A customer asks, “I have a patio with Chattahoochee or Chattahoochee like stone glued together with epoxy. It is no longer shinny and the stone is starting to come loose. What is causing this and what should I do about it?”
It sounds like you have a stone that was installed with Epoxy.com Product #17 – www.epoxy.com/17.aspx – or some other brand of stone adhesive. We tell all of our customers that install epoxied stone that they need to maintain by re-glazing it periodically. Unfortunately, not everyone is as forthright as us in telling their customers this.
We recommend you take these steps every spring and fall so you can enjoy your epoxied stone year-round.
1. Look at you epoxy stone and look determine if it needs maintenance. If it is still shinny and you don’t have loose stone, then you are done. Come back and do this step again in 6 months.
2. Clean your stone to remove algae, mold, oil, grease and any other contaminants from it. Typically, contamination is just algae and mold and can be removed with a weak Clorox and water combination with a thorough rinse with a hose or gentle pressure wash. Allow your stone to dry completely before proceeding.
3. Determine if it has only lost its shine or if you have loose stone. Decide if sections of the stone are so loose that they need to be reinstalled with Product #17 (4 below) or if there are just a few to no loose stones and you just want to re-glaze it (5 below).
4. If stone needs to be picked up and reinstalled in areas do that with Epoxy.com Product #17. Contact Epoxy.com Technical support for the amount of product you need. We can also go over the reinstallation of these areas with you. If the stone is sound or has just a few stones that you are not worried about replacing you can proceed to 4 below.
5. Apply 1-2 coats of Epoxy.com Product #15 (depending on how bad the stone has weathered) to the top of your clean dry stone. This will give you back your original shine and strengthen the interface (bond line) between the stones. Product #15 is the best product to do this with as experience has shown it lasts 1.5 to 2 times longer than convention epoxies used for this application.
6. CAUTION: You can find single component so called “Chattahoochee” . These sealers add shine to your epoxy stone but do not strengthen the interface between the stone. Using this kind of sealer can ruin your epoxy stone. Once these inexpensive sealers are on they are difficult to impossible to remove. Making it optionally impossible to ever re-glaze the epoxy stone properly again.
As always when in doubt contact Epoxy.com Technical support at info@epoxy.com or by calling 352-533-2167.
Posted by Norm Lambert 
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