The world's foremost resource on decorative concrete
Overlays and toppings typically range from 1/16- to 3/4- inch deep and are applied to structurally sound concrete slabs to improve aesthetics, protect surfaces and extend life in lieu of ripping out and replacing existing slabs. There are several types of overlays including spray applied, troweled on, self-leveling, stamped and microtoppings.
You find them on the floors of restrooms, kitchens and hospitals, among other places: curved, angle-free baseboards called “rolled radius cove.” Users have also called them “ship’s cove,” too. They called them this because inventors created them for use on ships to make floors easier to swab clean. Why the […]
For contractors and clients looking to improve an existing slab, fix failing concrete or just put some extra decorative oomph onto a surface, cementitious overlays are tops.
Vertical overlay finishes are being installed everywhere. They are the fastest growing segment of the overlay market, and that segment is growing faster than any other type of decorative overlayment.
Happenstance led Tyson Long, president of Calgary-based Hardscapes Inc., to the new location of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame museum in Calgary’s Canada Olympic Park, where he used white and clear epoxy coatings to transform the floor of the museum’s ice-hockey exhibit room into a virtual ice rink.
There are two common polymer types used by most decorative overlay manufacturers: ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and acrylic.
The handsome floor of the Arts and Crafts Room was the finishing touch at the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, a facility improved by a series of decorative concrete projects as part of the 2010 Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training.
Decorative epoxies for colorful garage floors burst onto the scene in the 1970s, when applicators began to saturate chemical-resistant epoxy coatings with colored vinyl chips. These floors went out of style for a while, but General Polymers director of floor coatings Lonnie Salyers says they are making a comeback, and not just in garages.
Condo owners in a gated community dreaded getting their pool up to snuff. Decorative concrete contractor Julio Hallack showed them they had nothing to worry about.
Four manufacturers of concrete resurfacing and repair products took on the challenge presented by the Operative Plasterers & Cement Masons International Association (OPCMIA) Local 528 last July in Seattle.
If you think that converting 22,000 square feet of flooring from heavily pitted ceramic tile to sleek, glossy, stylish concrete isn’t hard enough, try completing your mission in a “live” supermarket. Take on the added challenge of racing the clock in the middle of the night to get one section completed before the daily load of feet and shopping-cart wheels travels over its still-unfinished and barely dry surface.
