Concrete Overlays & Toppings

Compressive strength — the ability of a material to withstand being compressed or pushed together — is often used to determine mortar and concrete’s quality. This makes sense for floors and overlayments as the primary forces applied to them are downward, compressive loads from traffic, equipment or anything affected by the force of gravity.

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.

As metallic coatings grow in popularity, the competition is heating up. Bear in mind that the key to a mesmerizing metallic floor is the artist behind it.

Imagine getting a phone call from Shaquille O’Neal asking you to create a concrete floor in his house. Oh, and the floor is to depict a hole going down into a pit of fire. No problem, right? “You don’t say no to Shaq,” says Michael Jensen, president of Atlanta Concrete Artist.

First came the revolution. The decorative concrete wave swept the concrete construction trade not so long ago, churning up myriad visual concepts and the materials that made them happen. As the wave receded, decorative concrete concepts, methods and materials entered an evolutionary phase.

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.

When installing a metallic epoxy system, urethane can be detrimental to a project’s outcome or a welcome addition to its success.

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.

There’s a very lucky group of kids at Bluff View Private Preschool in Fresno, Calif. Thanks to contractor Chris Swanson of Colour and his team, the students now have their very own “city” to play in.

Let me start by being blunt. Almost anyone can squeegee down a couple of coats of topping. But overlays and microtoppings are handcrafted, not generic flooring you buy on a roll. How do you go from doing what anyone can do to creating your own distinctive look and giving customers exceptional projects?

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.

What is the most important test when it comes to evaluating decorative concrete overlays? A case can be made that any test result can help better define how a product will perform, but when it comes to decorative overlays some tests are more meaningful than others.

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

Many concrete professionals who are asked how they got into the business of concrete say they sort of “fell into it.”

“The imagery was kind of inspired by the playfulness of the site,” Lucking says. “It’s like psychedelic cactuses, which is what Fourth Avenue is like.” They decided Lucking would execute the design in a mosaic on the pavement, and Goldlust would render it as cutouts in the station’s steel benches and partitions.

Have you seen interior concrete floors in such bad shape that your first thought was to rip them out and start over? It can be your immediate reaction, but there’s an easier approach. Self-leveling toppings or self-leveling overlays can be poured over concrete surfaces you didn’t think were salvageable, saving time and money.

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.

Ryan Neal of SBR Concrete was hired by a former client to create a basement floor that had to be not only easy to clean, but also unique. The end result was a floor made with hand-shaped rectangular "stones," each individually colored so that no two would look exactly the same.

Decorative concrete has become increasingly popular with every passing year, and has evolved from primarily flooring products to use in walls, showers and countertops. Because of the increased popularity in decorative concrete, the used of overlays has grown as well and they have a lot of advantages.

A baker knows when there’s a disaster in the kitchen, sometimes a little bit of icing can go a long way toward redemption. Concrete contractors have a similar option with overlays and an unsightly slab: The overlaid section not only looks better but the chemistry behind today’s overlay offerings often creates a much more durable surface than what was already there.

Ever notice the broad range of opinions that exist regarding concrete overlays and how they work? Take color hardener, for example — not everyone uses the product, but most agree that it is good and provides excellent results. Why then with overlays does such a spectrum of opinion and emotion exist?

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’s a brew-ha-ha over craft beers these days. And no wonder — with an average of 1.5 breweries opening daily, according to the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colorado, it’s not a stretch to say new ones are popping up faster than a fresh keg can be tapped.