Refinishing Concrete?

[hakrjak]

I have a house that has a driveway and garage floor with some nasty cracks and pot marked surface. I'm farmiliar with patching the cracks, but I met a guy a couple months ago with his own business doing concrete refinishing. He was basically using a texture sprayer to spray something onto the concrete to build it back up, then he lets that dry for a day, and comes back with a roller and rolls on some kind of sealant. When he's done the driveway will look as good as new, and he told me that what he used is actually stronger than real concrete (I think it's some kind of epoxy)...

Is anybody farmiliar with this process, and do you have some web sites or products you can point me towards? He charged like $1000 per driveway to do it, and I know my crew can do it for probably $100 bucks in materials if I can figure out what we need to use. Didn't look complex at all!

Thanks,

- Hakrjak

 

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[SteveO]

I have seen material sprayed and troweled on. It looked more like a stucco finish when it was done. I am interested in hearing finishes myself.

 

[TaxGuy]

Just jumping on here as my house needs some nasty cracks fixed too!

Worst of all I know there is some sinking in the foundation thanks to the few floods we've had that hopefully won't happen again once we fix the storm window in the basement and these cracks in the garage floor

 

[bflbob]

The company I work for does tons of concrete work -- bridges, foundations, hotels, etc.

When I had a problem with the floor in my basement, they all had the same advice.

"Tear it up and replace with new."

Of course, most of the construction we do is new (buildings) or remove and replace (bridges).
Maybe they aren't aware of the newest repair techniques out there.

 

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[hakrjak]

Yeh the guy that I met said that it was about 50% the cost of doing new concrete by using him (And like I said, he was expensive), and it would look like new and last longer than concrete by using his products.

I obviously couldn't ask him directly what he was using and where to get it, so I thought I'd ask around here... haha There seems to be a whole bunch of people getting into this business though, it is some kind of franchise you can buy -- and operate out of your own truck or van like a carpet cleaning company. He was also offering polished cement countertops, etc

Cheers,

- Hakrjak

 

[hakrjak]

I have seen material sprayed and troweled on. It looked more like a stucco finish when it was done. I am interested in hearing finishes myself.

I've seen this too Steve... The one he was doing when I met him was a nice knockdown type texture finish on someone's driveway. Once he sealed it up, it looked like a new driveway, just with a slightly different texture that you would see on a driveway, but not too noticeable at all.

I'm sure he just used a texture sprayer to spray it down, and then he knocked it down with a trowel afterwards -- I just am not sure what the material is he used. I called Home Depot, and they have no idea.

- Hakrjak

 

[hakrjak]

Found the guy's business card in my pile -- There are some pics of his resurfaced concrete at the bottom:

About Us

 

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[hakrjak]

Found a good site for ordering some of the materials finally....

Concrete Solutions store: SPRAY-TEXTURE Products

 

[rcardin]

Seems like you could maybe spray something close to cool deck around a pool. Don't know how it would hold up against the weight of a card. Would be real easy to patch at a later date though.
Also what about a a pea gravel coating with the epoxe mixture. Can't think of what the coating is called right now.
used to be popular in our area for back porches.

 

[hatterasguy]

Usualy if the floor is cracked badly we will either jack hammer it up and pour a new slab, or put a skim coat of new concrete over it.

But I'm all ear's for new ideas.

 

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[hakrjak]

Seems like you could maybe spray something close to cool deck around a pool. Don't know how it would hold up against the weight of a card. Would be real easy to patch at a later date though.
Also what about a a pea gravel coating with the epoxe mixture. Can't think of what the coating is called right now.
used to be popular in our area for back porches.

you know it's funny that you say this -- Because the product I saw used went down just like "cool-crete" which I have seen used on pool surrounds before to keep people's feet from burning in the hot sun, etc.... It may be the same exact product for all I know.

- Hakrjak

 

[gofalls]

You can do a couple things.

• Pressure wash, Etch, then acid or water stain. Looks cool, very cheap and easy.
  • 2 bug sprayers method with 2 colors looks great.
• Overlay = preassure wash, etch, fill cracks, microlayer, dry, then stain
  • You can place a stencil on the overlay and get some super trick designs
• You can also use a 4" masonry grinder bit and etch some grout lines after the staining to make it look more expensive. I wouldnt epoxy coat the top b/c of the HOT TIRE pickup and b/c it gets real slick when wet. A non sealed stain is my choice for outdoor stuff.

Youtube has a ton of examples. Here is one
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixd36bJYVyk&feature=related"]YouTube - Concrete Stain Sprayer Method[/ame]