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There’s a lot of misinformation and confusion surrounding delaminations in concrete. To help clear up things, let’s review different types of delaminations and associated repair options so you can use this information to better plan, manage or correct delamination issues.
Polished concrete continues to make headway as the flooring choice for grocery chains, big-box stores, museums, schools, restaurants and government buildings, but there’s a recurring problem that keeps rearing its ugly head: joint separation.
Imagine a $75,000 Maserati Ghibli on display on a cracked, chipped, unevenly colored concrete floor. Having trouble with the visual? The same can be said for Audis and Mini Coopers. They’re much more at home on a pristine, polished floor.
In a recent week, I’ve had two overlay projects with cracking. The first project had lots of short random cracks, the longest about 3 inches long. We noticed them the afternoon of the same day the overlay was applied.
It was not your best-case scenario. A new Army/Air Force main exchange, an indoor mall with multiple vendors and a food court, was slated to open at Fort George G. Meade in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in six weeks. The floor had been ground and polished, the racks staged and the food vendors’ equipment installed.
When tackling any historical restoration like the Mazza Castle project, I recommend surveying the structure thoroughly prior to construction, like a doctor would examine an ailing patient before making a diagnosis. Just like every person responds differently to treatment, so does the structure undergoing restoration.
Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, often makes it onto lists of the nation’s most livable cities. But for a slab of concrete, Overland Park is a bad place to be.
First Federal Savings Bank, Sheridan, Wyo., asked Doug Carlton if there was an overlay that could improve their cracked, uneven parking lot. He told them no. The crack pattern shows a problem beyond random cracking. He guessed that the concrete is too thin or not properly reinforced, or that the subgrade had failed.
What caused the crack? And what are the options for dealing with it, since we are going to apply a decorative overlay on the concrete? We talked to multiple contractors about our options, and there are a lot of opinions out there. Chris Sullivan gives several options on how to solve this common problem.
An engineered piece of metal that bridges cracks to hold two pieces of concrete together and an overlay can be installed right over the top.
