Solvent sealer
Hello, my husband and I are opening a tattoo studio. The landlord left us the task of finishing the floors. We chose to do an acid stain (which turned out amazing) but when researching which sealer to use our research was not thorough enough. A couple of websites we were relying on laid out the pros and cons of solvent versus water based. We chose to go with the solvent based sealer for its durability and glossy finish. The website did warn the odor was higher with solvents but we did not understand the magnitude. Once the floors were sealed we left the doors open for a couple of hours for ventilation but had to lock it up for the night and head back home. The smell has been so strong since (it’s been a week and a half). We have gone in every day with two high powered fans and all of the doors open for several hours a day. We have a regular residential air purifier with a thin carbon filter running constantly and have just added another air purifier with 18 lbs of activated carbon in its filter. In the morning when we arrive the smell is still very strong. After openin g both doors the smell weakens after about 30 minutes and it becomes tolerable to be there.
I have a feeling the smell is stuck in the ceiling insulation (which is just plastic covered insulation with no drywall over it)
It seems like it would hold the scent.
I’ve been wondering if from the first few days of strong concentrated odor if the hvac filter is saturated with the smell.
I am wanting to replace it with a carbon filter to more aggressively remove the smell.
It is 1,900 square feet with two hvac units.
What do you think about my predicament?
It’s really scary for me because I’ve started working in the space for about 4-6 hours at a time and am starting to have a sore throat. I can’t skip working because it is my livelihood.
I really regret not doing more research and feel very strongly that any website offering advice on sealing concrete floors should stress that solvent based dealers should NEVER be used indoors.
jess
in General Discussion 3 years and 7 months ago
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stevecym | 3 years and 7 months ago
I just read about benzene. It is still manufactured but where as in my great grandfather’s generation it was used as aftershave lotion and my grandfather had a glass bottle of it when I was a child, it seems to be something sold business to business and Amazon sells it but it is so pricey any of us would not consider using it at work. I find it troubling that it is in all of the chemicals we use all the time: mineral spirits, naphtha, toluene and it is still in gasoline. Also, the marketing of modern benzene seem to say it is free of some other chemical so maybe that component was or is the really bad element.
Cigarette smoke contains benzene.
So dork your research led to some important revelations here. Though part of me wishes I had never learned what I just did.
I know of people who work with stain and varnishes everyday who have monthly blood tests to check chemical exposure.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 3 years and 7 months ago
You got me Steve—I don’t know anything about the history of benzine—sorry!
stevecym | 3 years and 7 months ago
Dork, even if this issue has resolved itself for op (more likely th op saw me talking about wood floors and not addressing concrete and wondered what I was doing) this entire solvent issue and your drilling down and looking at what is on the shelf at our favorite store had to be done for the wider audience.
That product with the benzene name in it. When I was a child people of my grandparent’s generation had benzene in their garages. When we were young teens and we saw big burly, messy looking workmen around, we used to joke that they used benzene as under arm deodorant. Now we never hear of benzene anymore.
I am not sure if the solvent you mention is even related to the old benzene or if it is something altered to make it safer or if these benzenes are in the same class of chemicals, but I have always been under the impression that the old benzene was removed from the consumer supply chain because it was a bad one. Maybe bob marvin recalls some of the history of this product (I am not being a smart a.. this time bob) and maybe you dork will do us a favor and read about that modern variation and let us know if it is related to the plain old benzene.
As for naptha. That is widely available in the consumer chain and is a SLOW drying solvent, slower than mineral spirits and we use it a lot to slow down the drying of finishes to help them level. Perhaps that is why they put naptha in the finish and perhaps the other solvents they might use are slower drying and that is what the oder hangs around for so long. I dont think of naptha as any more dangerous than spirits because it is sold everywhere and the odor is sort of mild compared to others. My thinking may be off, so anyone reading this should do their own research before using these chemicals.
