Beton Cire - French waxed concrete - anyone?

[evrybuddy]

I've been trying to think of alternatives to conventional tiling, ceramic, Karndean, et etc

I've got a concrete floor which is too expensive to polish.

Instead of using self-levelling compound and tiling over, I started looking for decorative self-levelling compounds which could be used as a final floor.

Found Beton Cire which appraently is popular in France - it's 'waxed concrete' a liquid mix that is applied over a concrete floor.

Has anyone tried this or know anythng about it?

Bricolage a Robert!!!

www.betoncireinteriors.com/pages/what_is_bton_cir_227170.cfm

We have it as flooring in the kitchen-diner and as walls in bathrooms.

it is beautiful, you can choose the exact colours you want. Really tactile, a pleasure to walk on and extremely easy to clean. Kids have a lot of fun 'skidding' (safely) on it. Adults too.

Problems: in the kitchen, we are disappointed that if you drop anything on it thats relatively heavy (like a bottle of olive oil), it will dent. I'm not so keen imagining what it will look like in a few years. 'lovingly lived in'?! erm
In the bathroom we had a bit of a nightmare in the shower area, at the joint with our cement floor tiles, with water coming in between the tiles and up behind the béton ciré, and staining it. it was resolved after a lot of faffing. I would recommend using normal glazed/ceramic floor tiles, or continuing with the béton ciré floor if you're using it on shower walls.
It's also very expensive. In hindsight, we would have tweaked our kitchen design, and then use wooden floors. It feels less painful when they dent.

Thanks - that's really informative - would probably make me think twice on the 'denting' aspect.

It seems quite tricky to find suppliers/installers for decorative concrete floors.

I'm also looking into microscreed floors which seems similar to Beton Cire but maybe a bit more 'cement'- like in texture/harder finish.

I love tadelakt, it's a moroccan technique, produces a beautiful finish. Often used for walls but apparently can be used for flooring, no idea about pros and cons as I've never been able to afford it! Gorgeous though.

Tadelakt is supposed to be anti-mould I think.

We were going to use Tadelakt at first in the bathroom, but our builder was pretty uncomfortable about it (he had never dealt with it before), whereas he seemed more ok with the béton ciré - even though he had never dealt with it before either! Might have been something technical, or maybe I wore him down as I really wanted that general effect, I'm not too sure!

I doubt the béton ciré will go mouldy. We are in a soft water area, but still... you barely need to clean the vertical surfaces.

Does anyone know the approx cost per square metre for these finishes? And I assume you'd need the distributor to lay it as I can't see my builder getting to grips with this too easily. Like the OP, I'm trying to find alternative flooring but polished concrete seems so expensive plus a high hassle factor.

Yep - cost seems likely to be higher than one might expect.

I thought, given the fewer processes involved in laying the floor, it might be chaper or the same as a tile floor.

I've also found these people who do 'Coulis'? self-levelling decorative concrete www.flooredgenius.com/decorative-concrete-floors/solacir-interiors-coulis/ which sounds as though it could be more robust than Beton Cire.

Tried to contact them with no joy - think they're on holidays at the moment.

You've probably already considered this, evry, but what about a flat rubber floor? Or even plain flat vinyl? The Colour Flooring Company seems to have good colours. Anywhere from 28 - 60 quid PSQ. It would need to be laid very well, though.

Thanks Sarah - I have thought about it but worried again about the resilience factor.

I got some feedback from one of the decorative concrete floor companies and the price guidance (minimum) was £250 per sq m which rules it out for me at a rough total of £5000.

I've had a quote on standard tiling of £800 for the installation plus the cost of the tiles, say £60 per sq m brings me out at about £2 - £2.5 ish

I won't enjoy the process but that's too big a difference in price against value for me

for info, we paid approx £140 per sq m all included.

Hi applying béton ciré (french named) waxed concrete is quite easy
I have apply on all my flat (80sqm) with my wife on our tiled floor

I have made my research in France and there is a #1 béton ciré manufacture name Arcane Industries you can give them a call directly and they will ship you what you need with all help you need

Price is affordable betw 30-40£ per sqm
All is in French but soon in 2016 they will launch the product in UK with english manuals and videos !