A freind of mine says he is getting sick from the concrete dust that is coming from his basement floor. The house is under two years old. I have not seen the problem. He works from a small office set up in his basement and tells me that the bare concrete is creating dust. It looked like a regular poured floor to me last time I saw it. He has decided to rent an office and asked what he should use to seal the floor. I suggested he wait until spring/summer before putting anything like a paint on the floor.
I have never heard of a concrete floor once cured giving off dust. Is there some other problem here?
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It was poured too wet. he going to have to keep mopping, sweeping, vaccumn till he get to something strong. then I would apply an epoxy coating on top to seal.
If concrete was not mixed properly nor cured with the right amount of moisture, it can dust just as Brownbag said. But, I doubt that the dust is making him sick.
Concrete dust is alkaline, so it can be irritating, but I wouldn't expect that to cause any whole body symptoms, just lung irritation, like a cough. I would think it would take a lot of dust to irritate the lungs enough to cause symptoms. Over a lifetime of exposure to any sand one can get silicosis, but sand is everywhere, and the little bit from a basement is not going to amount to a hill of beans compared to all the other exposure to sand we get our whole lives.
Nevertheless, there are many sealers for concrete that work well. If your friend is sensitve to chemicals that should weigh in his choice of sealer. Even plain old concrete paint would stop all dusting.
Then there's the question, if the concrete is so weak it's shedding dust, will any sealer stick to it? Brownbagg suggests cleaning till you get down to sound concrete, but what if there isn't any sound concrete?
its down there, just a couple micro down. on jobs like this I alway rent a carpet cleaner with the brush and just clean a couple times