Painting concrete patio - tips and tricks.

[pezzy669]

So I am about to tackle painting my concrete patio - it measures ~5' x 14' and is very rough texture and I have never painted a concrete floor before. I have had very good luck with Behr interior paints and Home Depot is my go to home improvement store since they are only ½ mile away so I will probably going with Behr products. Behr recommends me buy an extra $40-50 worth of etching/cleaning product and primer product before I even get the first coat of paint on.

Planning on using a general degreaser/cleaner then pressure cleaning the patio before paint. Pretty certain I can skip the etching product as the patio is a very rough surface as is but I'm not entirely sure if I need to get a concrete primer.

Has anyone painted a concrete floor before and can offer any tips or tricks? This is a mostly sheltered patio where I have a patio above, water intrusion is really just blow over rain and in heavy rain storms (~1-2x per year) the gutters get overwhelmed and create a small river over a small portion of my ground floor patio.

 

[P10crew]

I would look into staining rather than paint.

 

[maxdustington]

I would etch and paint. Etching it will help it stick, meaning more time until it needs painting. Put an extra coat on traffic areas first.

Degrease it, etch it and paint it. I'd skip the primer as I wouldn't want to build it up. Consider thinning it and doing multiple coats, if you could get an airless sprayer that would be ideal. It is only 14' x 5' though.

 

[AandPDan]

X2 on staining. No matter what you do the paint will fail. It's just a matter of when.

 

[spasm3]

Originally Posted by pezzy669
.

Has anyone painted a concrete floor before and can offer any tips or tricks? This is a mostly sheltered patio where I have a patio above, water intrusion is really just blow over rain and in heavy rain storms (~1-2x per year) the gutters get overwhelmed and create a small river over a small portion of my ground floor patio.



I did my garage floor with a gray stain that Demarpaint suggested. I degreased it with simple green and scrubbed it. Pressure washed it and degreased it again. Rinsed and let it dry. I acid etched it, then rinsed it 3 times.

I let it dry 24-48hrs then roller coated it with H+C SOLVENT concrete stain. Its available in several colors. Let it dry 4 hours then coated again. It turned out great.

I would pm Demarpaint as he is the resident paint and finish expert. I don't know if what i used is good for full outdoor exposure.

 

[skyactiv]

The best option might be to use QUIKRETE ReCap Concrete Resurfacer.

With all the required prep work to make the paint job reliable long term, I'd resurface it.
If I was to use paint, I'd go to a company PPG paint store and get Perma Crete.

If the concrete has any moisture in it, even if it looks dry, you cant expect it to hold up.
Don't assume because "I wont be driving a car on it-it'll hold up" to be the case.

 

[JLawrence08648]

DO WHAT spasm3 suggested!!! Everything, degreasing, power washing, etching! All are critical. You must use real acid, HCl hydrochloric/muriatic acid.

That's what I do. Anything less very well could result in flaking paint.

 

[Kage860]

I did exactly what you are planing. I painted a covered concrete patio about a year and a half ago. It still looks great, no chipping at all. It was rough, porous, mismatched concrete. The home depot paint guy was suggesting an etcher and the patio paint. I didn't listen and I went with concrete bonder or primer, it was the clear stuff and the 1 step epoxy concrete paint. I just power washed it, put the primer or bonder and two coats of the 1 step epoxy. Afterwards I painted some bricks to match without any primer and the foot traffic took some of that paint off the bricks. But ultimately I'm happy with the concrete itself. With rough concrete the etching did not make any sense to me. The one step epoxy is not as good as the real two step but it sounded better to me than the patio paint. Thats my experience.

 

[StarCaller]

Originally Posted by Kage860
The home depot paint guy was suggesting an etcher and the patio paint.


what did you expect?
after like 10 hours watching training videos you'll get scheduled as an expert at homeDepot /