Vol. 15 No. 3 - April 2015

For contractors who want a rock finish on the exterior of an ICF structure, M a variety of panelized stone veneer systems and interlocking structural insulated home-building panel systems are available.

Luisa is the senior sales representative and Dan is president at Greystone Masonry, the company they founded 18 years ago. The Dittmanns have enjoyed a high level of success, doing a lot of work for increasingly sophisticated homeowners and for the many government facilities in their region of the country.

The winners of the seventh annual Decorative Concrete Awards competition sponsored by the Decorative Concrete Council were recognized in February 2015 during a ceremony at World of Concrete in Las Vegas. DCC is a specialty council of the American Society of Concrete Contractors.

Websites have changed the relationships between businesses and customers. Having an attractive, purposeful and convenient website can make or break a company. A website is particularly useful for a decorative concrete artisan, because it allows you to visually showcase your work, publish testimonials and be easily found by potential customers.

A funny thing happened on the way home from the grocery store, says Troy Lemon, president of Cornerstone Decorative Concrete in Holland, Michigan. It all started when he and his son, Josh, stumbled upon an art studio in their own tiny village of Fennville.

Some things get better the second time around. Take the Navy Corpsmen Memorial at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, for instance. Back in 1983, Raul Avina, an Oceanside resident and local artist who as a young Marine was wounded in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.

Pool deck solutions are discussed, involving sealers, anti-slip additives and deck drains. All three of these items are important for your clients’ overall satisfaction, as well as the eventual success of your installation.

What’s old often becomes new again, and in the case of ICF (insulated concrete forms) construction, many people feel it’s not only ready for a rebirth but a healthy adolescence, as well.

Sealers and coatings, for the most part, go through the same phases as they dry and/or cure. Before explaining these phases, it is important to know that while all sealers and coatings dry, some also cure as they dry.

Choosing the right manufacturer is a dilemma every contractor in our industry faces every day. I’ve heard many analogies used to describe the decorative concrete industry over the years, but two comparisons have always resonated the most: “Polished Concrete is part Art and part Construction,” and “The polishing industry is still the Wild West.”

There is a famous paperback called “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White. Many writers treasure it as a guide to writing clearly and succinctly while avoiding common grammatical errors. The handbook itself is a model of clarity.