I hope you and others will add to the discussion on the benzene and correct me if I am wrong about the naptha and its dangers. This now has me thinking of other chemicals we used to use regularly that people have shied away from or have altogether been banned for safety reasons.
dorkofwindsor | 3 years and 7 months ago
I just randomly looked up two solvent concrete sealers on Home Depot (mainly because they have the SDS link in the description).
A bit of a mixed bag –
Foundation Armor Wet Look – Petroleum Naptha (most of it) and Heavy Naptha
The Eagle Clear Gloss-
Trimethylbenzenes (most of it), small amounts of Xylene , Cumene, Naphthalene
I couldn’t find anything related to the half life of off-gassing.
Since OP hasn’t responded, perhaps it has subsided.
stevecym | 3 years and 7 months ago
I read about the concrete sealers. They seem to tend to use the petroleum base products which include toluene, naptha, and xylene. Also acetone.
Me thinks if you are having odor issues it might be the xylene. Xylene is in goof off adhesive remover and that is what makes goof off stink. It is nasty. I think it dries faster than the other spirits as I recall being to by a tech person at a varnish manufacturer to put it in varnish to speed drying in cool weather; it must have a low flashpoint. I knew a man who walked off a job once because xylene was being used.
In so far as articles failing to warn lay persons about these products, I read two of them and neither mentioned the kind of solvents used in concrete sealers and I had to google deeper to find that info. This is a problem. The authors of these articles have no idea what any of the chemicals do, what the dangers are nor what they smell like; these people have no field experience and are probably not long out of diapers themselves.
For end users. In business, we have to know the dangers and when w e use these in a house, we have to be wary of children, women of child bearing age, and safety in general.
After this, I am contemplated writing a stand alone post about the solvents.
stevecym | 3 years and 7 months ago
Dork, I just reread ops post, the last line says it is concrete. It would help with anyone asking any professional help to specifically name substrates and products right up front so people offering advice can speak right to it. And if they do not know, can choose to ignore it. OP, i agree that there needs to be better warning about these products, but not for the convienance, but for the safety.
Here are common solvents, I am not sure what is used in concrete sealer:
The faster drying and me thinks the most flammable are: acetone, alcohol, and lacquer. These dry in minutes but the speed at which they dry, i think, also create a dangerous situation. The gasses can ignite. 6 people were killed when using “lacquer” on a floor in Rhode island a decade back when one of the brain surgeons on the job lit a cigarette in the house igniting the entire building in an instant.
The slower drying solvents are toulane, mineral spirits, and naptha. I think I have those 3 in order of drying time, faster to slower. I used to do a lot of floors using products with mineral spi rits in it and was never too worried about blowing the house up.
Volatility is what leads to flammability. it is also is related to dry time, me thinks. I do not know specific numbers (dork can explain some of this and can restate where I am wrong here; I am not a scientist. I am an end user) but have a general idea what drys faster or slower as I am worried about recoat times in my work. And I have to be aware of danger. If someone wants to get an idea of the volatility of these things, put some on your finger. Wait for it to evaporate. If your finger gets cold, it is volatile; the chemical is evaporating faster than your body can replace the heat leaving with it. Acetone makes our fingers cold. Naptha does not.
At the end of the day, it is up to the end user to know what they are dealing with. We can blame our supervisor, the retailer, or the internet when we use something we know nothing about but if someone leaves a pilot on in a 50 year old gas stove in the house we are working on and we blow ourselves up, it wont matter what someone else failed to tell us. I have explained solvents, danger, compatibility to employees until I am blue in the face and they still handle these products with a very cavalier attitude.
