Help - I need advise!

[shardin]

My home is around eleven years old. The floors in my dining and family room and kitchen are stained concrete. The floors have been stained since the house was built. My family has been living there for five years. The people who lived in the house before us used Future on the floors to make them shine. I continued doing this because that is what they recommended. Every six months I have been putting on a high gloss polyurethane. My floors are now flaking. I am assuming it is the build up of Future and the polyurethane. What do I need to do to get the flaking to stop and second what does anyone recommend I use to get a high gloss shine that will repell water and keep its shine for a long time?

S. Hardin

[SDR]

Polyurethane, like any other permanent coating (paint, varnish, lacquer) needs a clean, dry, oil-free surface to bond to. If you have been painting polyurethane on over a waxy polish material, you can expect it to peel off, probably sooner than later.

SDR

[nanrehvasconez]

you will be well advised to call a professional floor refinisher, he/she will remove all the coatings, sand and pollish the floor and apply a modern acrylic sealant which will last for years

[csintexas]

It is possible that the original finish is still good and subsequent layers of future and polyurethane could be removed. Future is an oil I believe so it would prevent polyurethane from adhering to the surface below it. You might experiment with that a bit. You may find better help on a website devoted to concrete finishing also there are several books available on the subject. Larger cities usually have stores that specialize in concrete related products where you could find suitable products.

[mx2]

There are basically four options to coating concrete floors: epoxy, polyurethane, acrylic sealer (stain), and latex. . Polyurethanes cannot be applied directly to concrete and require a epoxy primer (bonding agent) which essentially means the poly is kind of a top coat for epoxy. This is the most expensive option which is why it's usually reserved to treat the concrete floors with special looks, like granite chips for a nice finish. Future is basically a high-gloss clear acrylic paint (not a wax). The acrylic and the polyurethane should not be combined as floor finishes...and there's no reason to be applying polyurethane every six months. A good application should last years ...in high traffic commercial areas...!!

Bottom line...it's time to do it right: get a pro to strip it all down to the substrate (the concrete) and start over.

mx2.5