Shotcrete and Faux Rocks
Shotcrete is one of the best ways to create faux rock-themed landscapes. Here are some tips on choosing a pump, designing the mix, and creating faux rocks out of concrete.
by Susan Brimo-Cox

Rock-themed landscapes are showing up more and more in commercial and residential settings — and many of them look like the real thing.

But as most decorative concrete contractors know, many of the rocks that are seen in museums, theme parks, resorts, shopping malls, golf courses and even people’s backyards are fake — or faux, as they’re often called. They’re made of concrete, and for good reasons: cost, weight, versatility and concerns about the environment are some that come to mind.

Of the many techniques used to create faux rocks from concrete, shotcrete is one of the best.

For big jobs, shotcrete solves a lot of potential problems, observes David Long, president of Lakeland Co. Inc., a firm with a wide variety of large-scale projects to its credit. "Shotcrete is the best option for work that requires a transition of different finishes into one application," he says, "or for areas where there is not access for equipment to hang rock panels or other prefabricated theme structures."

Long also notes shotcrete is good for areas that need to be stabilized before the finish work can be done, and when a budget doesn't have room for replica panels. And applying shotcrete allows you to cover a large surface area in a short amount of time.

Shotcrete is good for smaller projects, too. Michael Dahl, president of Michael Dahl Concrete Designs Inc., almost always uses shotcrete. "It goes on a lot faster and you get a stronger concrete because of minimal air pockets," he says.

Shotcrete is pneumatically applied concrete or mortar. The term "shotcrete" was originally used as a substitute for the proprietary word "Gunite," and can refer to both the wet-mix and dry-mix process. For our discussion, shotcrete will mean the wet-mix process. Gunite refers only to the dry-mix process.