A flashy concrete coating is always an eye catcher. It gives your concrete surface a fresh, shiny and finished look that completely gives your space attitude and class. Once you’ve completed the concrete job that you’ve worked so hard for, you’d want to top it off with a beautiful concrete coating. A good kind of coating is a polyurea polyaspartic coating. But there’s just one major concern that you and everybody else needs to consider: a concrete coat does not have long pot life–especially if it has a fast curing period.
A nice finished concrete look on your surface is great and you would like to make it last long, of course. But you might want to use your concrete coating again in the future. So here are some tips and tricks that you can do to make sure that what you buy is not wasted completely.
- Buy what you need only. It always pays to ask the store clerk or sales person about how much product you’ll need for you to complete your job. You can buy slightly more than what you need as you take into account spills and other work imperfections. That and nothing more; this way, if or when you mess it up and fail to apply the product fast enough, you won’t have wasted much from it. On a side note, concrete coatings typically don’t keep well, even if you store them in places with recommended temperatures.
- Mix only a minimum amount of what you need. Similar to our first tip, you can’t always buy a little bit more than what you need, however. So if and when you need to use a concrete coating, always remember to mix only the minimum amount every time. What you’re not using will still be usable for several hours, so basically you still have some extra coating lying around for you to use again, just in case.
- Know your solids. You can buy polyurea polyaspartic coatings in a selection of solids–anywhere from 70% to 100%. Generally, the lower the solids, the longer the pot life lasts.
- Moisture can help concrete coatings dry quicker. If the humidity is high, there’s more chance for your coating to dry quicker. Make sure to measure the relative humidity before you even start working. A 30% difference in the relative humidity is big enough to provide a considerably different atmosphere for applying the concrete coating product.
- Mix and apply fast. This is one thing that you’ll always have to do no matter what kind of concrete coating that you’re going to apply. Now for you to be sure that the coating mix you’re going to apply will be done properly, mix only what you can apply within 10 minutes. When you roll out the mixture quickly, you’ll avoid the annoying occurrence of roller lines. If you plan to broadcast quartz, you have to roll out right away to avoid roller lines too.
When you follow these simple tips and tricks, a minimum amount of your mixture will be wasted. After spending a fair amount of time and money on the project, you deserve to make us of the most efficient way to get the most out of your resources. Remember these steps so that you’ll always be more efficient with your concrete sealant.
