I plan on building within the next year or 2. It will be a single level house with PEX in floor heat. My original plan was to epoxy the floor on the whole house just like you'd do in a garage, but I'm thinking stained flooring might be more appropriate for a house. Anyone done it or have any thoughts on it?
Stained Concrete?
- Thread starter bucktail
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I would recommend as lengthy of a drying period as you can have for the concrete as it affects the penetration of the staining liquid..........more retained moisture in the concrete mix, less penetration of the stain. You didn't say of you have a slab containing the Pex tube or is it a 2" deep slump mix over the plywood sub-floor? The thinner slump mixture will certainly dry faster. In this region that I live, Michigan, it is code to pour a slab floor of any living space (even basements) over at least a 2" layer of high density foam to act as a moisture barrier and drive the generated heat vertically up rather than being partially sinked into the cool earth below.........works fabulously. The liquids will produce a varigated, irregular pattern in response to the lime within the concrete as it dries.....turns out beautiful like wood grain and fan-shaped patterns similar to that of frost on a window pane under the right conditions.
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Thinking about it further, you can talk to a concrete supplier locally to ask them what the square foot mass of a concrete slump mix is. It is important as you will be needing that information to get the girder (I-construction) floor joists engineered to support the area of that additional weight if you are putting your floor over a crawl space or basement. We installed two of those systems in my Dad's and brother's ICF-walled homes that had hydronic heat in the basements, main floors and garages......actually included the front door sidewalk in one application of the two for heat through the winter. Superb heating capacity for very economical natural gas consumption. Don't plan on driving in-floor heat through 3/4" flooring. You may get it through 3/8" engineered flooring or standard laminate thickness though.
I've seen it done but be cautious of what chemicals are in the stain, make sure it's indoor friendly. I've also seen it polished to where you see the aggregate and it also looks good. I'm not a fan of painting concrete with anything DIY because if it starts peeling or something you'll never get it off. There are professional epoxy floor companies that do a hell of a job and it is wayyy more involved than just painting. I doubt bringing in an epoxy floor company would be any cheaper than tile or a quality manufactured wood flooring.
I haven't talked to the contractor yet, so I don't know for sure, but I'm not planning on doing a crawl space underneath it. There's a local contractor that does excavating , concrete and HVAC all in 1 who comes highly recommended. Haven't priced it out yet, so maybe that's prohibitive anyway. The polishing to expose aggregate is called terrazzo. One of my nephews does it, and that is cost prohibitive.
Make sure you see examples of work he/she has done. We have specified stained, burnished, and stamped types of concrete finishes on lots of commercial projects. Only ever had one that really turned out well enough I'd want in a house. Too many concrete contractors get in a hurry and don't finish it properly.
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We have in the floor heat in our basement. The contractor put down 2" blue board insulation with joints sealed. Then the pex tubing laid on chairs. We finished off 2 rooms in the basement and installed click together laminate flooring. Came out looking very nice and is very warm.
Check out other jobs before you commit to a concrete finisher. They say they can do it, proof is in the pudding. Saw one job that was a horrible mess,and in my opinion made it worse when they tried to fix it.
A stained concrete floor is usually cheaper than a concrete floor with tile or carpet. If the concrete or stain work does not work out for you then you still have the option of overlaying it with tile , wood, carpet, etc.
Concrete floors have easy maintence and wear well. There are a mind boggling amount of options if one desires. Saw cuts, saw cuts into patterns, sand blasting patterns, staining patterns, mixtures of stains and types of finish sealers. You might do well to spend some time looking at manufacture pictures advertising their products, home building or decorating pictures or such, etc etc.
There is a incredible amount of variables that can affect your final results be they good or bad.
As several have pointed out. References are good, actually seeing some past work is GREAT.
Personally I am a big fan of stained concrete.
Concrete floors have easy maintence and wear well. There are a mind boggling amount of options if one desires. Saw cuts, saw cuts into patterns, sand blasting patterns, staining patterns, mixtures of stains and types of finish sealers. You might do well to spend some time looking at manufacture pictures advertising their products, home building or decorating pictures or such, etc etc.
There is a incredible amount of variables that can affect your final results be they good or bad.
As several have pointed out. References are good, actually seeing some past work is GREAT.
Personally I am a big fan of stained concrete.
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coachgeo
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How old are members of your family? How use to hard surface are their feet" Old Flat Feet coming soon? At a point in time where ankles swell arrived or coming soon? Keep in mind hard floors can take a big big toll on such folk.
And surprisingly... carpet is healthier for those that live there. It collects dirt and dander and holds it till one vacuums. With hard floors such things float down to the floor and little whiffs of air, people walking by etc. lift it back up for another journey till it finds your lungs, nose and eyes, etc.
That being said my favorite hard floor for looks beside wood is Torazo.. but I was raised on it and it brings fond memories... Then again working on Flat floors in Stores doing strip and wax cleaning later in life... made my legs AICH so bad had to quit. Hard floor and my flat feet just was not a mix that would work.
And surprisingly... carpet is healthier for those that live there. It collects dirt and dander and holds it till one vacuums. With hard floors such things float down to the floor and little whiffs of air, people walking by etc. lift it back up for another journey till it finds your lungs, nose and eyes, etc.
That being said my favorite hard floor for looks beside wood is Torazo.. but I was raised on it and it brings fond memories... Then again working on Flat floors in Stores doing strip and wax cleaning later in life... made my legs AICH so bad had to quit. Hard floor and my flat feet just was not a mix that would work.
We built our house three years ago and had the downstairs stained. It looks great, but I would suggest a good polyurethane on top of it so it can be cleaned easily and keeps a good shine. They didn't do that, so I need to bite the bullet and do it myself at some point. They cut in a Texas star in the entry and stained it a different color which looks great. My folks are building down the road and one of the rooms, they cut the concrete to look like tile and it looks awesome!
There is also concrete dye. Not a whole lot of color choices but is added at the batch plant. Color goes all the way through.
I like the dyed concrete too. Keep in mind that each truck that you mix the dye in, there will be an additional cleaning fee. Some plants/drivers will charge a much higher fee so they don't have to deal with it.