OP, I am sorry I did not see the word concrete buried at the bottom of your pist because I would bet the sealer is very different than what we use on wood and I would not have commented. If you learn what solvent is in it and post it here, I may comment to it, if i am familiar with it.
stevecym | 3 years and 7 months ago
Another way to determine the solvent type is to look at what they say to use for clean up. Not guaranteed, but works most of the time.
dorkofwindsor | 3 years and 7 months ago
Look up the MSDS of the product you used (assuming this is concrete) and find the solvent you are dealing with. You can look on the web to see if anyone actually studied the removal of that VOC with a specific device. It could be marginal at best, but an activated carbon granule filter is likely your best chance (not the thin filters). Overall I wouldn’t rely on any purifying device to be significnatly effective.
Fresh air and time are obviously your best bets. See if you can find how long they state until fully cured. If this doesn’t settle down soon perhaps some tempered fresh air is your best bet (via your hvac, ERV/HRV or combination, or just keeping a secure window cracked at night).
The solvent should stop off gassing at some point, if you can’t find the information online perhaps you could call the manufacturer and ask when off-gassing stops, or at least drops off substantially, to plan your tactics accordingly.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 7 months ago
sorry, now i am wondering if in fact you used a “sealer” as a final finish and what brand that might be. there are so many different kinds of products out there and those multiplied by the manufacturers of those products and then the bases, there are all sorts of issues that can arise and issues with compatibility as well.
also, i had never heard of using “acid stain” on wood. i have heard of using acid stain on concrete. perhaps you are working with concrete? or you used “acetone” based stain on wood? if this is concrete, disregard anything i have said. i have never applied a stain or sealer to it though i have seen houses where it has been done.
“sealers” are also used on old tile and terrazzo floors and of course these are different than sealers for wood. even though i never worked on concrete, i used to maintain terrazo floors and we used a sealer on those. not sure what it was, i was using what was given to me and it is a long time ago. pos sibly something made by johnson wax. i cannot recall the odor; it seemed to dry fast (an hour?) and there were no odors the following day.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 7 months ago
OP, i am sorry if i come across as criticizing you when i say this is a “very serious problem with …… and others”. i don’t mean to criticize homeowners and other non professionals that way on this board. that criticism was directed at “painters” and others (“wood finishers”; not people like yourselves) who take money from people and then have to rush the job because they low balled it to push some honest tradesperson out of the way. it is a real problem and finishes fail because of it.
stevecym | 3 years and 7 months ago
The issue with reading things on the internet is that it is a lot of opinionated marketing hype often written by people who have an agenda and little experience in the field which makes them unable to consider all the factors on a particular job. That said, I am a purist and it was a long time before I would use water based product and only did so after being forced to do so when refinishing a stage on 57th st; the person spec’ing the product was worried the solvent odor would hang around for days interfering with some famous singer’s vocal cords. Had you come here first, I would have directed you to a high performance water based product that beats anything home depot sells.
As I read what you wrote I was wondering if there are solvent based finishes I do not know about, for floors. In the industry there are several different “solvents” used as bases for woodwork but only one I know of for floors, oil (though I have heard of people using lacquer, not me). So if you are going to ask questions, it might be best to name the products you are using and that way i f someone knows that product, they can speak to it.
I have done a lot of floors. And a lot of refinishing. I have never run into the problem you describe. I have seen others run into problems with finishes and I hate to say it, when I begin asking questions, often poking around at something without telling them what i am looking for, i learn one thing: they did not follow the directions. Even the basic simple parts of the directions and then things go wrong.
What I am about to say is only a guess as I have never heard of oil base finish leaving particularly bad odor after 24 hours, but how long did you let this dry between coats and did you check to see if it was dry before recoating? I dont mean did you touch it and decide it was dry or did you scuff it with sand paper to see if it dusts? (Dry) or gums? (Still wet). In ideal conditions, we can recoat after 12 hours with oil. It this house I am sitting in now, which had been unoccupied and damp when we began working on it, I had to let the floor finish dry 36 hours before I could recoat. I am wondering if you relocated too soon and there is solvent left between the coats and that is the issue? This is a very serious problem with the current stock of “painters” coming up in the trade and others who have little or no experience.
It might be a good idea to call the tech services team for the finish manufacturer. They know the answers.