny in the beginning and everybody just loves it but then after a year I mean it's just not that shiny anymore and the homeowners generally think that it needs to be resealed now fortunately rejuvenator can solve all these problems as long as it's applied right so probably the most common thing that people use rejuvenator for is to bring back the color and the shine to your stamp concrete now this is a pretty easy fix I mean generally one application of rejuvenator is all it's going to take and this is really really great for those in between years of resealing I mean it'll keep your stamped concrete looking the way you want you'll still see all the color you'll still have some shine but you didn't add any more sealer now fixing problems with from weather or sealing too soon I mean that's what rejuvenator is just something you always want to have on hand I mean it'll clear out those little white spots from the rain or even the bigger white spots from Trap moisture it'll lay down bubbles or it'll even freshen up sealer that may have been applied correctly it just got a little bit damaged from some construction going on around it and you just want to freshen it up before you open the patio in this case it's a pretty simple spray back roll and let it do its thing now when it comes to dealing with over application I mean this one is going to be a little bit more work and sometimes you might have to remove the old sealer altogether I mean honestly this job that we're heading to is kind of right on the borderline of being fixable with rejuvenator I mean most of the sealer is pretty worn down for the most part but there are a few spots that have a really heavy build up that we're going to be able to help out but honestly sandblasting is really the only Surefire way of completely getting rid of it this is more than likely going to be a few applications it's going to require some work possibly some scrubbing with brush and you know again you're just going to have to live with what you get from the rejuvenator and then if you want something more than that then you're gonna have to go to removal now the other thing that rejuvenator uh does is it can act as a primer for reseals and in this case this would be a pretty simple thing to do just prep for your reseal and then spray and roll a coat of rejuvenator and then apply that new sealer to the slab once you can walk on it without sticking to it so the tools that we're going to need for today's project are going to be a pressure washer and a leaf blower for the prep work we're going to need a sprayer and some rollers to apply the rejuvenator and we will need a few various brushes and a couple small items and we'll go over to that over that stuff once we get to the job site now the main product we're going to need is just some rejuvenator but we're also going to take a can of super stamp seal with it it's just in case we need to add a little bit of sealer at the end and don't worry about remembering all this stuff right now the tools and products are all linked right down in the description below so with that all out of the way I think it's time to head to the job site and get started so we made it out here to the job site and I gotta say that you know this exact patio this is a very typical uh scenario for a great place for rejuvenator you know as you guys are looking at this uh when everything's dry I mean man I can definitely understand why uh someone who didn't know anybody would look at this and say this slab needs sealer because it doesn't look that good it looks dull there doesn't seem to be much color here but you know we already were here a few weeks back and we did some testing with our sealer survival kit with rejuvenator as well as the testing solution and I'm telling you there is definitely sealer on this slab you know I mean again you know now that I'm up here on this lab you know sitting here I can tell that there is definitely sealer on here I can see you know the build up but you know if you're not if you don't know what to look for just doing this test first is just such a good idea because in some cases you know maybe there isn't any sealer on this slab in this rejuvenator just isn't going to do a do you any good this only works if there is sealer on here to react with and so for a full video on the sealer survival kit and how to do all these tests just please check out our episode of the concrete Edge and we go through the whole thing in that video so right where I'm uh sitting right now you know there used to be a table or I believe maybe a swing right here and you can see that it definitely looks different here I mean this spot right here I mean I can just literally feel the build up of sealer right here as you get out away from that where the sun doesn't or where the sun is beating on it constantly um you know you can see that there's way less sealer out there so uh you know going back to our testing for a second it's always a good idea to test different parts of the slab because if I tested this spot right here I can there's tons of steel over there I'm gonna get a good reaction but you always want to make sure you test multiple spots just to make sure that there there might be some spots on your slab that doesn't have sealer but we'll worry about that after the rejuvenator is done the worst thing we do is just go apply sealer right now um you know but that after this all done the rejuvenator is dried up we're going to know exactly where those spots are that might need a little bit more sealer and then we'll add it at that point now what do we want to watch out for there is one scenario and that is uh if there was a water-based sealer on here and this is something that you will know during that testing process when you put that rejuvenator on a water-based acrylic that might happen it's in some concrete stamped concrete slabs do have water-based sealer on them and in that case uh it's just never going and that's why you test small small areas but um you know if that sealer doesn't melt or if it does melt and it just turns into kind of a white um you know milkiness and it never really dries up into a hard film again then we just know that that was probably some sort of a water-based resin that was on there and in that case you know rejuvenator is not a good idea this is made for solvent-based sealers only so first step is going to be washing and drying and that's it for today we always want to do that the day before that way it's got plenty of time to dry out and then we'll come back tomorrow and we'll do the rejuvenator uh so today's tools that were required are pretty minimal um you know I do have you know the Steeler survival kit here with us a few brushes for that a box of Rags is always a good idea other than that honestly a pressure washer and a leaf blower is pretty much all we need you know I mean it's always a good idea to bring a few various brushes with