Does anyone have experience with concrete paint?

[JCS_in_KY]

Turns out these guys have no liability insurance. I checked with the state attorney general regarding contractor disputes and they gave us some guidelines to follow. Basically we can go ahead and have the work done and subtract it from their last draw. I think we might have some recourse with the building company since they did recommend this contractor by name and told us that he will do a better job that anyone else can possibly do with their buildings (we've since learned that he is giving a kickback to the building company for each job they give him). I'm not sure we will get anyplace with them and it will be a long drawn out process. For the time being we are going to go ahead and get the slab surfaced and try to repair leaks on the building so we can use it. Then if we get any place with the building company hopefully we can get the damaged doors replaced. Unfortunately the draw we held back doesn't go far enough to even cover the cost of the concrete repairs because the contractor took a check from us for $2500, cashed it and never applied it to one of the scheduled payments. The whole thing is big mess, if any of you are considering purchasing a metal building or having one put up PM me and I'll tell you the names of the building company and the contractor so you can avoid being in this same mess.
To answer one of your questions about the concrete. The contractor that did the work said it's an 80% job and he's pleased with that. I've had two other concrete contractors look at it and they are grading it between 50% - 60%. They think it's structurally ok, just ugly and not level. The cost of having the slab taken out and a new one put in is more than we can afford so we are going for the surfacing route and hoping to make the best of it.
John

 

[lrunge]

I just had a pole barn built for a workshop and had a slab poured in it after the shell was up. It was getting late when the pour was done and they were waiting for it to set. He had his son (25 - 30 yrs old)do the finishing and he was checking it. Well it got dark and they left. When I looked next day there were some real rough finshed areas. I called and told him. He came back looked at it and called me and apologized. He said he would rent a grinder and fix it. He ground it down and it looked acceptable to me. He called and said since he screwed up he wanted to epoxy finish it at his expense, which he did. Overall there is a rough spot or 2 but it looks nice with the gray finish on it. He did make the effort on his own to fix it and apologized for it. I told him I was satisfied. Now I just have to finish the interior.

 

[Jagmandave]

We had a problem when our building was being built, the temp was 104* and there was a 40 mph wind, the floor just got ahead of them.

We wound up having a Stonehard coating put on. In this system, they first lay down about 3/8" thick epoxy/sand mixture that gets powertrowled out, just like properly finished concrete. The epoxy top coat is very similar to the 2 part expoxy paints. It very durable and tough, to re-topcoat it you have to scuff it up a bit first with either a grinder pad or something similar. It gave a beautiful, smooth durable floor that has held up very well, even to daily fork truck traffic. But, it was very spendy...........

Here's link to them.. Stonehard

 

[wolfe1]

Steps to deciding what flooring to put down-
1. What is the age and condition? (this much we know)
2. What kind of service will it see?
3. What is you budget?

Once you get these figured out the rest will fall into place. I have done some really nice flooring with polyester resins filled with sand (100%) that have been bullet proof and I have used really expensive phynolics that have been complete failures. I would have a Sherwin Williams REP. NOT A STORE MANAGER, come to your place- get all the information and have him submit it to the tech guys- they can write a spec for you on exactly what you need to do and how to do it so you have a warranty- I could give you some more direction but I need to know budget-

 

[Danno1]

John,

A friend of mine who owns a machine shop said stay away from Rustoleum floor paint. He used it in his office and it peeled right up. He recomended Benjamin Moore industrial two part epoxy. It's what he has in the shop area and it's bullet proof.

You can go to the BM website and get spec sheets. I used two coats of M40 platinum gray with a primer coat of M41. It has a very thick, smooth, shiny finish which can be a bit slippery, however this makes cleanup very easy.

I didn't have to level the whole floor but there was some spalling where some previous meathead had hammered on the floor. I filled these holes with WEST System epoxy mixed with colloidal silica to a thick paste. Both avail from Gougeon Brothers.

http://www.westsystem.com/

http://www.gougeon.com/

http://www.benjaminmoore.com/wrapper_pg2art.asp?L=ind&K=prods&N=indprod&art=3.3.1

http://www.benjaminmoore.com/tds/1033/TDSM40.pdf


It cost me ~$330 to do 3 coats of 550 sq ft not including the cleaning supplies (being it was an old floor, this shouldn't apply to you).

 

[CT_Tree_Guy]

<font color="blue"> A friend of mine who owns a machine shop said stay away from Rustoleum floor paint. He used it in his office and it peeled right up. </font>

Just wanted to offer an observation that perhaps your friend's experience is not conclusive proof that Rustoleum products deserve to be avoided. There are many factors involved in almost every endeavor under the sun. Again, I offer my own anecdotal evidence that my Rustoleum 2-part epoxy floor coating has performed superbly.

 

[Danno1]

Well, that is true. But at the time I only had this one opinion.

However, with the size of the job and the effort to have to rework a mistake, I just wasn't going to take any chances. So I bit the bullet and paid for the industrial version.

 

[wolfe1]

Benjamin Moore makes a nice product but it is just WAY overpriced. The botton line is 99% of any coating is surface prep- even the best coating will fail with improper surface prep.