The world's foremost magazine on decorative concrete
When staining, installing an overlay, repairing or recoating a concrete slab, surface prep is a critical step in the process to ensure the material successfully bonds to the surface. Skipping this time-consuming essential first step usually spells disaster.
When you’re relaxing with a woodworking project in your garage, an important adage is “Measure twice, cut once.”
When you’re called in to decorate a concrete floor, measuring twice isn’t necessary, but do measure the moisture in that slab before proceeding.
For thousands of years the permanence of concrete has made it an ideal construction and design medium for architects, engineers and builders. Even the word “concrete” is often used as an adjective to describe the reality, longevity and durability of everything from objects to ideas.
With today’s ever-changing technology, it’s critical to stay on top of your options to achieve the concrete surface profile (CSP) recommended by coating manufacturers and to choose the right equipment for surface preparation.
There is no shortage of information, or opinion, when it comes to surface preparation for applying coatings or overlays. Read any technical data sheet for a topping or coating and it’s almost always the first thing discussed. Words like critical, must, essential and required are often found in the guidelines dealing with surface preparation.
In case you had any doubts… surface prep is everything. The most important thing about a microtopping is what lies underneath.
The word "diamonds" is inevitably associated with the concept of "big bucks," but like many other things about diamond grinding, this is something of a misconception.
Technology continues to do its part to turn working with concrete from an art into a science. Take the matter of moisture in concrete slabs.
The decorative overlay industry has grown exponentially over the last 10 years, and so has the number of failures and problems related to overlay installations.
Prepping a concrete floor for polishing is one of the most difficult tasks we face in this industry. We cannot be aggressive like we can when prepping for a coating system, because there will be no coating to cover up the deep scratch patterns. We must take care to remove the surface materials while causing as little damage as possible to the concrete. We must be aggressive while being cautious.
Unstable subgrade is the primary culprit in cracking, shifting and settling in concrete around pools. We can all agree that concrete is only as good as what you put it on top of.
