INFRA-TECT – What Is It? And Why?

ALEX: Good morning and welcome to today’s Wednesday webinar for INFRA-TECT. We’re going to go through, what is it, and why? So today, myself, Alex Portelli will be presenting this webinar along with my colleague Wade. I’ve been with MARKHAM for five years and head up the national design and specifications team for MARKHAM.

WADE: Yes, and I’ve also been here five years. I look after getting those designs and specifications through to the construction companies. So I work mainly with construction companies, concreters, engineers, that type of thing.

ALEX: Awesome, awesome. Both of us work out of the new Wollongong office that we’ve been lucky enough to occupy. So, yes, that’s where we do most of our work. So we’re going to have a Q&A button for today. So anybody who’s got anything to add, please feel free to jump on that and type in your questions and we’ll do our best to answer all these at the back end of this webinar.

So for today’s learning outcomes, what we’re going to be going through is, What are the risks of unprotected concrete? Obviously how we can assist in removing or reducing these. What is INFRA-TECT as a system? And more about MARKHAM’s TECT approaches. We can share some of the background of everybody attending today; it would be great to let us know who we’ve got on board, whether you’re an architect, construction, design builder, etc. Let us know in the chat and we’ll try and refine some of these answers or information around associated with what you’re working with.

WADE: Don’t all jump in at once! Oh, thanks, Danny!

ALEX: Danny, thanks for that. Wait for a couple more before we before we jump into it. Architect, awesome! Design manager. Yes, very good. Excellent. Thanks, Cade.

WADE: Good that you brought up warranties, we will cover that through this, absolutely. Project manager. Perfect. All right. I think we’ve got a really good spread here. This is actually going to work quite well for a lot of you.

ALEX: Awesome. Awesome. We’ll just start. To kick us off, we’re going to go through the impact and the risks of unprotected concrete.

So Wade, do you want to take that away?

WADE: Yes I will. I think that picture relates to a lot of people. Everyone has seen that type of concrete cancer type thing before. That’s what people tend to have to mind in mind when they think about concrete damage and what happens to concrete if it’s not treated. But it starts a lot earlier than that. It can actually start from day one of the pour. And it usually starts inside the concrete. By the time we’ve seen it on the outside, it’s already well far gone. It’s almost too late.

So it can start from day one. You get things like alkali silica reactivity. That’s when the silica is actually highly reactive and can expand. There’s things like surface dusting, carbonation getting into the concrete. Things like the corrosion of the reinforcing steel. This is something that everyone’s familiar with because it’s the thing that we see once it actually comes through. But the biggest thing is, it’s moisture that brings in things that aren’t designed to be in that concrete mix to start with. So moisture bringing in all sorts of different contaminants in there. That has reactions with either the sand or the reinforced steel, again is that one that everyone’s really familiar with. And it can start at day one and it just keeps building and building and building and building. And by the time it’s got to that stage where we can physically see the damage… It’s well and truly affected the life of the concrete structure.

ALEX: Absolutely. It’s almost too late in some instances.

WADE: Yes. Yes. By the time you see it, yes, absolutely is. So yes, there’s lots of things we can do to try and stop it. But I think the biggest thing is that moisture migration that comes into the concrete, that’s the thing that really affects concrete. If we can stop that moisture migration in the first place you can really stop a lot of those contaminants getting into the concrete. So yes, how can these risks be resolved or removed? Essentially like we said, it’s those moisture-borne contaminants. They really get get in… They use all those pores and porosities that are made by the bleed water at concrete set time. So concrete sort of almost look like a sponge when you expand it; there’s all those different ways that you can get into the concrete. So we need to try and find a way to immobilise that moisture so it can’t move around so it can’t get to these other places where it’s going to have that reaction. And that way we can stop any contamination. We can stop that reaction from happening in the first place; or we can halt it from happening further from what it is.

And then that way if we can encapsulate that moisture where it is, and it can’t travel through the concrete, then you’re going to protect that reinforcement steel. And then that’s that main one that everyone’s…

ALEX: It’s that old saying really, isn’t it, that prevention is better than a cure.

WADE: Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

ALEX: Preventative maintenance. It’s going to save a lot of time and money on curing that structure in the future.

WADE: Yes, and spending a little bit of money at the start of the project, really, will, I guess, add value to future works that might need to go on, that can be really, really expensive.

