How To Repair Acid Etched Concrete

Information technology is possible to repair acid damaged physical. Titus Restoration Services, Inc. has performed repairs to acrid damaged concrete floors successfully equally shown in the before and later pictures below. In 2022 we polished 144,000 square feet of a convention heart. Inside a month there was an auto bear witness and acid was spilled on the finished polished concrete. Battery acid was spilled on the concrete floor and tracked throughout one of the exhibit halls (approximately 36,000 sf).

How Repairing Acid Damaged Polished Physical is Performed

Polished concrete has become more pop in the last three decades in retail and municipal buildings due to its low maintenance costs. Due to its popularity and increased foursquare footage installed throughout the world, acid damage to polished physical has become more prevalent. A few edifice uses that take turned from carpet, vinyl tile (VCT) or other hard surface flooring to polished physical include: grocery stores, schools, liquor stores, big box lumber companies, clothing stores, hardware stores, car dealerships, industries requiring dust gratis and easily cleaned floors, food warehouses, medical warehouses, and distribution centers, and even general warehouses.

Buildings Most Exposed to Acid Damaged Concrete

The polished concrete floors in some buildings are more susceptible to acid damage to their polished physical floors than others. Some of the most susceptible floors are liquor stores, grocery stores, and automotive repair shops – or anywhere an acidic liquid could be spilled.

In a liquor store, an accidentally cleaved bottle of red wine tin impairment a polished concrete floor. Wine has mild acidity and the red colour makes the stain look worse. Since 2022 stain protection has been developed to protect against this hazard but the product must exist allowed to dwell on the flooring.
In a grocery store, any acidic item spilled on the polished concrete could etch the polished finish. These include vinegar, pickle juice, wine, colas, etc. Here again, stain protection is now bachelor for this potential hazard as the acids are mild.
In an automotive store, the hazard is battery acid. While the newest technology in polished physical stain guards will protect against many oils, there is no current polished physical protection for strong acids such as battery acid (sulfuric acid). Chemically resistant coatings can protect concrete floors from hydrochloric (muriatic) acid or other strong acids.

Understanding Acid Damaged Concrete

Whether information technology exist polished concrete or the concrete floor of a warehouse, it is non possible to simply follow the acid trails with a flooring grinder and properly restore the floor. It is important to sympathize both the characteristics of concrete and acrid. Concrete has a pH of eleven or college and acids that are strong plenty to damage it take a ph of 4 or lower. Upon contact, they are quite reactive only they seek equilibrium and soon they neutralize themselves. Based on this self-canceling reaction, it is more typical than not that the damage is located nearer the surface of the physical rather than deep within the concrete.

The repair of acid damage to concrete should be left to an experienced professional, specially when aesthetics are important. Information technology is very easy to use too aggressive diamond tooling and does irreparable harm to the aesthetics of the slab. The ability to skillfully blend is of import and requires feel, yet is not always 100% possible. The restoration professional has to know when to cease grinding deeper and incurring more costs.

Near Acrid Damaged Concrete

The acid has eaten through the hard-cap of the concrete and the floor must be restored to prevent further erosion and dusting. Below is a more than detailed explanation of the characteristics of a physical slab along with some primal points to consider when repairing acrid damage on a concrete floor:

1. 1. When a concrete floor is poured, the physical finishers use trowels to brand it shine. In a large warehouse, the trowels they apply are typically a heavy ride on blazon with a combustion engine and steel smoothing blades.
1. 1. As the floor is troweled the finest particles come to the top (this is called the physical foam), then beneath the physical cream is sand, and below the sand is pea gravel and larger aggregates.
1. 1. As the concrete dries and wet leaves the slab, capillaries of air are left in the concrete making it susceptible to wet absorption.
1. 1. Because the fine particles (concrete cream) have risen to the peak of the slab, the height of the slab is more dense and harder. Typically, multiple trowel passes are made during physical placement to make the surface very slick and hard.
    1. 1. Typically the physical below the cream is a different color than the surface of the cream.
        
