H & C Infusion Acid Stain Failure

R.J. Francis

We are in the middle of a basement remodel, the client chose the acid stain for the floor finish.
The house was built in the 70's their was no sealer or grease on the floor,
We cleaned the floor with 40 grit buffing pads on a machine, then proceeded to mop (almost 8 hours) until the water was clean, the next day we mopped again. Then let the slab dry for 72 hours. We used 2 coats of stain, 2 coats of water based sealer and 3 coats of industrial floor finish all made by H & C, The floor looked great, we let it sit for a week and came and did the millwork, when we taped the floor to spray it took the stain right off to bare concrete, we tested differant areas with differant tapes all with the same conclusion. Sherwins rep came out and did some field tests, they took samples and are saying its going to be 4 weeks until we get results of why its failed.

Has anyone ran into this or have heard anything like this happening
Any input would be great, bc im stressing out over the whole situation

user50444

Don't take this question as insulting,... you nuetralized + washed residue, right? Once I had a similar situation... it all came down to the floor surface being damaged from carbon monoxide poisoning. Blue taped off an area to do phase two of a house floor + pulled up waterborne expoxy + stain. Sherwin has giving me there H & C sample kit, but have not yet tried them out.

R.J. Francis

No offense taken,
We neutrilized both coats with baking soda/water mix, the funny thing is that we did samples in the future bathroom, that is getting tiled and that is laying down fine. I think we got a bad batch. I heard that the acid stain has a shelf life(nowhere in specs) after a certain amount of months you need to add acid that dissapated from sitting in containers

user50444

R.J.
Did you ever find anything new out on your problem?
I did have issues with potentially old stain. Prizm's earthen clay + brickforms maghogany. But on two seperate occasions, 90% of the stain color washed off with residue cleaning.

Tscarborough

Acid stain causes a reaction that can not be pulled up by tape. If the concrete changed colors, then the only thing you could have pulled up is the sealer.

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Tscarborough

And just as an FYI, household ammonia works much better than baking soda to neutralize acid stain. Much easier to clean up.

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It ain't Rocket Science unless you are building rockets.

user50444

there could be a scenario of a weak surface on floor, stain reacting (as it does), sealer bonding to surface, + tape bonding more to sealer, + when pulled,... coming off with. Ammonia + acid stain mixed together.... rather the off-gas vapors from baking soda.

Wolfgang

Did you do a moisture test on the slab after you thought it was dry? Even then it shouldnt have pulled it bare. TScarborough's answer makes the most sense.

tsb

I run into this pretty often. Never put tape on an acrylic sealed/waxed floor.

here's an article I googled for ya that pertains to stained floors and plasticizer migration: http://gayegoodman.com/archives/041304.html

Sometimes acid stains penetrate and react "deeply", sometimes they don't. I'd be willing to bet that the areas where the stain was "pulled up" still has some color, it just doesn't have the sealer to enhance the color.

So that's what I think happened, how to fix it's a whole 'nother story.

stainone

1st time it happen was a few months ago stain the whole house 2coats went to neutralize all the stain came up and yes it was h&c stain.then we did a 3rd coat it came off with just a wet rag, i mean gray cocrete it came all the way off.we did a job yesterday and the same thing happen 4x we stain this floor we added acid to our mix still nothing.h&c says the acid has a 12 month shelf life its more like 6months when you get your stain check the date on the batch make sure its not more than 6 months old.the stain that failed 3 months ago was 9 and 10 months old,as for yesterday i have not got the bath # yet .this seems to be more and the problem bad thing with acid stain you know it bad untill you have spent alot of man hrs.,money on stain,time trying to figure out if something else is wrong? we will be looking at other stains,i will start r&d after the 1st of the yr.

Dmax Consulting

How long have yall worked with the infusion acid stain. I want to start offering it, but am scared of these kinds of problems.

Any advice?

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gene dean

There are good and bad and ugly reactive acid stains. Try another brand. I do a lot of staining and I cringe if I can't first install an overlay. The biggest thing is to be able to read how closed the surface is. A lot of powered troweled surfaces are too tight to accept a stain. The acid needs to break the surface for the salts to do their reaction.

The mix design of the initial concrete at placement, curing compounds, surface hardeners, the phase of the moon..... A lot of things will affect the outcome.

If anything was placed on the fresh concrete after the pour and before a good hydration has occurred, it can cause ghosting.

If I have a slab that has a glazed finish, I'll wash & clean. While slab is wet I'll spray on a diluted muriatic acid, diluted around 8-1. Spray enough to see a light reaction. Rinse and neutralize right away (ammonia
8-1). I also wet the slab before applying the reactive stain. You'll get more color movement and not as many drips marks if (should I say when) your sprayer dribbles on you.

OH, most all stains tend to lean on the orange side, if you are wanting a truer color, mix a little blue or black acid stain in your mix. That will knock off the orange. Depending on the manufacture, about 6 oz. per gallon.

Never apply tape to a sealed floor. If tape pulls up your color on an unsealed floor, then it hasn't penetrated the concrete and is only laying on top of your surface. You should be able to run a white cloth across the slab and pick up no color. gene ec-Indy

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stainone

nice post Gean but we are still having issues with h&c stain just to let others know.i will post again when we find out whats going on