I don’t do a lot of sealing after pressure washing I recently did a job. Pressure washed the driveway. Waited 24hrs and sealed it with armor sx5000wb. It a water based penetrating sealer(silane siloxane). I used a sprayer and back rolled it. Didn’t put it on heavy. I came back today, the next day to check and it looks like wet spot still on the surface. I’ll attach a couple of pictures. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone dealt with this before and if it just needs more time or if there any good options to fix it. Thank you.
How new is the concrete?
I use a similar water based sealer, haven’t found it necessary to back roll as I’m careful not to overlap with my sprayer.
It was done about 2 years ago.
I don’t do very much concrete sealing. You can tell where I overlapped but I would just spray a square then backfill it to avoid any puddling. I didn’t put very much down. It said on the label 5 gallons should get you 1000-1500sq/ft. I was staying right at 300sq/ft per gallon judging by how much I used. I was told by someone to give it a day and see if it starts to fade at all. Otherwise use xylene to take the discolorations off the surface. Any thoughts on that?
300 sq for / gallon is not a lot for brushed concrete. In the future, use more.
What you’re seeing is you applied more sealer to some areas than others. So you have a run line.
There’s not much you can do now. Unless you’re going to remove it and reapply.
And please don’t take some guys advice on how to fix it unless you trust them and they personally have fixed that problem the exact same way. Otherwise you can make the problem much worse.
Instead call the manufacture, send them a pic, and say, “How do I fix this?” No way I’m using Xylene unless the manufacturer says to do that. This is water-based sealer not solvent-based.
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Yea I’ll call them in the morning to see. But if I used more then the same issue still would have happened. Everything dried evenly. I kid attention to that just to make sure I wasn’t overloading any areas. This picture shows how most of it looks. There was only a little where it looks like there’s overlapping lines
Also some areas have faded between morning and evening. Maybe 5-10 percent of it.
What is the pic supposed to show? It looks fine unless you’re saying the darker specs are not part of the concrete but where the sealer is showing/penetrating more.
Also, I always overlap with a penetrating sealer. It’s designed to be overlapped. And I never have overlap marks at all. But I don’t use Foundation Armor. I’ve only known two people to use it and both have had issues.
You don’t need to back roll or worry about overlap—the product is water-based, and concrete is highly absorbent, so it should be fine.
The area circled in red looks like dirty water that flowed back onto the surface or it wasn’t fully rinsed off. The green circle looks like surface cleaner stripping, but the line is almost too perfect, so it might just be from the concrete process. The blue area could be from not using enough product and the divots are still getting water penetration (hence appearing darker) because of it. What was the temp/time of day when you applied this?
The follow up photo you posted almost makes it look like it’s got a white haze on the surface (could also just be from being a low quality photo). If you post treated and left the SH to dry then you probably sealed over the salt residue that remained once it dried. If I know I’m sealing then I either don’t post treat or I wait for the post treat to dry and do a final rinse.
I finished pressure washing thursday night. And put down sealer Saturday morning. Sunny and between 60-85 all 3 days. The pictures make the pressure washing lines look a lot a worse the they actually are. The biggest issues is the second picture I posted. That’s what the majority of it dried like. But then some areas are perfectly fine so only 2 options are to wait and see if the rest fades or take it off.
Can you take a better photo or upload a higher quality version of the second photo? It’s so pixelated/blurred that it’s hard to see what exactly is going on.
I do know that some sealer brands are temperamental of weather… aka don’t apply in direct sun, early in the morning, etc… that could be the case here, but I’ve never used the brand you are so can’t say for sure.
Also curious if the concrete was ever sealed… if so with what?
The photo is fine on my end maybe it’s the site. I’ll try re uploading.
The concretes 2 years old and they said it was never sealed. Said he talked to the contractor who did it a few months ago. The product is to be applied between 45-90 degrees f. The weather was good low humidity. So It doesn’t make sense. I’m going back once I’m finished up with a different job so I’ll try to take some more photos to update. But I’ll re upload the one now
Not sure, this is what I’m seeing on my end… very jagged/pixelated
I did a quick Google search on the product… it only mentions application with a pump sprayer and to do a second coat within 10-15 minutes. Also says that darker spots can form from over application. I wonder if back rolling is part of the issue.
Man I’d switch to V-Seal 101/102. I get it locally and it leaves zero evidence you even used it. Runs about $200/5 gallon.
Do you have any pre-pics? I’d like to see what the concrete looked like before. The pic of the whole area looks like those darker spots are spread throughout the whole area (though more concentrated in the area you zoomed in on). I’m wondering if that’s just the look of the concrete.
Not OP, just re-posting his photos as a reference point. I have a feeling that the concrete just wasn’t done well and a lot of what we are seeing is from spalling.
Whoops. lol
That’s exactly what I was thinking–spalling.
I’m partial to Shield Top Seal.
Either way, the penetrating sealers are very easy to apply.
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