A Patio Update

One of my first posts on this blog was the success we had staining the concrete on our patio.  It turned out to be one of my favorite projects we've done.  Since it is our most popular and visited post so far, we wanted to share this update with you. Here we are a year later.  While we still l.o.v.e. the over all look of the stained patio, 

(move Dex, fine!  He's such a ham.)

it is starting to show some wear.

This is the largest problem area.

As much as we loved the ease of the Behr Concrete Dye Kit, the sealer has left much to be desired.  It was supposed it give it a wet look, while retaining good traction.  Well, we never did see the wet look, and as you can tell our dye is coming up.

For the most part, the dye is intact.  However, there are a couple of spots around the edge of the concrete that are literally lifting up from the concrete, exposing that bland salmon colored concrete.  

Our solution?  We we haven't solitified one yet, we're still in brainstorming mode.  Our thoughts were to buy the individual cans of dye, restain, and then buy a better quality sealer.  This sealer just didn't cut it in our book. We're under the impression that if the sealer had been more durable, this may not have happened at all.

Just thought we'd share with you this temprary blunder.  

Any thoughts or your opinions?  We're hoping to get this done before cold weather comes through.  However, given the fact we live in sunny southern California, we still have some time.  

Time to go.  I have a very full to-do list, and I need to get started. Thanks for reading.

Happy Monday,

Kristin

Comments

[jeff]

Are you still having a problem with the stain peeling? We used behr's Concrete dye kit on an interior room and noticed the floor scratched easily and tape would pull up splotches of stain from the floor. I'm not sure if it's the products fault or if we did not prep the floor well

I'm hesitant to use the dye kits again and am thinking next time I will use a their regular semi transparent stain

[Elizabeth]

Great project! I'm planning to apply the same product to an interior room. Do you think your floor might have shown less wear and tear if it had not been exposed to the weather? Your debacle is making me consider using a different sealer. It looks like the kit comes with the standard Behr wet look sealer. I'm trying to decide if that will be strong enough to protect an interior floor. Any thoughts or opinions?

[Kristin]

elizabeth,
I would recommend a better sealer than the one provided in the dye it. It just didn't cut it for us. other projects have taken us away from this one for the time being, but when we DO come back to it, we will be using a better quality sealer on the whole patio. thanks for reading.

[Michelle]

Did you happen to use a primer?

[Arthur geffen]

I used the Tuscan dye on the patio on my outdoor kitchen in dallas, texas and had exactly the same problem. Behr products are warrantied for life, so my wife called and they sent us a touch up kit. When we first put the stuff down last summer, the high temps in dallas were 115 (yes that's right). Behr said the reason it popped up was because it was so hot. So we fixed the few patches in the fall and it has come up again in pretty much the same places. Now they are having us clean it with their concrete degreaser and are sending us a new patch kit. Will see what happens

[brian]

I'm just wondering what kind of prep was done before application. was acid used? sanding or grinding? what was done to expose the pores?