Popular Decorative Concrete Applications

When it’s time to choose the best decorative concrete application to use in renovation or repair projects, facility managers find the chore easy. Decorative concrete applications are wide-ranging, and many of these options are not only easy on the budget, they are also prepared fuss-free, and brings the desired value-adding enhancements to the property.

Acid-etch staining

Decorative concrete staining using acid-based chemicals is one of the most popular applications that add aesthetic appeal to building properties. The chemical stains seep into concrete’s naturally porous surface, reacting with the substrate and creating unique patterns and designs. This is often used in renovations of patios, walkways, and almost any floor in the property.

Use of aggregates

Another common technique is to create decorative concrete finishes using coloring agents or solid aggregates. The mix of colors and aggregates with the concrete material produces surface hues and patterns that look very appealing in whatever location of the property.

Stamping

Stone or wood molds are stamped into wet concrete. When concrete dries and the molds are removed, the results are surface impressions that are distinctly artistic and beautiful.

Form lining

A variation of the stamping method, form lining is created using molds artistically created by sculptors into creative patterns. These molds are impressed on the wet concrete, giving the otherwise bare concrete a better-looking face-lift.

Freedom in Flexibility with Decorative Concrete

Concrete may be originally popular only to engineers and architects as a reliable material in construction applications, but interior and exterior designers are also using decorative concrete to add artistic touch to building renovations and repair.

Decorative concrete has become essential in enhancing the value and appeal of properties because it is fairly less expensive than other construction materials. The preparation and mixing of concrete materials is easy to handle and accomplish. On top of this, decorative concrete applications are flexible and are rapidly implemented.

Decorative concrete is often used for many types of applications in and outside buildings and properties. Many designers use decorative concrete stamps and etches to create attractive murals and add drama to walls. Interesting concrete patterns and textures can even adorn the ceilings in facilities. And the most common use of decorative concrete nowadays are as colored or textured floor finishes in almost every area of the facility. Walkways, patios, and decks enjoy beauty and practicality with decorative concrete. Even boring hospital spaces, somber library floors, or drab production areas become interesting with decorative concrete applications.

Time-wise, the ease in mixing together concrete materials makes decorative concrete faster to prepare. And, together with concrete’s fast-curing and drying ability, decorative concrete applications are very rapidly implemented – perfect for repair and renovation projects that follow a tight schedule.

Adding Value to Your Property with Decorative Concrete

In building projects and renovations, decorative concrete has become a favorite application of choice by engineers and architects. Even interior and exterior designers are using decorative concrete to create appealing spaces inside or outside facility buildings. Decorative concrete applications leave an artistic touch in any area of the facility, adding to the property’s value significantly.


Reasonable costs

Decorative concrete applications are inexpensive, mainly because the base materials to make concrete – cement, sand, and water – are some of the cheapest construction materials in the industry. In decorative concrete applications that use aggregates to add pattern to the finish, the cost may be a bit more, but still remain reasonable.

An important aspect of cost when it comes to decorative concrete is that the spendings can be controlled to a certain extent. This means facility managers can adjust their materials – concrete and aggregates both – to fit the allocated budget of the renovation project, an altogether practical option.


Ease of preparation

Decorative concrete is easy to prepare, following the ease of mixing and preparation of ordinary concrete. Because decorative concrete is used mainly for ornamental purposes, the thickness of the application is adjustable, even when colors and aggregates are added for artistic appeal.

Decorative Concrete for Property Renovations

The construction business is one of the major industries that have really grown dramatically in the past decades. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, many industrial and business sectors required construction techniques to evolve, to keep up with the demand for newer and better buildings.

From basic methodologies, to more and more complex engineering techniques and procedures, the construction industry surged forward using these innovations in order to support the construction needs of major businesses and industries. Even construction materials became more and more advanced, and sourced from more creative channels, to give building designers better choices. The results of this overall advancement are stronger and improved buildings, and happier tenants.

Concrete is also one of the construction materials that have evolved through the years. Decorative concrete is now being used extensively by building designers, not only for its strength but also for enhancing the look of facilities.

In renovating building properties, facility managers now consider decorative concrete applications as a major value-added to their properties. Engineers and architects, interiors and exterior designers, are after decorative concrete finishes to add artistic touches to the interior and exterior of building facilities.

Cost, ease of preparation and application, and flexibility, are just some of the reasons why decorative concrete is becoming a very popular choice in property make-overs and renovations.

Parking Lot Striping Contractors

Parking lot striping is an important aspect of parking lot design, and ensures compliance of parking lots with state and federal laws. Not only these, parking lot striping makes parking lots safe, and easy to navigate – things that customers look for and appreciate in the places where they park their cars and do their business.

