Product Brochure

11
Cracking
Salt Lake City based company Solid Concrete Walls
describes cracking as naturally occurring, and “in
some cases, masonry or concrete foundaon walls
incorporate a nominal amount of steel reinforce-
ment to control cracking.”
According to an arcle tled, “Reducing Cracking
in Concrete,” Solid Concrete Walls says that just
because there is a crack in your concrete doesn’t
mean danger is imminent.
“Cracks in concrete walls and slabs are a common
occurrence. They appear in oors, driveways, walks,
structural beams, and walls. Cracking cannot be
prevented but it can be signicantly reduced or
controlled when the causes are taken into account
and preventave steps are taken. Most cracks
should not be a cause for alarm.”
Concrete Construcon says that if you’ve noced
cracking in your concrete, you’ll want to follow sev-
eral steps before taking any repair measures:
“Before repairing your next crack, perform a crack
evaluaon and establish the repair objecves.
Decide what type of repair is needed. Choices
include a structural repair using epoxy, a route and
seal repair using a exible sealant to accommodate
future crack movements, and a hard or semi-rigid
ller repair to support crack edges, with or without
roung. Also, establish the cosmec requirements.
Aer choosing the repair material and procedure,
follow the manufacturer’s recommendaons.”
Chipping
Concrete can also chip away aer exposure to
erosive elements, such as chemicals or water. Chip-
ping can be repaired using simple epoxys such as
Sakrete, Quikrete or other products found at your
local hardware store.
Salt
De-icing salt damage is another common surface
defect. Scaling of your concrete can occur even if
everything was done correctly. Here’s what hap-
pens: As concrete is exposed to air, it gets harder.
That process is called carbonaon. The carbon diox-
ide in the air reacts with the concrete and creates
limestone (calcium carbonate). This carbonaon
process, however, usually takes one year to produce
any substanal dierences in strength. So, if you
use de-icing salts or they drip from the underside of
your car onto your new slab, you may have a prob-
lem with de-icing salt damage.
DECORATIVE USES OF CONCRETE
STAINING
As menoned before, staining is a great way to turn
a slab of gray into luxurious tones of brown, green,
even blue. Concrete experts generally use one of
two ways to stain concrete: acid and water-based
stains. Each one has a specic purpose, but which
one should you use?
Acid Stains
Acid stains are made up of metallic salt minerals
dissolved into a water-acid mixture. The acids allow
for a chemical reacon during the curing process
that permanently changes the surface of the con-
crete in color and texture.