So there’s lots of different ways that you can treat moisture in the concrete. Our approach is to use a hydrogel. So what is a hydrogel? Hydrogel is a liquid. It’s usually spray-applied to the concrete. We can do that retrofitted to existing concrete, or it can be done as soon as the day of the concrete pour. We do also have admixtures that you can do this with as well. And depending on the situation, is sort of depending on what we use there. But today we’re focused on our spray side of things. So we spray the concrete, ideally the day of the pour. That penetrates right into the concrete; 150mm actually. It’s not like a lot of curing products or sealing products that sit on the top of the surface. Yes, it penetrates right down in, 150mm on most concrete. And what that does, it fills up those pores and you start to get that reaction and it first forms a hydrogel. That blocks all those pores within the concrete. And over time, it actually produces more… We refer to it as C-S-H, calcium silicate hydrate. That’s the bonding agent in cement. So in concrete you have big large platelets and then you’ll have these tiny little platelets that actually bond it all together and that’s the calcium silicate hydrate. So we’re putting more into… The good stuff, the bonding, into concrete. So we’re not affecting the concrete make-up at all; which we’ll cover it a little bit more in the future, but that that really helps with things like compatibility. And it really extends the life of concrete.

So we’re doing a few things: we’re locking up the moisture, turning that moisture into more benefits for the concrete with that calcium silicate hydrate. And we’re also strengthening the concrete, stopping it from dusting and making it last longer. Everyone’s quite big on all this carbon reduction in concrete. But you also get a lot of concrete waste, when it when it’s prematurely has to be destroyed. So yes, we really do extend the life of those structures. So yes, concrete is not wonderful for the environment, but if we can make it last a lot longer a time. So yes that that that really helps us out.

Oh, good question, Mike. I like that one! We’ll cover that towards the end. Yes, right up our alley.

So we’ll go through… Alex, do you want to go through…? Oh, actually, this is a good one. Has anyone ever experienced this premature concrete deterioration on projects? It could be on real simple things like low coverage of concrete and things like that, but… Yes, it it’s amazing how quick some of this deterioration can happen. I’d like to see if there’s anyone out there who’s dealing with this on a fairly new structure, that would be interesting.

ALEX: Got a couple of people typing. Just give it a couple of seconds.

WADE: Yes, 10 plus years or older. Yes, that’s pretty normal. Interesting fact on that 10 years or so, I’m sure that that structure was designed to last a lot longer than that, before it showed that deterioration. So I’d say 10 years is actually pretty advanced, that’s quite a lot of deterioration for that that amount of time for sure. There is a bit out there. Yes. Domestic and residential. Yes. There’s heaps of that. That’s pretty interesting. The concrete tends to not be treated at all in a lot of those buildings, which is a real issue.

ALEX: And we see it all too often, don’t we.

WADE: A lot of our calls are to do with residential buildings. And I think the industry is now realising that we do need to improve that. That’s…

ALEX: The industry thing for sure.

WADE: It’s coming. Yes. There’s… the ACT government last week actually produced a bulletin on that exact thing, making sure that your concrete is treated from day one. So yes, definitely, people are aware.

ALEX: On the horizon.

WADE: Yes. Alex, do you want to go through our systematic approach? Tell us about the INFRA-TECT system that we use.

ALEX: Yes, no problem. So INFRA-TECT, what is it? So basically INFRA-TECT is looking at protecting the concrete for infrastructure projects. So we’re looking at exposed elements within those infrastructure projects and aiming to pro-tect them, hence the INFRA-TECT system. So what we’re doing here is we’re looking at that long term durability, long term protection, for exposed concrete; stopping it from dusting, wearing down, etc. Ways we can do this is, increasing abrasion resistance etc. Working in with the designers to ensure that systems like these are specified early or documented so that we know that it’s going to meet a performance requirement for a project. Benefits of that is good curing, crack control, compatibility – as you mentioned before, Wade. So the fact that we’re not putting anything foreign into the concrete still allows the natural finished concrete to remain compatible with any topical products such as line marking etc in a car parking situation.

WADE: I think it looks better too. Just having that natural concrete finish, rather than, like, coating over the top.

ALEX: Coating over the top… it reduces that that overall maintenance of having to reapply paints, etc, to keep the aesthetic appeal to a standard. So by having the concrete treated in its natural form and allowing it to do its job and perform as it’s intended without having to have a topical coating over the top, can save time and money; along with that construction timeline as well. So we do this with an end-to-end approach, which we’ll go through a little bit further.

So the systems… where these can be utilised. As you can see there, there’s a few examples, but predominantly car parks are one of the major areas that this INFRA-TECT system is used; being that the majority of the concrete is exposed. In that example there as you can see, there’s quite a little bit of paint that’s gone on. So therefore that compatibility issue is covered. So you’ve got your painting on your different levels to distinguish where you’ve parked, etc

Exposed soffits: definitely one that gets brought up a lot on car park projects.