you and maybe a little bit of detergent in case there's a stubborn spot or some Rust that needs to be removed in this case today all we're going to need is the washer and the leaf blower so so when it comes to the power washing part you know this is really really important and you know even though we're not putting any sealer on this slab tomorrow we're I mean at least we don't plan to that would be only you know fill a little bit if you need to but for rejuvenator we still have to treat this like we're putting sealer on and we need to get very very thoroughly clean now some of this starts with equipment if you're just trying to use a little electric power washer or even a gas powered one that's like maybe only 2000 PSI it's just not going to have enough Force to blast those pores open and to get it as clean as we need to get it so you know we all always say a minimum 3000 psi you know we actually have a four thousand now of course you have to use some common sense on this if you have a super high power washer like this one right here is and we hold this thing all the way down against the concrete yes we can do some damage so some care needs to be taken to make sure this is uh in the right spot here but we do want that much power uh to do a good job cleaning these things that's the worst thing we could do is just come out here and barely hose it down and without getting this thing properly cleaned we're just gonna only add more problems to this patio not fix the problems and as far as a little bit of technique um and we have a full video on this uh please check out the video that goes through everything on this step by step but uh just for a little bit of a couple quick tips is uh we already talked about the right equipment we also want to make sure that we're holding this wrong wand the right way um honestly a lot of times when you tell somebody to go out and power wash something this is what they do and they're just sort of uh Power rinsing is sort of what we call that so um and the watch is not fired up right now I'm just kind of using this water as a visual but if I if I just sort of do what I call the power rinse you can see that you know I'm not really actually blasting any pores open in fact all the way out on the end of my uh my fan there it's barely even hitting it so what we're looking for is straight up and down 90 degrees to the surface and then when I turn my washer on I got that entire fan all hitting consistently and you guys will be able to see this once we actually fire the washer up and then as far as you know how close do you hold it you know you're gonna have to use some common sense you're gonna have to adjust a little bit but what I always say is I want to hold it as close as I can without doing any damage because that's going to be the most efficient way of going about this so we're going to spend some time on this I'll get it all clean we flow it off and at that point we're just going to let it sit and dry overnight and move it back tomorrow to put on the rejuvenator [Music] all right so we are back here the next morning and you can see that you know after we're done last night everything is now nice and clean and I will say that we did get a lot of rain overnight and so that kind of brings us to our first point here this morning is that always make sure that you bring the leaf blower back to the job with you you know just in case you have to you know we've ran the leap row through these saw cuts just in case there was any water sitting in this case there wasn't and everything was fine but always bring that leaf blower back just in case and then also uh an actual uh like a weed burner propane torch is also a great thing to have that way in case there is any additional moisture in the slab that you need to burn out those as just a great way to get rid of it in a short amount of time uh please check out Jason's technique of the week episode where he goes over the whole Leaf burner technique uh in depth so other tools that we're going to need today are going to be first of all uh we're going to need a sprayer to spray this rejuvenator we're going to need a couple different rollers to back roll it out I like to have both a 9 and an 18 that way I can get as close to the edges you know in this case you know the 18 might be good but I always like to have both of those options obviously handles to put those rollers frames on a box Rags is always really really important because you just never know on a job like this now the other thing that we're definitely going to be using today as one of these acid brushes here just because back in those it's not going to be the case out here where I'm at necessarily but back behind me along that wooden deck there's a really big buildup of sealer back there and you know you can see again all those the yellowy crystally areas a lot of times in order to properly fix that we're going to have to take this brush and we're going to spray our rejuvenator down and then we're really really going to scrub it around and agitate it with something like this and that what that does is kind of redistributes everything and then we'll back roll it out and otherwise you know the rejuvenator might help it but it won't permanently fix that problem the other thing that I brought to the job with me is actually a little bit of sealer because sometimes after you know we're going to do this whole thing with rejuvenator and if everything looks great it dries up and everything is looks the way we want it to then that's it we're going to leave it alone there's no reason to add any more sealer to it but in some cases there are some spots that are actually Barrel sealer and the only way to know that is to put the rejuvenator on first it's all going to look great the second we apply it but as that rejuvenator starts to dry um and evaporate those spots if there was no sealer there they're going to kind of go back to looking the way they are now so we may have to add a little bit of sealer after we're done with this first application of rejuvenator so when we get started applying and again the most preferred way of doing this is to put this stuff in a tape and sprayer spray it down and back roll it out now unlike sealer where we're generally trying to put this on as thin as we possibly can rejuvenator not only is the it's not going to hurt anything to apply plenty of this stuff but in some cases especially in those heavy buildup areas we actually need a lot on here now this area is roughly about 250 square feet which isn't very big this and I'm going to be doing this you know kind of by myself today and I'm just going to kind of work in the saw cuts I'm going to do a section at a time I'm going to finish areas as I go but honestly to be efficient or on a bigger area this is generally not a one-person job this is always better to have one person to spray the material one person to be back rolling it scrubbing