Frontline failure

[dmccarty]

Totally off topic here, but tell me about your floors. My whole downstairs is really nice reclaimed hardwood, except for the den which is on a concrete slab and has grungy wall-to-wall carpet that needs to go. Don't really want to re-install carpet but it is one of the cheapest options. Tell me about the finished concrete floors. Can they be added on top of a typical slab like mine? What do they look like? Do they have a brick or stone pattern in them? Color? What about cost?

Our floor is a light brownish yellow. Looks like tan tile. Just bigger. Concrete companies sell colors that can be mixed into the load on the truck. I think we had 7 yards of concrete and two 30-50 pound bags of color. The bags just got tossed into the truck at the cement plant. This colors ALL of the concrete. We paid $800 for the coloring for 35 yard of concrete. When we built concrete was in short supply and we paid close to $3500 for the concrete floor plus $800 in color.

I wish I had my camera when the concrete came down flowing off the truck. The five guys were standing there ready to shovel that concrete. They saw this dark brown mass flowing down. It looked like poo. They look at it. They looked at each other. Then they looked at me and the builder with this WTxxxx look. The color was much darker wet than when it dried.

You can also take the die/pigment and toss it on the wet concrete and smooth it into the top layer. This is cheaper but if the concrete gets chipped you will see the underlying color. So we just colored the whole mass.

We had a pattern I designed for each room cut into the concrete once it dried. I tried to have a grid 3'x3' but this depended on the size of the room. The cuts were for the design but also to force any cracking into the cuts. This worked for the most part. There are some places were cracking has happened outside the cracks. It looks like we have a floor made up of large tiles.

We wanted to filled the cuts with grout. We picked out a colored grout to use and it is sitting in the barn. We just never got around to putting in the grout. I like the cuts being open since the dirt gets pushed into the cuts and its easier to vacuum up.

The slab was also "trowled" with a motorized machine. It did not come out as we had expected. It was not smooth. We poured on July 4th and it was the hottest day of the summer. Figures. The motorized trowel would stick a bit as the concrete dried quickly. In the end this worked out. It gave the floor random surface and very tile like.

They can also color existing concrete as well. I have seen very fancy designs cut into the floors. Our is just simple.

There are a large number of colors to pick. Even a blue color that was EXTREMELY expensive. The suppler said they only place that had ever used it was Duke University.

The only complaint I have and complaint is too strong of a word is that I have not really figured out how to mop up dirt that gets into the concrete. You can mop and mop but it never is clean clean clean but then you can't ever clean clean clean carpet either. We picked the color because we thought it fit with furniture, cabinents, etc. But also because it hids dirt. We had white flooring at the old house and if you came in with wet shoes it was get out the mop time.

We like the floor. And with the wood stove we use to heat we don't really have to worry about a spark flying out when we feed the fire. What is the spark going to do? Burn concrete?

Later,
Dan

 

[N80]

I might have to look into it. We would only need a very thin layer to go onto the existing slab. What I like about the idea is 1) getting rid of the wall-to-wall carpet which always looks dirty 2) probably easier to clean than carpet. As you say, carpet is never completely clean 3) it would not burn any bridges. In other words, if we hated it, or a potential buyer hated it, simply put carpet back over it.

 

[Redbug]

That's pretty interesting, Dan. After reading your post, the cement coloring has gotten my interest up, too. When I retire in just a few short years, we will have another home built, and the colored cement sounds like a great way to go.

 

[dmccarty]

Our putting in a colored concrete floor was a gamble. You really do have to guess what the color will look like in the end. A little 2x2 colored square makes it hard to envision an entire house. So we rolled the dice.

Like I said when the concrete was poured it was the hottest day of they year. We had a well and water to use to wet down the concrete and help "lube" the motorized trowel. But.....

We needed a plug or some such to run power from the pole to the well. And the supply store was out of what we needed. We improvised.

