Going beyond the surface level

By Emma Peterson.

In order to build a successful coatings system, you must first understand the engineering and planning that goes into the layers you don’t see.

To the untrained eye, the world of roof coatings may appear simple. You put a layer of liquid product on top of concrete and voila! However, the reality of this process is much more complex and detailed. Jeffrey Wells of APF Polymer Surfaces stopped by The Coffee Shops™ for an episode of CoatingsCast™ to share his expertise from his three decades of experience and knowledge about coating concrete effectively.  

The first thing to understand is the surface you are working with. Jeffrey explained, “The assumption is that concrete's concrete, but there is new concrete. There's bare concrete. There's previously painted and/or sealed concrete. There's densified concrete that's used with the sodium silicate.” All of these different types of concrete will interact with products differently. And if there are damages, like cracks or features, like drains, you have to take that into account as well. After you assess the concrete generally, you want to look at moisture specifically. Jeffrey elaborated “Moisture might be the best friend of concrete when it's cast in place, because the hydration obviously helps the concrete get strong, but it’s concrete’s worst enemy once you actually put it in place.” So, beyond looking for obvious cracking and such, you want to look at how well the concrete cured and how dense it is.  

Once all your background information has been gathered, you must tackle any issues or damages with the floor itself before you even start thinking about coatings! This can be as simple as “putting in something to chase the cracks if I have those, like a patching material” or as complex as removing the existing concrete, moving a drain, examining the substrate for structural integrity and laying new concrete.  

After all of that is done and you know you are working off of a solid surface, you can start thinking about primers. Jeffrey explained, “Primer coats basically give a much cleaner application for coating systems. After you lay that down, a lot of systems also need a base coat.” The primer is usually a key barrier against moisture intrusion and the base coat is the start of what Jeffrey calls “building out your outcome.” At this point you can either add an additional mortar coat, which creates a more advanced system that protects against harsher chemicals and makes the coating system more durable, or move onto to your “outcome coat” if the project does not require than intense of a system.  

This outcome coat is what is often thought of when coatings are brought up. Jeffrey shared, “All that work we did, that system, is never going to be seen. You only see the result because the thing you're standing on is the finish. So, I'm either looking at a polyurethane or a polyurea or polyaspartic, some type of product that's going to yield that final contact to either the tire, the chair, the foot or whatever the environment's use is going to be.” Every coating you stand on is far deeper than the surface you are looking at. They can be five or six layers deep, or just two or three, depending on what the space needs.  

Read the transcript, Listen to the episode or Watch the recording to learn more about building the right coating system for the space you are working in.