100 Year Old Pavers Lobby Floor Restored
A building on Union Street in San Francisco had contacted my company to restore their old lobby floor. This building was over 100 years old and still had it’s original paver tile in their lobby. Most of the tiles were in good condition but the sealers had yellowed and had dirt embedded in it. It looked awful but we got this 100 year old pavers lobby floor restored in a week!
Process
I had my team strip up the old sealants using a low VOC, soy based floor stripper ( SCR1600 Soy Gel ). The stripper is applied using a floor squeegee, covered in plastic, and allowed to dwell overnight. The following day an orbital 17″ floor machine equipped with abrasive floor stripping pads is used to scrub the floors. This breaks apart the old sealer and removes it from the tile. A wet / dry vacuum is used to vac up the broken down sealer and stripper and is disposed of. A degreaser is then used to break down the oils left over from the stripping process. An extractor machine pressure washes the concrete at 1,100 psi while pumping out the dirty waste water. Extractor machines are kind of like carpet cleaning machines. The main differences are that they don’t use heat but have a higher psi water pressure.
There were a couple spots where the mortar had fallen out so those were filled with a quick drying, acrylic based mortar repair. The next day the floors are sealed with Barrier urethane sealer. This chemical and UV resistant sealer is designed to strongly bond to varied types of surfaces and create a hard, abrasion resistant layer of protection. Barrier is a great choice for indoor surfaces where strength and chemical resistance is required. This sealer sets up quickly so we were able to get multiple coats down in just a couple of hours.
Results
The whole project came out fantastic. This was one if the first times I had used Modern Stone’s Barrier and I’ve been getting great results ever since. It’s now reformulated to be more chemical and scratch resistant and also comes in a gloss or matte finish version. Check out the video below detailing the process and order your own Barrier urethane sealer linked below.