um you know it's just going to work better if you have two people now the other thing thing that is absolutely vital is temperature and direct sunlight now you can see that you know we are standing in some direct sunlight today we've got some intermittent cloud cover it's back and forth even though it's the middle of summer time in Ohio we strategically picked this day because it's only supposed to be about I think it's like 72 at a high today so if we're not dealing with super high temps and that's really important because once we put this rejuvenator down and it opens that coat of sealer back up that's already on this slab it's almost like we just applied that coat of sealer and if it's too hot it will start to bubble on us just like it was if we were applying the sealer for the first time so ideally we would do this in a time of day where we're not in direct sunlight right now it's only about 65 degrees ambient temperature right now but I got my little infrared thermometer here and this is something that you know for do yourself where you can pick these things up for 20 30 bucks and you just point it at the slab pull the button and I'm getting a reading right now where I'm standing of 82 degrees so that's still in really really good shape the big number that I'm looking for there is you know that the safe number is uh is anything under 100 degrees and the big misconception is I've got this call many many times from from people out in the field and they say we got stuff bubbling on us um what's going on it's only 70 degrees out it's not even very hot but if they would have had one of these and shot that slab you know if it's three o'clock in the afternoon and we shoot this again this slab could be you know 120 degrees even though it's actually only 75 degrees ambient temperature so incredibly important is to you know stay out of the sunlight when you can but if that's not possible um just don't apply this once your slab is uh you know crossed that 100 degree threshold so we're going to start start by just spraying the rejuvenator right down on the surface and then we're going to start scrubbing it around now I usually have to wait maybe two to three minutes to let this rejuvenator start to actually melt the the Steeler that's there for a second but we're going to use a paint brush up along the edges and then this acid brush is just really key that as this rejuvenator starts to break down that old sealer that we really just scrub it around we need to really agitate it break it loose but then also try to pull it over to the areas that doesn't have as much sealer and so it's kind of doing two things for us it's sort of taking some of the sealer off the heavy buildup area but it's also putting a little bit of sealer back on the areas that aren't quite as heavy so after we do all that um you know it's okay that you know during that process it might want to start to start you know tacking up just a little bit on you we can just spray some more rejuvenator right on top what we just scrubbed and then we're just going to back the back roll the whole thing out and this is key again that this is this does require some work there's a lot of scrubbing involved on a job like this so we got this half of the slab done and honestly this first Square we did is this stuff is dry and I'm standing on it right now you know it is completely tack free at this point um and this is kind of you know like I said earlier rejuvenator is not always Aegis spray one coat down back roll it uh walk away one and done uh fixes everything now what you can see is the DraStic difference of just simply one coat of rejuvenator because that's all this is is just one coat of rejuvenator there is no sealer that's been applied and you can see the DraStic difference of what we had to start off with and what we have now and honestly it it looks really good uh with the exception of just more sealer in some area more old seal or in others you know if the sealer was consistent this this might be it my whole point is that after you get done with one application if you like what you have by all means it's all you need to do you can stop right there in today's case you know we're trying to make this thing look as good as we can I was just talking to homeowner before we started and this lab is about 17 years old and they were putting coats of sealer on it every two years for quite quite some time and so this has just many many layers of sealer on top of sealer so for the rest of this coat we're just basically going to do the exact same thing we're going to finish the rest of this patio out and then what we're going to do is we're going to do another application doing the exact same thing we did the first time again just really focusing on those heavy build up areas trying to scrub that uh you know old sealer around break it down move it out in the other area and you know after this second application then we'll take a look and see what we want to do next so everything looks actually pretty dang good here uh but I gotta say you know those there's a few spots that are just bugging me and and again don't get me wrong or this uh slab does not need any more sealer at all even those spot the spots that look a little bit dull there's plenty of sealer on there to protect it but in this case you know we're just trying to make everything look as even as possible so all I'm gonna do now is you know now this stuff is dry enough to walk on I'm just gonna walk out here and I'm just gonna miss a tiny bit of sealer on these areas that look a little bit different I'm going to have my nine inch roller and just back roll it out a little bit and then that's it I'm gonna just let it go from there and let that do its thing the worst mistake I could make right now is just putting too much sealer back on this patio with it honestly in some spots still has too much sealer on it so you can see after all that is said and done and a little bit of sealer no spots man we got this thing looking pretty good I mean we took it from looking like this to this uh using literally less than a half a gallon of actual sealer so this just goes to show you how much you can do with just rejuvenator and maybe a tiny bit of seal or to a slab that honestly looked like it was completely bare well guys that's pretty much it for this week's show and thank you guys so much for taking the time to watch these videos man I just can't tell you how much it means to us that you guys all the supports you guys show uh by constantly tuning in every week and please leave us a comment if you missed anything or if you have any questions about the restoring stamp concrete sealer so from all of us here at Deco Creek TV thanks for watching and we'll see you guys next time

Channel: Deco-Crete TV

Views: 7,869

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Id: A4g-6NcWH6w

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2023