Monday, March 17, 2014

Concrete Floor Update

When I was planning my house, I decided to let the floors crack naturally, instead of having stress relief lines cut into them.  And crack they did, but nothing too bad.  After a couple of years (it's been almost 5) I finally got around to getting the cracks filled in.  I want to fill them mostly to keep them clean.  I don't like dust and other 'stuff' getting down inside.

I also had a spot that needed to be repaired.  The wheels on my office chair tore up the concrete surface, where I sit in front of my computer (and I sit there a lot :-).  

So after some discussion, we decided to use a marine epoxy to fill in the cracks.  It has a bit of give to it, which is useful when you live in earthquake country.

For the most part, I'm pretty happy.  The cracks are all well sealed.  We colored the epoxy black, so the filled areas do stand out against the rest of the floor, a bit more than I'd like.  But this epoxy isn't going to peel for a long while, and when I keep the floors waxed, they look pretty nice :-).

At least that's one project I've been putting off, done for now.  With some luck I won't have to worry about it for a very long time.

Starting to add the epoxy into the first long crack.

Rob filling in the space by the french doors,
This was poured to have a little extra space.

Under office chair repair area, it does look much darker in this picture
I think that's from the camera flash.

Same area after a little sanding.  I was hoping that sanding the
epoxy surface would help blend in the repaired area, but once
it's washed, and waxed it doesn't make any difference.

Living room crack before the floor was waxed.

Kitchen crack repairs before the floor was waxed.

Kitchen area after floor was waxed.  In these pics it doesn't
look too different, but I'm blaming that on the flash too :-)

No comments: