Flooring options for a concrete porch?

[naztazia]

Need advice. We have a concrete back porch (8'x16' or so) that the previous owner painted numerous times. It has severely chipped, and I don't want the hassle of removing the chips, etching with acid, drying, then repainting. Power washing only removed 50% of the mess.

I'm leaning towards covering the mess -- something like installing indoor/outdoor carpeting. The problem is that while the porch is covered with a roof, the 3 sides are exposed to the elements (wrought iron railing holds up the porch). So how does one install any kind of floor covering nicely with the wrought iron installed at 10 points into the concrete? I don't want to enclose the porch (which would be another option).

Are there any other floor covering options? Or is the least problematic just to paint it again? BTW, we get the 4 seasons -- hot summers and icy cold winters.

Thanks.

[siobhansmcm]

[James "Cubby" Culbertson]

I don't know how much of a step down you have onto your porch but you could lay pavers if you wanted a brick look. Just an idea.

[Jay Stootzmann]

We put heavy duty ceramic tile on our concrete porch over 5 years ago and it has held up very well.

We had it professionally installed so that we would have a guarantee if something went wrong so that made it expensive but it was worth it.

[Italian Mason]

Anything like tile or pavers is going to require you to go through the cleanning process you mentiond to achieve the proper bond.

So how does one install any kind of floor covering nicely with the wrought iron installed at 10 points into

the concrete? Slowly and watch your cuts..the in/out carpet is so thin you can press the carpet next to the area to be cut and either mark it or cut it and glue it. Or you can purchase covers for the points that attach into the concrete its like a finish cap...

[e-mail] wrote:

[James "Cubby" Culbertson]

Why would you need to clean the concrete for pavers? I would simply put down a bit of sand and lay the pavers. Obviously at the edges something would need to be done to hold the sand/pavers in (ie. raised edge) but I wouldn't think that would be too difficult either. Tile, yes, I could see needing to clean the concrete. As for how to install around the iron, you'd prolly have to do some cutting of the bricks to get them to fit around them. You could do your layout so as to minimize the amount of cutting. The biggest problem I would see is if you don't have much of a step down onto the patio right now. Figuring for the sand and thickness of the bricks, you'd potentially raise the patio up to the level of your house entrance which would not be a good thing. Cheers, cc

[No]

A chemical stripper may work to remove the old paint then just leave it natural for least maintenance.