Do it yourself concrete staining is the cheapest and easiest way to enhance the appearance of your concrete surfaces. The other option of tearing down the existing concrete for subsequently being covered with new or decorative overlays, like epoxy paint, is quite expensive and labor intensive that makes it a very difficult DIY project and is better avoided . However, before you get started with a staining project, here are a few things you should keep in mind.

Concrete staining is of two types: acid floor stains and acrylic stains. Acid stains work by chemically reacting with free lime in the surface to produce a natural looking, translucent color. Acid staining gives spotted, multicolored and multi-hued coloring. The interesting part is that as every concrete behaves differently to acids, the stains created on one floor can’t be reproduced on another floor.Acrylic stains are waterborne and have pigments that seep into the pores and adhere to the concrete, therefore creating a more consistent, semi translucent color like that of a dye. A very positive aspect of acrylic stains is that they help to conceal some of the defects or discoloration, but acid stains on the contrary, tend to highlight such limitations.

Acid and acrylic stains work equally good on many of the floors and you have to choose one, depending on the kind of looks you wish to have.

Nevertheless, under certain conditions one may deliver better results than the other.   For example ten to fifteen years old exterior concrete that has already lost a good part of its free lime would not be able to retain acid stains. Such a concrete would give excellent results with acrylic stains because of its increased porosity over time. You can’t get this with epoxy garage paints. Obviously, acid stains would give very satisfying results on a new concrete that has plenty of free lime.

If the concrete is already in need of repairs and requires a bit of patch work or scaling, it will be good to use acrylic stains as it helps to disguise repairs. On the other hand acid stains would make such patches to stand out. For smooth trowel led interior surfaces with less porosity, acid stains are usually better because they don’t require as much penetration to color the concrete.

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