OK to soak a bare concrete floor?

[Tom R]

My brewspace is in the garage. It has a bare concrete floor.
I hose it down frequently, then sweep the water out the overhead door.

Is it absorbing water, and is that a bad thing? Should I treat it with something?
I've seen where folks apply a sealer or an epoxy coating, is this just for aesthetics?
I like the look and the low-maintenance of having it bare, but don't want to have a future problem with it.

 

[day_trippr]

First house?
My 46 year old naked concrete garage floor gets soaked every winter by snow melt off the cars, dries out around April, gets wet around June from humidity condensing on the slab, stays damp until September, dry until the first snow.

nbd. Hosing it out would be a mere blip in its life cycle

Cheers!

 

[Tom R]

Nah, second house. But I still don't know much about them.
Let's just say it isn't going to make the cover of Fine Homebuilding as it is, and I don't want to make anything worse!

Good to know I don't have one more project coming down the pike.
I'll carry on with the washdowns. Thanks!

 

[RM-MN]

Anecdotal evidence that water does not degrade concrete. Hydorelectric dams such as Hoover dam and Grand Coulee dam are made of concrete. House foundations are made of concrete.

 

[Tom R]

I'm willing to go with the anecdotal evidence.

 

[Brooothru]

I'm willing to go with the anecdotal evidence.

Concrete "cures" as long as it is in contact with water, continuing to get stronger as it cures. Back in the 70s some boat builders were experimenting with casting concrete hulls for sailboats since it would get stronger with time in the water, unlike wood which rots or even fiberglass that eventually weakens over time due to flexing stresses.

Fabrication of concrete hulls proved to be fairly easy with much design flexibility. In theory they would get stronger as they got older. The downside was getting the hulls into the water. A 50' sailboat hull made of cast concrete weights, well, a ton (or more!).

But the deal breaker was the motive force required to move the boat through the water when compared to a fiberglass boat. Even with more sail in the wind, the concrete boats were considerably slower than conventionally built vessels. That's both a practical as well as asthetic shortcoming.

Brooo Brother