Do It Yourself Concrete Staining

Do it yourself concrete staining is the cheapest and easiest way to enhance the appearance of your concrete surfaces.The alternatives, like epoxy, tearing out existing concrete and replacing with new or decorative overlays, are not recommended for do-it-yourselfers and can be very expensive.But before you begin your staining project there are a few things you need to know.

There simply are two types of concrete staining namely, acid staining and acrylic staining. Acid stains work by chemically reacting with free lime in the surface to produce a natural looking, translucent color.They create a mottled, variegated, multi-hued coloring. The interesting part is that as every concrete behaves differently to acids, the stains created on one floor can’t be reproduced on another floor. Acrylic stains on the other hand are water borne pigments that seep thru the pores and adhere to the surface of the floor, thus producing a more consistent semi translucent color as if obtained from a dye. A very positive aspect of acrylic stains is that they help to conceal some of the defects or discoloration, but acid stains on the contrary, tend to highlight such limitations.

Acid and acrylic stains work equally good on many of the floors and you have to choose one, depending on the kind of looks you wish to have.

Nevertheless, under certain conditions one may deliver better results than the other. For older, exterior concrete (more than 15-20 yrs old) acid stains may not work because much of the free lime has leeched away. Such a concrete would give excellent results with acrylic stains because of its increased porosity over time. You can’t get this with epoxy garage paints. Obviously, acid stains would give very satisfying results on a new concrete that has plenty of free lime. If the concrete is already in need of repairs and requires a bit of patch work or scaling, it will be good to use acrylic stains as it helps to disguise repairs. Any patching materials will stand out with acid stains. For smooth trowel led interior surfaces with less porosity, acid stains are usually better because they don’t require as much penetration to color the concrete.