The world's foremost resource on decorative concrete
With the rise in popularity of decorative concrete, quality training and education has become of the utmost importance. Concrete training institutes are springing up around the country, and have become an essential piece of the puzzle to help your company rise above your competition.
The world’s great deposits of synthetic rock were once concentrated in zoos, theme parks and the occasional museum exhibit. But times have changed, and these days, faux rock is cropping up all over, from backyard pools and spas to shopping-mall waterfalls.
The ancient Romans had the right idea. If you want a structure to last for centuries, shelve the sticks. Build it out of concrete.
And although most Europeans grasped onto this concept eons ago — their dwellings are built to be passed on from generation to generation — it’s taken the less frugal Americans awhile longer to literally bring the concept home.
In indoor applications, terrazzo has a ground and polished surface that lends itself to creative design. The use of divider strips allows the material to be mixed in different colors and applied in a process similar to paint-by-number, so you can incorporate designs, logos, borders and just about anything.
At a recent symposium sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers, students from 17 universities took part in a contest to see which team could come up with the best flying disc — made of concrete.
The A-H Stained Glass Floor System, from Anti-Hydro International, is a solventbased system that creates a vibrant-colored, transparent, high-gloss film for concrete and masonry floors.
The coating, which goes on in four layers, contains no pigments and creates beautiful colors by changing the refractive index of light, like a precious stone.
Integral color and color hardener are still the most common ways to tint concrete. But these days, the buzz is all about acid stain. Because the stain is the result of many individual chemical reactions, the tint is uneven — gloriously so. It can contain marbling, mottling and all kinds of variations in the base hue.
Boyer is the owner of ConcretiZen, based in Apache Junction, Ariz. She does it all — art pieces, driveways, pool decks, countertops, floors. She takes residential and commercial jobs, coloring, texturing, stamping, polishing, sandblasting or engraving concrete.
John Buhler started a business in 1961 with a tiny office, a modest warehouse and terrazzo flooring as his business lifeblood. More than 40 years later, his wife and daughter are carrying out his legacy in the form of the widely-renowned decorative concrete operation known as Super Stone, Inc.
If you want an all-encompassing guide to staining concrete floors, check out “Bob Harris’ Guide to Stained Concrete Interior Floors,” written by Bob Harris, founder and president of the Decorative Concrete Institute in Temple, Georgia.
