The builder following this little link on our website could have saved today and tomorrow's work for us.
http://www.element7concrete.com/builder_awareness.html
Behold the culprit:
This was one of three drinks we found on the framing when we started the project. Who knows how many more were in the house and spilled on the floor so far? I would guess about 5 or 6 based on the spots on the slab. If you zoom in, you can see one in the room behind the can.
The point is unprocessed concrete is like a big hard sponge, and chemical staining is like that black light they use in scary evening "news" shows (Dateline, 20/20, etc.) that shows all the gnarly stuff on the bedding of a hotel room. If the concrete is to be stained without a lot of grinding, stuff like spilled sodas is going to show up. Now, if you root through the insights given on element7concrete.com, you'll read about how much we like leaving the cream of the concrete intact, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. So we are slogging it out in the Texas heat, grinding a floor that should've been protected a bit better.
Now to be fair, the builder on this project is a good one. He and I have worked together many times before and I don't blame him entirely for the mistakes. Concrete flooring is a great way to create value when building, but it's frankly a pain for the GC to have to protect the floor as much as the have to. Most importantly, the communication has to be better. The link given will soon have an easy to print sign in PDF format that can be hung around jobsites where stained concrete is specified. Until then, please contact us for a copy of this so we can all build efficiently and keep moving forward.
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