We had to use water in stump holes. Along the foundation. We took a large garbage can and begged water from the neighbors. The mason use a little squirt bottle like you would find hold ketchup to lube the trowel. The problem with this was that some of the water was dirty. So when he spritzed we got this interesting design in the color.

If I had not told you this and you saw the floor you would not know. It added some randomness to the color. The floor did not turn out like we had planned. But it was just as good.

We gambled but if the gamble failed we could always put down hardwood or tile. We could do what we wanted with the slab. The gamble worked.

We planned for cracks and for the most part the plan worked by cutting the slab with a design. We have cracks where the slab was not cut as deep as it should have been. The mason pulled back on the saw just a bit to early when he got near the slab edge. So there is a crack six or so inches long hidden under some furniture. The real cracks are where we formed a space for the shower and where the is a "notch" in the mainly L shaped house. The "notch" is a bump INTO the house to provide a little extra space on the front porch. That bump into the house caused stress in the concrete so a crack formed from the inside corner of the bump. The shower pan space also created four cracks for the same reason. The cracks formed at a 20-30 degree angle off the corners. Not a big deal and we expected some cracks.

We had carpet in the old house. Long story short one of our dogs got very sick while we were gone one day. I came home the dog had pooed and puked over just about every square foot on the kitchen and living room. The smell hit me in the face when I opened the door. A wet drive vac was my friend.

I cleaned that carpet with 3-5 gallons of vinegar, 2-3 gallons of Natures Miracle, and gallons of hot water. After hours of cleaning with a carpet shampooer/vacuum the water being pulled up was not any cleaner at the end compared to the start.

We don't have any carpet in the new house.

Later,
Dan

 

[N80]

Here is an update. Yesterday my wife went to the vet. Dog was just going nuts over the fleas and we were seeing more in the house. Not only was the Frontline not working as well as usual it almost seemed to be making things worse. Essentially, it was doing nothing. Got no definitive answer from the vet regarding Frontline. Same old stories. Vet sold my wife Advantix oil to put on him and Comfortis tablets, both administered at the same time as per vet's instructions.

It has been less than 24 hours and we're seeing sick fleas and the dog is not scratching etc so this combo may be working. So, our fingers are crossed.

I can only draw one definitive conclusion from this episode: Whatever was in this latest oil, which came from a reputable online retailer in a package marked "Frontline" does not work. At all.

 

[dfeck]

We just got a 2 year old Boxer last fall and was recommended by our vet to use Frontline starting in the Spring. I've never used Frontline or any other flea/tick lotion because this is our first dog in the 22 years of marriage together. We live in the country on 10 acres and she's a very active outdoors dog. I haven't noticed any fleas or ticks so I guess it's working. As a matter of fact I just applied her monthly application this morning. I'm not sure if short hair is better for controlling fleas than long haired dogs. We did however buy the product from our vet. I'm wondering if the online stores are selling older/expired products that may have lost some of its' strength.

Doug

 

[N80]

That is certainly a possibility. We stopped buying from the vet because they charged too much for it. Way too much. However, they told my wife they would take any product back that wasn't working and refund the price, so maybe that guarantee makes paying top dollar a little less painful.

 

[czechsonofagun]

he is very healthy and very happy (i.e. spoiled rotten).

Love that!

 

[N80]

Yep, he sleeps on the couch! Lives in the house. Loves air conditioning. But, the couch is 20 years old and my wife has ordered a nice, pretty new one. She says he will not be sleeping on the new couch......I foresee a battle there. But my wife will win. She always does.

 

[Gary51]

I had a dose left and confirmed with Merial that my product was not counterfeit and there is no expiration date on their product. Since the product worked great last year and this year didn't kill a single flea, I disagree that the fleas built up an immunity all at once. I think the truth is that they had a bad batch of product get out.
I deal with cattle products and have seen immunity issues in wormers and fly dope. I've never seen a product that worked with near 100% effectiveness and then 6 months later have ZERO effectiveness. I won't be spending that much money for any product from a manufacturer who dosen't stand behind their product.