Concrete Etching Gone Wrong

By Eric Hansen

July 2021 – $250 Winner

This month’s $250 winner is Eric H. from Washington. Here, he tells us how he redid a rather large basement floor.

While this project ultimately turned out a success, our winner did learn one valuable lesson: Protect your work and save time by wearing spiked shoes whenever there’s the remotest possibility of tracking something onto a surface.

Project Info

Project Completed In: Six days
Estimate of Square Footage: 1,400 square feet

Direct Colors Says…

While this project ultimately turned out a success, our winner did learn one valuable lesson: Protect your work and save time by wearing spiked shoes whenever there’s the remotest possibility of tracking something or stepping onto a freshly etched surface.

This is particularly necessary with etching solutions, which will pick up a footprint and engrave it in the concrete, but you won’t necessarily see it until it’s too late. Concrete dust can look just like concrete, after all, so it may not even be visible to the naked eye before you apply stain or pre-treatment.

Eric found that out after he’d unknowingly tracked fine concrete dust all over the surface after he had applied CitrusEtch™ concrete etcher. Once the treatment had dried, there were footprints everywhere, all of them etched into the floor.

Project Description

Unfinished walkout basement. It will be two beds, two baths, and a large entertainment/game room. I ordered the acid stain test kit and did the floor under where the tub will go, under the vanity, and in the utility closet.

While I was doing my first scrub, I noticed my curbless shower was not going to drain right. Little did I know how much extra work this would cause. I tarped off the bathroom and set fans to create negative pressure in the room. The air-born concrete grinding dust was kept in the room, but I did track it out of the room on my feet.

I then went back to scrubbing and vacuuming and scrubbing and vacuuming and scrubbing and vacuuming. That concrete dust is pretty stubborn to get up. I was finally satisfied with how clean the floor was and moved on to the next step.

The slab was power-troweled when it was poured about a year ago. I used the hard trowel surface prep to etch the floor. This was pretty easy with the pump-up sprayer. Then I rinsed and vacuumed.

Here is where the true trouble from my day of re-sloping the shower would come in.

Every footprint where I tracked concrete dust from the day of grinding had been etched into my floor!! And I had walked everywhere in the basement that day. The whole floor was covered in footprints. The floor was spotless before I etched. Not a hint of anything. Tired and dejected, I thought about LVP flooring. Okay, only for a little bit.

I tried sanding them off. I’d just spent a day vacuuming up dust, so I had a spray bottle of water in one hand and a palm sander in the other.  This worked pretty well, but I couldn’t use much water without risking damaging my sander. It would leave behind a thick cement slurry, which had to be diluted with water, then vacuumed up quickly. If it dried at all, I’d be back where I started with a haze instead of a footprint.

I ended up renting a hard floor scrubber. It still took about eight hours of scrubbing and four passes to get the footprints and any remaining haze off the floor. Woohoo! Crisis averted, I can now do the fun part.

I loaded up the sprayer with the avocado acid stain and started spraying. I did one coat and waited an hour before donning my spiky shoes for a second coat.

My coverage on the first coat was a little short, so I had to dilute the second coat about two parts acid to one part water to ensure I would cover the entire floor.

I waited about eight hours, then dumped 50 gallons of baking soda water on my floor. I vacuumed this up then did one quick pass with the floor scrubber with the brushes set to their lightest contact pressure. A quick check after this showed that the water would not pick up any more color.

I set some fans up, returned the scrubber, and got lunch.

Once dry, I rolled on the acrylic satin sealer. I did not care for the spiky shoes, so I just planned my path carefully so I could stay off the wet sealer, not leave an edge to dry, and leave me an exit off the floor. Three coats later and I’m done! My coverage with the sealer was much greater than the 200 square feet per gallon, hence the three coats.

Personal Tips

Direct Colors Products Used

EverStain Acid Stain Trial Kit in Avocado, Azure Blue, and Sea Grass
CitrusEtch™ concrete etcher
EverStain™ acid stain in Avocado
Acid stain sprayer
Water based acrylic sealer, satin finish
Concrete Floor Wax, satin finish

Other Products Used

Simple Green for cleaning
Store brand baking soda for neutralizing acid stain