Successful parking lot striping is possible with many factors, and one of them is entrusting the parking lot striping activity to skilled parking lot striping contractors. But there are many parking lot striping contractors in the market nowadays. How does a facility manager choose from the list and be guaranteed good quality performance? Here are some tips:

1. Choose the parking lot striping contractor based on knowledge, skills, and experience.

2. Require prospective parking lot striping contractor to hand in a portfolio of their past projects, specifically their parking lot striping projects.

3. Verify the portfolio by asking for testimonials from actual clients of the contractor, and ask questions on the performance and quality of work of the contractor.

4. Go into the parking lot striping contractors’ website and learn more of their company and projects from the site.

5. Interview the contractor and inquire about their approach to the project, what are their timelines, resources, costs and deliverables.


Establishing the competency and capability of the parking lot striping contractor is one of the best guarantees that the parking lot striping project will become successful.

Pro-Active Parking Lot Striping

To implement parking lot striping in shopping or business facilities, it is not enough to have clear goals that are completely articulated to parking lot striping contractors. It is not even enough that there is enough budget for the activity, or a good implementation plan. On top of these requirements, parking lot striping behooves facility managers to have a keen eye on the present, and an even keener eye on the future.

Keep up to date with new technology

Parking lot striping techniques and methodologies are continually developed, to keep abreast of the evolving taste of customers and the developments in parking lot design. Facility managers should be attuned to cutting-edge technology, and take advantage of current innovations in parking lot striping and products. They must always be on the lookout for improvements on quality.


Think ahead and into the future

Business parking lots eventually evolve in size and design to keep up with the demands of business. An expanding shopping center may need more parking spaces five years from now. This should be taken into consideration when planning the parking lot striping activity of today. Anticipation of any possible business expansion, or preparation for the inevitable aging process, or planning for future physical damages that can be incurred by day-to-day vehicular traffic in the facility, should also be taken into account and addressed as early as today’s parking lot striping project.

Parking Lot Striping Goals

Parking lot striping has become a necessary fixture in business facilities because of the growing importance of the parking lot as the facility’s first line of attraction to car-going customers. Much like the building façade, parking lots are subject to first impressions. The better the parking lot design, the better is the customers’ first impression of the rest of the facility. Consequently, a well-designed parking lot depends a great deal on the parking lot striping application done on the area.

Designing the parking lot, either to satisfy federal regulations or to improve customer satisfaction, dictates the parking lot striping activity done by the striping contractor. Because of this, there is a need for facility managers to plan carefully to come up with clear and concise goals for the parking lot striping project. These goals will be the deliverables expected from striping contractors, that is why it is important that the contractors know exactly the targets that they need to reach.

The goal may either be to maximize parking lot space, or to improve the flow of traffic, or to provide safety markings on the parking grounds. The methodologies used and the implementation plan of the parking lot striping project can vary depending on the goals and requirements of the facility.

Parking Lot Striping is Integral to Business

History shows that parking lot striping became an important part of the post-World War II economy, because of the industrial boom that included the automobile industry. When the government channeled funds to improve the transportation services in the country, more cars were manufactured then, which in turn paved the way for better roads and highways. The natural off-shoot of all that road building were enhancements in navigational systems, which eventually included the demand for better parking lots and the need to stripe them.

Since then, as more and more consumers ply the roads to conduct their daily affairs, businesses have become aware of how important it is to the success of their enterprise to build parking lots that accommodate customers’ vehicles while they conveniently shop within the business premises. To satisfy customers and guarantee that they will be back again, parking lots are continually improved with features such as well-lit areas, clear signages, and parking lot striping.

Parking lot striping is also part of the federal laws regulating the design of parking lots in federal highways and businesses. Good parking lot striping, coupled with adequate parking space, has become the primary drivers of deepening customer relationship. In designing parking lots, facility managers should pay a great deal of attention to the best parking lot striping design, to gain the highest benefits for the business.

Successful Winter Painting

Winter painting of storage tanks carries with it a high degree of challenges not normally encountered in painting activities in other seasons of the year. Equipments, manpower, and the protective coatings products used -- all are vulnerable to the cold weather. Environmental conditions in winter are harsher on painting projects, but this does not mean storage tanks cannot be repaired or maintained in winter.

To conduct a successful cold-weather protective coatings project in winter, it primarily requires a good understanding of the challenges involved, as well as some significant changes in the way protective coatings contractors work. Following the guidelines below, storage tank painting applications are easier to implement:

1. Setup a detailed protective coatings implementation plan. This outlines the objectives of the project, and anticipates any problems or challenges that lie ahead, for better preparation and implementation.

