CONCRETE SURFACE PREP
Concrete surface prep understands that proper floor restoration means more than just superficially correcting a few blemishes or covering up structural issues. The first stage of any restoration project is preparing the surface. Creating the proper surface for adhesion ensures that chemical and mechanical bonds are strong.
There are a variety of techniques that our experts use to prepare concrete surfaces. Shot blasting strips thin coatings and removes contamination and laitance (soft concrete) to reveal a mechanical profile for improved bonding. Shot blasting provides high production rates and is dust-free, dry, and cost-effective. Dustless diamond grinding removes epoxies and urethanes and leaves a varied profile that is ideal for all applications. Scarifying uses metal or carbide disks that rotate at high speeds. This technique removes adhesives and thick film coatings, while leveling uneven floors and edges of concrete.
Proper concrete surface preparation is the most important phase in any project. Elite Garage NE performs all its own preparation for projects in-house.
VAPOR MITIGATION & UNDERLAYMENTS
Concrete is naturally porous. Both new and old concrete can have elevated relative humidity (RH) within the slab. This moisture travels through concrete floors to the surface, resulting in bubbling, blistering, and delamination of floor coatings and floor coverings alike.
Both cementitious and resinous underlayments are options for vapor mitigation. Some situations can be addressed solely with a primer, while others require both a primer and cementitious topping. Our experts can determine which products are best suited for your needs, as well as what type of substrate preparation will be needed so the underlayment will bond tightly to the concrete. Preparation is one of the most important factors for the successful installation of underlayments for vapor mitigation.
SHOT BLASTING
Shot blasting strips a thin layer of concrete to reveal a mechanical profile that will improve bonding for new floor surfaces. This technique blasts the concrete surface with steel shot (i.e., small steel balls) at a high velocity. Shot blasting removes contamination, as well as laitance (soft concrete), which could prevent coatings or other new surfaces from adhering properly.
The most important step in any flooring project is proper concrete surface preparation. Elite Garage NE utilizes a variety of surface preparation techniques, one of which is shot blasting.
Shot blasting strips a thin layer of concrete to reveal a mechanical profile that will improve bonding for new floor surfaces. This technique blasts the concrete surface with steel shot (i.e., small steel balls) at a high velocity. Shot blasting removes contamination, as well as laitance (soft concrete), which could prevent coatings or other new surfaces from adhering properly.
DUSTLESS GRINDING
The proper approach to concrete surface preparation depends on several factors. One is the type of flooring that was originally used. Another consideration is business requirements. Dustless grinding is a good approach when the business cannot tolerate high dust levels.
With dustless grinding, large planetary machines outfitted with diamond bits are used to grind the surface of the concrete floor. All machines are connected to HEPA filtered vacuums to minimize the amount of dust that is generated. Dustless grinding is often a good solution for facilities that have epoxy or urethane based coatings on their floors.
This technique is effective at removing those coatings from concrete. The resulting varied profile is ideal for all types of flooring applications.
SCARIFYING
Even if your facility’s floors have adhesives or thick film coatings, there’s no reason why the concrete can’t be revealed and restored. Scarifying is a concrete surface preparation technique that is ideal for removing heavy coatings up to one inch thick.
Scarifying machines have metal or carbide disks that rotate at high speeds. They are highly effective at leveling uneven floors and smoothing the edges of concrete. Despite the aggressive abrasion associated with scarification, dust levels are minimized because machines are connected to vacuums.
