Concrete Sealer Issues

One of the least appealing aspects of having concrete work done at your home is that it often requires an existing lawn to sustain some damage. Unfortunately, yard damage of some sort is inevitable when working with existing yards. Some damage is to be expected just due to the sheer weight of the materials involved.

Many concrete companies advertise stamped concrete services. But the simple fact is that if they don't spend a lot of time doing something, it's very hard to truly become an expert at it. Stamped concrete is a highly specialized service that has a huge learning curve and there are many nuances that only stamped concrete companies that have completed hundreds of stamped concrete projects will know.

Weather is the single most important factor that influences our schedule. We usually don’t pour if there is a good chance of rain. It’s not that we hate getting wet, it’s the fact that rain can damage freshly placed concrete and necessitate an immediate replacement.

The scope of work is listed to make it clear what the contractor will do on your project per the estimate. It is important to read and understand what will be done so that both the client and the contractor have the same expectations. Many times, what a customer expects and what a contractor does are not the same thing. I

One question many people ask is which product is best- pavers or stamped concrete? This is because the two are viewed as competing products-to homeowners and to contractors. Both are made from the same material-concrete. Since most concrete companies don’t install pavers and most paver installation companies don’t do stamped concrete

One of the factors in the cost and durability of your concrete is the use of reinforcement. Reinforcement products are extra products added to the concrete, though they are not visible once the concrete is poured. Reinforcement is not a requirement for concrete, but it is beneficial to the concrete product in terms of adding strength and longevity. There are several different types of reinforcement, and they are used in different applications. The primary type of reinforcement we use is wire mesh reinforcement. Wire mesh is a grid of 6-inch welded wire squares (think of a fence) that is placed the concrete. This mesh holds the slabs of concrete together and increases the tensile strength of the concrete. It is used a lot in commercial construction but not much in residential concrete construction. Most homebuilders do not use wire mesh in their flatwork. Another type of reinforcement commonly used is called fiber mesh. Fiber mesh is small fiberglass hairs that are added to the concrete mix. There are different types of fiber mesh used for residential and commercial applications. Residential fiber mesh tends to almost be invisible to the eye and you have to look at it very closely to see it. Each unit resembles a small piece of spiderweb. Commercial fiber mesh is coarser and looks like chopped up horsehair. These fibers are much longer and larger diameter than residential fiber. Another type of reinforcement is rebar reinforcement. Rebar is a bar of round steel that comes in various lengths and diameters. We use rebar reinforcement in several different applications. We use short pieces to reinforce corners. We also drill short pieces of rebar to attach flatwork to the foundation. This keeps the concrete from sinking down or pulling away from the house. We also use rebar to attach a sidewalk to a porch. A third common use is connecting sets of steps. Rebar helps to hold the steps together and creates additional tensile strength.

Stamped concrete release is the secondary color we use during the stamping process. The release keeps the stamps from sticking to the concrete. There are two different types of release. The release used by most contractors is liquid release. Liquid release is also called bubble gum release because it is scented to smell like bubble gum. This product is a clear liquid solvent that is applied to the surface of concrete with a pump sprayer. After concrete is stamped, the solvent will evaporate. The following day the stamped surface will be washed and antiqued using a solution from a pump sprayer. This antiquing is sprayed on the concrete surface and gravity causes it to settle into the joints and areas of lower relief. The second type of release that is used is a powder release. You can think of this product as a colored flour or dust. This dust is spread over the surface of the concrete in a thin layer. Then the stamps are placed and stamped into that dust. There are pros and cons to using both types of release. Liquid release allows the contractor to see and fix the surface impression made by the stamping tool more easily than powder release. With powder release, it is harder to see the depth of the impression that is made, and improper application of powder release can lead to streaks and divots. At Rockford Stamped Concrete, we feel that the benefits of powder release outweigh those of a liquid release. With liquid release, it really takes well trained eye and multiple attempts to make it the product look good. Liquid antiquing can leave dark puddles that are often compared to dirty water. It does not tend to leave the natural and even appearance we achieve with powder release.