2. Take to heart the cold-weather protective coatings product specifications. Knowing the properties of the products will make it easier to work with it and extract high performance gains.

3. Identify and prepare in advance the machineries and systems to be used by the project, from dehumidifiers, to heating and containment systems.

4. Address resource requirements such as manpower, fuel, equipment, work schedule, and other resources that maybe needed.

5. Setup a contingency plan to account for unexpected conditions that may arise, like inclement weather, equipment repairs, longer curing time, delays, and untoward accidents and emergency cases, among others.

Maintaining Environmental Temperature for Winter Painting

Maintaining ambient temperature friendly to both applicators and protective coatings products is of paramount consideration for facility managers conducting their tank painting projects in winter. To maintain ambient temperatures, a useful reference is the document manual from the American Water Works Association (AWWA). The AWWA manual provides useful guidelines on working with steel storage tanks during cold and winter weather.

One very helpful information in the manual is the heat loss chart, wherein the relationship between the storage tank's interior and exterior temperatures are explained, and the rate of heat dissipation when the given interior and exterior temperature levels are encountered.

Since heat is critical in storage tank protective coatings projects, heat loss prevention is consequently very important. The solution to losing critical heat during protective coatings applications is to setup a high-performing insulating system for the storage tank. Despite the insulating capabilities of the tank that comes from its thick walls, and whatever protective coatings or linings are already in place, more insulation maybe needed for the project, such as thermal blankets, a heat containment system, or a forceful heat infusion to the tank to compensate for heat loss. The latter often requires fuel and adds to heating costs, but if there is budget for it, it can greatly help in achieving ambient temperature.

Environmental Conditions for Winter Painting

The protective coatings processes – from surface cleanup and preparation, to actual protective coatings application, to post-application activities such as surface curing and drying – are very dependent on and even sensitive to environmental conditions. The surroundings influence the way protective coatings applicators work, the speed of their work, and inevitably the quality of their finished output. Protective coatings products are also very sensitive to environmental temperature, because paint components react in various ways to temperature changes. From mixing, storage, and disposal – protective coatings primers, paints, sealants, and the like – are all at the mercy of the elements, so to speak.

This is even more so in winter, when cold or freezing temperatures often prove to be the hardest obstacles in painting projects. Maintaining the conditions suitable for protective coatings activities can be very difficult at the dead of winter.
Difficult as it may seem, it is not completely impossible to maintain the right temperature and conditions favorable to protective coatings projects in winter. The key is to device a way to pipe in heat and warmth into the facility interior. When the exterior weather worsens, more heat should be generated inside to maintain the interior ambient temperature. Coatings projects can then proceed unimpeded in the friendlier temperatures.

The same holds true for storage tanks. The tank's surface should maintain the right temperature that will keep away the cold and prevent heat dissipation. This prevents cold-cure protective coatings from being severely affected, maintaining the overall quality of the painting application despite the cold.

Painting Tanks in Winter

Some of the most challenging projects encountered by protective coatings contractors are tank repair and maintenance work done during the cold weather months. The winter season can hinder productivity more than the spring or fall seasons ever could. Even skilled painting contractors struggle with painting activities when cold temperatures and freezing environments are major obstacles. And even when humans put great effort to paint against the weather, all is in vain when even equipments and mechanical tools are less responsive when operated in cold weather.

This is why the winter season is considered by the protective coatings industry as one of the two seasons which are slow times for tank painting activities. The other season is summer, when obviously the hot weather months require water availability at all times, and thus making it impossible for any service and maintenance activities to be conducted to water tanks, if at all.

With only the spring and fall seasons as the available times for protective coatings projects, contractors are turning even more to the possibility of painting water tanks in winter, despite the challenges. In the aim to increase the window of time to service tanks in a yearly basis, the protective coatings industry has made some progress in making tank painting easier in winter, with new technologies such as ambient temperature utilization and management, heat loss prevention systems, and innovations on application techniques and protective coatings suitable for cold-water painting.

Long-term Corrosion Control of Waste Water Treatment Tanks

After every good practice in repairing damages wrought by corrosion to wastewater treatment tanks have been observed and implemented – from proper survey and accurate assessment of the tank’s condition and extent of corrosion, to applying the most appropriate anti corrosive coatings – one last thing should be conscientiously implemented in the corrosion control project. Failing to implement this step will put all remediation efforts in vain.

