My father in law was the general contractor when we built our house. He is one talented builder and we are very fortunate to have him. But it also creates a situation where if things aren't quite how you expected them to be you are careful to not mention it in a way that may suggest he could have done things differently, or even better.
We have lived in the house about 2 years now and my wife is frustrated at how impossible it is to clean our garage floor. Of course when it was poured it was beautiful, clean, white etc. It was not sealed or anything and it sat untouched for almost 6 months during the rest of construction. From time to time boxes of siding or appliances would be stored in there and I think they may have made some sawdust in there for a while but no chemicals, no sun/rain etc as it was poured after framing and after roof was on.
From the get go the cement seemed a tiny bit porous, almost sticky on top. The fine sand/clay mix we had seemed to just blow into the pores and when you went to sweep it you just couldn't get it out. I grew up with a garage where the cement was dark grey and very slick. I think my dad said that the old time cement guy that did the garage we grew up in troweled and troweled until it was slick as glass and that the extra troweling likely make a less porous surface? He regrets how slippery his cement can be when wet, but he likes how nothing stains it and it hoses clean even after processing deer, making applesauce, etc.
So fast forward to us living there, for a while no grass so kids tracking the clay into the garage, then last year getting our dog and him coming up dirty out of the pond and laying on the step up part by the back door and embedding more dirt into the cement. You pick up the rug by the back door and it is like 3 shades lighter under there.
We hose it out every week, but don't use powerwasher or chemicals. No matter how much soap and a stiff brush we can't make it look any cleaner.
An additional issue is that somehow rust drips off the frames of our vehicles and adds nice rust stains as well. I can live with the rust stains but the overall dirt would be nice to remove somehow.
So my wife called this morning and said is it time to paint the garage floor?
I'm leary of that as the only way to do that right is get the pros in, grind everything down, put in way expensive epoxy, worry about adding non-slip sand or flakes into it, and then after all that money, still get rust spots on it and have to work hard to keep that clean. cost for 3 stall garage is probably north of $5000?
We have cement steps going down to a basement access door and have an unfinished cement floor basement. Soon after we moved in we had so much limestone dust from the basement tracking through the house that I did end up painting the basement floor 2 coats (huge job) Now with kids flying around on push toys, bikes, rollerblades, scooters, some of the paint on the corners is peeling off but at least we did take care of the dust problem. The kids do track the garage dirt down the cement steps and into the basement.
I considered getting those rubber stair treads that you see in commercial stairwell applications with round nubs on them. Of course those would have to be hosed down or mopped regularly as well.
So, outside of acid treatment which I imagine would clean OK but just open the pores back up again, any ideas on floor cleaners?
I'm open to ideas of grinding the cement and applying a sealer but then I'm not sure how much further ahead I am.
Did we just get a porous mix of concrete that day?
I'm sure there are concrete experts here who know the answers...
Thanks
