Flooring in your property will handle the highest impact. It thus is among the first places to chip and crack. To maximize the durability of your flooring, it is imperative to pick a durable material. Concrete marks one of the most durable options, even for high and heavy-traffic sections.
With the focus on interior and exterior decor nowadays, most people are not so intent on the traditional gray concrete floors. Thankfully, your concrete sidewalk and street pavers, warehouse floors, parking lot paving, or indoor floors do not have to be gray.
Only your imagination limits the colors for your concrete surfaces with the range of products now available. When polished, the colored concrete will get a translucent and almost gem-like effect in your interiors. Here are the products used for coloring concrete.
Integral Coloring
This is a liquid or powder colorant that will be mixed in your concrete to generate a uniform color. This makes it only ideal for new concrete installations. Moreover, integral coloring is often only used for large monochrome areas because the primary application device used in this case is a truck.
Though it generates vivid colors, this option is expensive since it should soak through the entire depth of your concrete slab.
Acid Stains
These comprise water, metallic salts and acid. The acid will react with the minerals in the concrete to generate a mottled color effect. Acid stains are as durable as the concrete on which they are used. Caution is, however, essential with acid stained concrete floors.
For instance, the surfaces should be neutralized then thoroughly rinsed to get rid of any excess acid. Spills, drips, and splashes should also be avoided since these can generate permanent designs on your surfaces. Acid staining suffices for new installations and retrofits.
Water-Based Stains
These are odorless, easy to apply, safe, and will dry quickly. The stains also allow the mixing of different colors to create striking effects and patterns in small and large sections. They suffice for retrofits and new installations. Water-based stains should nonetheless be combined with protective coatings that lock in their colors.
They are also unstable under UV rays and will fade when used on surfaces in direct sunlight.
Color Hardener/Densifiers
These are among the most recent innovations for coloring concrete. They comprise fine pigments that have been suspended in water. These are blended using a lithium-silicate hardener/densifier. The blending allows the hardening and densification of your color in a single step.
Color hardener/densifiers are primarily used in floors initially ground with a resin pad. Unlike other coloring potions, they will also boost your surfaces’ resistance to the damage caused by spillages, scraping, or dropping.
Though expensive and needing considerable manual work, color hardener/densifiers have more vivid colors than other alternatives.
Some of the above products are marketed as the easiest to apply for any DIYer. This might, however, only leave you with a concrete floor that does not complement the other décor elements on your property and is not worth flaunting. Your best choice, therefore, is to have professional concrete coloring for your property.
