Sealing and Resealing Decorative Concrete: What are the Differences?

You have a portion of your property that is poured with decorative concrete. After a few days, you decided to coat it with your choice of colour, making the concrete a pleasant look to see. Years passed by, and you noticed that the coating on a particular area of concrete starts to chip off. You then hurriedly coated it with another sealer to solve the tearing problem.

The above example is one of the few mistakes that people tend to do when applying the concept of sealing and resealing decorative concrete. Without ample knowledge about sealing and resealing, people are often shocked and surprised to see that their beloved concrete continues to break off.

The process between sealing and resealing differs from one another. Both the sealing process involves different steps on how to coat and seal a decorative concrete effectively.

Sealing Decorative Concrete

Sealers may either be water-based or solvent-based. But whatever the type of your sealer is, there are three key steps that you must do when applying your sealers.

First, you must ensure that your concrete is cured and completely dry before applying any types of sealer. Concrete can absorb water and moisture that affects the overall properties of the concrete and sealer itself. Sealing a wet or uncured concrete can lead to moisture being trapped between the sealer and the concrete surface, which ultimately causes the blushing of the concrete.

Second, you must apply thin coats of sealer in ambient conditions. When you apply the first layer of sealer, your concrete must look like as if it’s still bare. After the first layer has dried out completely, coat the surface layer again with sealer. The sealer may be applied repetitively until you are satisfied with the look of your concrete. When curing the concrete surface, see to it that the surrounding temperature is cool enough for the sealer to dry. A certain amount of heat can cause bubble effects on the sealer cure.

One important note in sealing your concrete is that the sealer must also cover the slab ends or edges of the concrete. You don’t want to allow moisture from getting in the concrete that can affect your work in the long run.

Lastly, your fully sealed concrete must be hardened first before anyone can touch or step on it. Keep water off the newly coated surface, so check your weather as accurate as possible to give you time to prepare a workaround. If you want to improve traction, apply a non-skid additive after your concrete has hardened.

Resealing Decorative Concrete

After a couple of months or even years, your concrete slab may encounter chipping off due to repetitive use and strong force from the surface. The only thing that you should avoid doing when you encounter this phenomenon is to apply the sealer on top of your concrete. Even if you cleaned the surface, your sealer will not stick to the existing coating.

What you should do is to create a good adhesion for your concrete surface. Your new sealer must bond well with the existing surface to not just cover up the wear and tear of the concrete but to remove any trapped moisture. This adhesion can also help the existing sealer resurface again.

To do this, you must pick a portion of your concrete slab, usually the damaged areas, and then apply a new sealer on top of them. This time, however, you don’t have to wait for it to be cured. Instead, you must agitate the surface by using a chemical-resistant broom before applying the coat to another area. This agitation process will reactive the old sealer, and at the same time, mix the new sealer to the old ones. After agitation, you can reseal other portions of your concrete and repeat the mentioned process. And just like sealing a bare concrete surface, you can add a non-skid additive if you want to.

Sealing and resealing decorative concrete involves different steps and processes. If you want to know more about sealers, contact us now at Auseal. We offer a wide range of coatings for different application purposes.

Optimized by: Netwizard SEO