Concrete repair
Repairing concrete slabs is really beyond the scope of this little tutorial and way beyond my personal expertise, but I can at least give you a foundation (!) for getting started.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, there are some floors that cannot be repaired. For example, my first attempted stained concrete project was a nightmare! The slab was trashed. It had been poorly patched in the past and had a terrible mastic over it. Some places were broken and re-poured for new plumbing and I had to apply a self-leveler in others.
I had two choices here. One, I could have applied an overlayment product. Had I required concrete floors in this building that is what I would have done. You are basically re-pouring a new concrete floor, but very very thin and right on top of the existing concrete. Again, not a great solution if the underlying slab is going to shift and cause cracking. It is also not exactly cheap.
Two, you can apply a new floor treatment. In this case, we laid a maple floor. Almost died in the process, but it looks nice.
More to come on other repair techniques.
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