Concrete Overlays & Toppings

Self-leveling products vary widely in their makeup, so which one you choose may largely depend on what you plan to do with it.

Things to consider when choosing from the ever-growing array of options. Be sure to match product attributes with the substrate and the desired outcome.

Cheryl and Ralph Burgess, of Mackintosh on the Lake, a development in Burlington, N.C., wanted a design in their sunroom. As you can see, they got a pretty spectacular one.

Super-Krete's waterproof deck system. On this floor, Super-Krete Micro-Bond were applied over the company's Bond-Kote and sanded down to achieve an ultra-smooth finish.

Here’s a novel, fast and inexpensive way of saw-cutting curves on concrete overlays or toppings, using a 1⁄4" diameter PVC pipe, 4" grinder and shop-vac.

The new Atlanta Motorsports Park in north Georgia is billed as the home of the “100 mph lunch,” where high-end owners of high-performance sports cars can channel their inner Andretti on a custom-designed, two-mile race-type course authored by the renowned Formula One architect Hermann Tilke.

Today's trend has less to do with any certain product and more to do with a weak economy and saving money. Just like people are finding ways to make their cars go another year to save money, so too are they are looking for ways to make their existing concrete work another year.

Dan Lynch, a concrete artisan known for his concrete floors that look like wood, grew up in Southern Louisiana, near New Orleans, with five sisters, three brothers and a father who did concrete work. In his N’awlins drawl, Lynch says he’s “53 years young,” and he’s the only one of his siblings who still does concrete work.

The resort was buzzing with people talking about the improvements that were transforming the grounds and some of the facilities on the resort. From pools and walkways to countertops and floors, projects were conducted by seasoned professionals and completed by novices and decorative concrete veterans alike.

Back in the ’60s, when epoxies first came along, they were often specified in food-related areas because of their ease of cleaning and resistance to germs, he says. Ramy remembers the old guys didn’t want anything to do with epoxy, so they’d paint the walls and the young guys would handle the floors.

There are four different overlay systems used in creating decorative concrete floors: microtoppings, stampable overlays, multipurpose overlays and self-leveling overlays. All have different characters and makeups with which to achieve decorative looks.

One Day Stain from iCoat eliminates down time with a quick turnaround from start to finish.

This former Intel employee traded semiconductors for stains and stencils — and now he's making his mark at churches, Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Cafes, and everywhere in between.

A primer on primers! Here's some information on pretreatments that will stick with you. So the use of bonding primers can serve two purposes when applied to concrete before topcoating, sealing the concrete surface and developing a bond line for a coating or topping to bond to the substrate.

Like an artist's paintbrush on canvas, the trowel can create a wide variety of effects on overlays.

Sometimes there's no better way to finish a cementitious topping than to get down on your hands and kneeboards and go to town with a trowel.

When Productivity Inc. built a new showroom in Minneapolis, Minn., more than three years ago, the company chose to top the floor with Artera, a polishable polymer-modified fiber-reinforced cementitious overlayment made by LifeTime Floors.

A small sampling of helpful hints shared at demonstrations sponsored by the Decorative Concrete Council during the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Concrete Contractors.

Concrete overlays’ strength comes from combining specific amounts of portland cement, sand, water and polymer. Sand type is an important component in decorative concrete and concrete overlays because overlays are typically applied thinner than standard concrete, yet still need to withstand the forces of foot and automobile traffic.

Hurricane proof concrete planks made to look like the original wood floor of the museum were the perfect touch. Durable, easy to clean and homey, the North Caroline Maritime Museum couldn't have asked for a better fit.

They wanted to polish the concrete floors at their new location on Weybosset Street, in Providence, R.I. One problem — the substrate in the building was gypcrete and not polishable. Typical overlay products won’t bond to gypcrete. A clear-cut job was becoming complex.

Let’s get the question out of the way that you undoubtedly are itching to ask: Is it a jungle out there for California transplant Steve Kroo and Concrete Jungle, his Northridge decorative concrete business?

This golf course was going to be on national TV, and its owners wanted it to look good. Decorative concrete helped get it ready for its closeup.