This last, though not the least, important step is the setup of an effective system of continuous monitoring of the corrosion-prone sewage tanks. The offshoot of long-term monitoring is that this assures the existence of a remediation plan that can easily be implemented whenever an alarming level of corrosion damage has been reached. This means that the long-term good performance of any anti-corrosive coatings system is assured, and gains the treatment facility immense benefit in terms of sustainability.

Continuous monitoring, prompt detection and rapid implementation of a standby remediation plan are a good idea, because of the ever-present menace of corrosion in wastewater treatment plants. All those treatment chemicals in the area are a definite fuel for corrosion to take place anytime. The toxic environment calls for an SOP on periodic maintenance and repairs, a program that involves detailed surface preparation, anti corrosive coatings application, post-curing procedures, among others. In actuality, the cost of setting up this monitoring mechanism is more reasonable than the cost of repairing severe corrosion damage later on.

An Action Plan for Successful Waste Water Tank Corrosion Repair

Wastewater treatment facilities, and sewage tanks in particular, are constantly exposed to chemicals and materials reacting with one another to induce corrosive processes. When these corrosive interactions go on unabated, even the best anti corrosive coatings may eventually fail. And when there is a failure of anti corrosive coatings in these sewage tanks, structural degradation will consequently happen.

Although there are great challenges in anti corrosion repairs, early detection and diagnosis, and an accurate intervention plan, greatly helps in long-term avoidance of even more repair costs. What would the repair plan contain?

First, and very basic, is to conduct a thorough surface preparation. The goal is to clean the affected surface and remove dirt and contaminants that can hinder the anti corrosive coatings application process. Coatings adhere poorly to surfaces riddled with dirt. To get rid of dirt, abrasive blasting is the most common cleanup method. In cases when there are already pock-marks in the surface, filler materials must be smoothened over the surface prior to actual anti corrosive coatings application.

The tank lining should offer effective barrier protection, hence should be composed of fast-setting cement-based formulations and elastomeric urethane-based coatings. Any anti corrosive coatings system chosen for tank repair must be applied with strict observance of the instructions contained in the manufacturer's data sheet. Needless to say, these anti corrosive coatings must be imbued with high resistance against toxicity, and should be quick and easy to apply.

Accurate Assessment Equals Successful Wastewater Tank Repair

Sewage tanks often subjected to harsh sewage-treating chemicals can suffer from many forms of corrosion, abrasion and damages, leading potentially and ultimately to structural decay. The thought of a sewage leak due to tank failure is enough motivation for facility managers to intervene in a timely manner to avoid this disastrous occurrence.

There is no straightforward or formulaic method to a successful application of anti corrosive coatings in tank repair. Even in the hands of skilled painting contractors, anti corrosive coatings do not offer a panacea to corrosion unless one important thing is in place: an accurate assessment of the extent of corrosion in the tank.

Why is assessment important? The answer is simple: to solve a problem, one must know what the problem is in the first place. A comprehensive inspection of the tank’s condition is very important, because this gives painting contractors valuable information about the structural integrity of the tank and increase the chances of applying the right anti corrosive coatings. Partnered with the correct assessment of the tank’s condition is the determination of the extent of corrosion in the tank. Data gathering, surface sampling, and some targeted tests can extract the data to indicate the severity of corrosion and wether or not the anti corrosive coatings is already failing or has failed.

Knowing these factors provide a sound analysis and the most effective action plan to repair the corrosion problem.

Anti Corrosive Coatings for Waste Water Treatment Plants

Wastewater treatment plants are some of the most corrosion-prone facilities in the industry. This is an unavoidable consequence of the natural function of wastewater treatment plants, which is to process sewage water to free it from pollutants.

Storage tanks and containers, in particular, withstand the worst of corrosion coming mostly from the chemicals and decontaminating materials used in treating sewage water. Most of these chemicals are corrosive agents that attack the tank’s lining or coating system. Some non-corrosive chemicals, reacting with other elements in the water, air or other chemicals, may even contribute to corrosion indirectly.

It therefore takes a special kind of anti corrosive coatings to provide long-term protection against these harsh corrosive elements.

Before the painting contractor can specify the correct anti corrosive coatings system for the wastewater treatment tank, it is advisable to understand the common sources of corrosion plaguing wastewater tanks. As already mentioned, certain chemical and biological materials used to treat sewage are major corrosive agents. Extreme changes in temperature, also contribute to structural degradation. Again, the anti corrosive coatings appropriate for freezing, thawing, and extreme temperatures should be chosen during repair and maintenance work.

The steady flow of sewage water may carry rocks, silt, or other solid materials that can cause erosion and abrasion in the inner tank lining, and through time, may cause a lining failure. Anti corrosive coatings that are resistant to wear and tear should also be considered.