One of the first steps we take when researching home construction or home improvement projects is figuring out the different options available and researching the costs of those options. There are cost guides available at various sites online. While I can't say how these online guides work for other trades, they are not an accurate predictor of cost for concrete, or even for products that are considered concrete competition, like asphalt, pavers, or natural stone. Part of these inaccuracies start with pricing of concrete as a material. Several online guides list the cost of a cubic yard of concrete between $90 and $100. This pricing isn’t even close. A more accurate estimate would be in the $150 to $175 /cubic yard range…. and that's for contractor pricing. Pricing also depends on the number of qualified contractors in an area, supply versus demand, the area of country you live in, and the quality of the work that you receive. Quality work always costs more than substandard work. One site I found online stated the average cost of stamped concrete is $8 to $28 a square foot. Really? How is this even an average? The high end is more than three times the lower end. That’s not a very helpful pricing guide for a homeowner. I can tell you that pricing in our area is closer to the middle of this range than either end. Even then, there’s still a large range, and many factors are involved in that price. Please see our Concrete Cost and Economics of Scale blog topics for more info on those factors. In my opinion, the best place to look for pricing is not some online guide that you find but rather from a friend or neighbor that had similar work done recently or in an online forum. Forums like Reddit or Quora provide a much more accurate idea of what the concrete will cost for you to do. If that price works for your budget, get at least three estimates from experienced contractors and make your choice from there.

Are overlays less expensive than concrete? One of the common misconceptions I see online is that concrete overlays are less expensive than replacing concrete. This is usually untrue except for a select few instances. There are very few places where an overlay makes sense. In the vast majority of cases, we recommend tearing out the old concrete and replacing it with new concrete. The times an overlay makes sense usually have to do with the mess created with a replacement or damage that could happen to structure or infrastructure. In my opinion, the three instances where an overlay might make sense would be an interior floor, a pool deck or a porch. While a stamped concrete overlay on an interior floor makes practical sense in that it saves the mess of tearing out the existing floor, it doesn’t usually work from a financial standpoint. Stamped concrete overlays cost quite a bit more than most flooring materials, even high-end travertine tile or wood flooring. Most people just choose those other products. Occasionally we will do an overlay on a porch because it eliminates the need to structurally support the porch while concrete is torn out. The prep work for an overlay is also less labor intensive than setting porch forms. I have also seen instances where part of a building structure is placed on 4" concrete rather than a foundation. This can happen in older cottages or unapproved additions. In these cases, removing concrete flatwork will cause a wall to sink or exterior masonry to detach from the wall. Pool decks are an area where overlays make the most sense. It can be very expensive to tear out a pool deck, because there are many things that require caution and make tear out a time-consuming process. The coping can easily be bent when removing the concrete. The bonding wire that runs around the pool connecting metal panels, handrails, ladder brackets and diving board jigs can be yanked out. It’s also easy to wreck a skimmer box or drop concrete into the pool and gouge the interior of the pool. Most pools have a fence around them, so getting in and tearing the pool deck out becomes a task that usually requires hours of jackhammering or total fence removal. The most popular type of overlay that we use around pools is called a spray overlay. A spray overlay is a cement product that gets sprayed over the existing concrete using an air compressor and hopper gun. After spraying, the overlay is knocked down with a trowel. This product has a few different names depending on who makes it. Common trade names are spray deck, sun deck or kool deck. A great feature about using this material is that the texture makes the pool deck feel cooler on your feet than the standard brushed concrete beneath it. The material is also very easy to use over existing substrates. It is thin (about the thickness of a credit card) so it will not create a high build above the existing pool coping. It is easy to make into borders and designs and is available in many different colors. We use this same spray overlay to cover up unsightly retaining walls or porch faces. Spay overlays are less expensive than a pool deck replacement.