        Typically the cream volition take a Mohs hardness of 4-6.
        
        Typically, once the cream is gone, the Mohs hardness volition driblet 1-2 points to a three-5.
        
        Contractors who are experienced in physical grinding, honing, and resurfacing will use different diamonds, multiple passes, and special reactive liquid silicate physical hardening chemicals to restore the surface of the physical to every bit shut to the original Mohs hardness equally possible.
1. 1. For decades concrete warehouse floors accept been chemically treated to prevent dusting. This is a one-time treatment that reacts with the free lime in the concrete to harden it and prevent dusting.
1. 1. Based on Titus' xv years of feel equally a concrete restoration specialist (and 49 years feel in concrete coatings), this acid has penetrated through this chemically hardened physical layer and the damaged areas are softer and volition dust more hands.
1. 1. This acid has damaged the cement paste, not the sand or aggregates. Microscopically, acid etched concrete would resemble a sponge as the acid travels through the capillaries of the concrete and dissolves the cement paste.
1. The restoration process will require diamond grinding deep enough to remove the acrid marks, which will, in plough, remove the top layer of concrete that has been treated for anti-dusting and hardening.

How to Repair Acid Damaged Concrete

1. Make up one's mind the starting grit of diamond to remove the acid impairment. Titus does this with a variable speed moisture hand grinder or a three-headed countertop polisher and diamond pads chosen electroplates.
  1. Nosotros will start with a fine grit and work our way to coarser grits to determine the proper starting dust.
  2. Titus lets the floor dry out at each dust as a wet flooring is very deceiving, it will hide any blemishes.
  3. Once the proper grit has been determined, we volition utilise all the chemicals and finish the test area. This is a slow process. Much time is spent waiting for the flooring to dry. A rut gun or hair dryer will speed upwards this procedure. Count on iii to 4 hours minimum to determine the starting diamond.
2. Once the starting grit has been determined, wet diamond- grinding the floor to remove the damaged physical begins. Moisture grinding is a very important rubber result to Titus. It increases both personnel and building issues apropos silicosis.
3. We proceed with multiple effectively grit diamonds, decreasing the dust size with each pass, to eliminate visible scratches and keep the floor cleanable.
4. Nosotros autoscrub the flooring to remove the concrete slurry from the slab.
5. One time the floor is make clean and dry, it is and then time to chemically re-harden and dust-proof the concrete floor. It important to continue the chemical wet 20 minutes and to use the chemic to rejection. .
6. Finally, remove excess chemical and re-autoscrub. The restoration is now complete.
  1. Burnishing the floor with a diamond impregnated pad is optional. Adding stainguard to the floor is optional. It increases gloss and makes the floor more than cleanable, but it will not protect confronting harsh acids.
  2. If oil spills are a concern, please advise your contractor. Stain protection from oil is currently available.

In conclusion, Titus' goal is to restore the floor to equally shut to its original state as possible. Please notation the following clarifications:

1. From observing the surface, information technology is impossible to tell how deep the acid has penetrated the concrete. It may non be possible to remove the light color of the acid marks completely. Nosotros have included pictures of contempo work – there is a very faint discoloration in some areas.
2. Titus will start the restoration process using the least invasive moisture diamond grinding process as possible.
3. The floor may contain discoloration after restoration. This is because:

- - Until grinding begins, it is incommunicable to know the depth of acid damage. This would vary based on many things, including the amount and concentration of acid spilled in any given surface area.
- - The depth of the foam and if the acid impairment went through the foam.
  - The color of the concrete below the cream.

Titus volition perform the restoration of an acid-damaged floor with utmost care in order to return to you a concrete flooring that is functional in terms of hardness and anti-dusting, and gratuitous of acid marks.

NSFI certificate for Titus Hybrid Polished Concrete

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