WADE: Yes, those car parks suffer from a lot of dusting issues; they get a lot of that carbonation into the concrete. So yes, car parks are one that really cop a hammering.

ALEX: That’s right, yes. Purely the fact that obviously vehicles are are trafficking around, and the carbonation from… or carbon from the exhausts etc is coming out, settling on the soffits or those exposed surfaces and then starting to actually find their way into the porosites of the concrete when they’re untreated. This is what’s breaking it down and causing it to dust.

WADE: Yes. And that’s interesting You mentioned those soffits; because a lot of people are big on the curing or the sealing of the actual car park, but then they forget that the concrete can just can deteriorate from the bottom side. It’s quite interesting actually.

ALEX: Exactly right. Good question there, Cade, we’ll get to that one a bit later on.

Data centres, definitely something that’s starting to be a lot more recognised, obviously.

WADE: Yes, there’s heaps of them are coming up now too.

ALEX: The sensitive nature of the equipment inside definitely can’t allow concrete to dust… to adversely affect those. So long term on that is definitely something that these asset owners are looking towards.

Again, notably, compatibility. So if there’s resilient flooring that’s going down in walkways etc, these treatments won’t adversely affect the adhesion of floor glues etc.

Precast elements are another way that the construction industry is moving forward, so being able to treat those precast elements prior to them going to site; and knowing that once they’re treated, it’s a long term solution. So having that deep penetration of 150mm. Now I’d like to mention that that penetration is actually 360°. So you get the same depth of penetration in the soffit that you would do in a slab on-ground, because you’re not relying on gravity to get into those.

So yes, as I said, precast elements – being able to treat them for things like water repellency, weather, chloride contaminant ingress through through that facade is definitely a way forward that this INFRA-TECT system is looking to assist the construction industry.

WADE: With so much of our life of living next to the coast where that salt water’s around, too; having these structures protected from day one, it’s just massively important for their longevity.

ALEX: For sure.

WADE: Next, I think we’re going through the different types of TECT systems. I believe… Yes, definitely. So our TECT system approach. Some people may know us for our different range of products; like our AQURON systems and our CONQOR systems. We’ve tried to combine them a lot and simplify it for people, where they’re not so much looking for a product to help them in their situation, but we actually have a system. We’re all about protecting concrete. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a car park, a bridge, a wharf, a hospital… you know, we’re involved with so much of the building, the concrete.

ALEX: That’s right, yes.

WADE: So we’ve simplified that. Brought it in, protecting these systems, and brought them directly into what we’re trying to protect. Yes, so we do have a few out there.

We’ve got our BASE-TECT system. That’s a three part process that we use for basements below ground that have a high water table in particular. It’s a much more efficient way of doing it than traditional tanking and membranes. In some cases it will allow you… You can use just our system rather than a membrane, but we use the concrete itself as the actual tank. There are waterproofing products out there that you can do similar things with, but usually quality control and that type of thing lets a lot of those products down. So we really look at it as a holistic system. Where are the weak points? Where can we improve on these systems, and have a really good, strong, reliable system that’s also affordable and quick and easy to do?

ALEX: We’ll probably touch a bit more on that with Mike’s question between colloidal silica vs crystalline.

WADE: Yes actually, it does relate really well. And it’s a bit more of a systematic approach with construction joints and things as well.

TOP-TECT system is essentially a very, very similar system to our BASE-TECT system, that allows you to waterproof the concrete roof using just the concrete alone. We do use that in conjunction with a lot of traditional membrane type things and drainage points and things as well, so that’s becoming quite popular around here. I’ve got quite a lot of projects at the moment that are incorporating this system.

FLOOR-TECT is one that we’ve sort of had around for ages, and we do a lot of. But it’s always been worded different. But FLOOR-TECT, again, is a more holistic approach to moisture controlling under flooring, in hospitals, aged cares, those sorts of businesses where a lot of resilient flooring is used. Quite often there’s lots of variations at the back end of projects with grinding and moisture control, and that type of thing, where you can protect the floor from day one at a much lower cost and it really speeds up that construction timeline as well.

ALEX: So I was just going to say so it is an overall system to not only save time, but money.

WADE: Yes. You end up saving both at times. It does sometimes look like a bigger cost upfront because it’s, you know. You’re moisture controlling and everything from day one. Yes, but the amount that saves at that back end, especially when you’re trying to fit out somewhere, and then you’ve got moisture issues and then it’s an argument over who pays for what and… Yes, it saves a lot of time and money doing it that way

SLAB-TECT is a really cool one. Again, high quality finishes for things like warehouses, showrooms, museums and things like that; art galleries, we’ve done recently. So yes, things where you want a really high quality concrete floor. Quite often they’re treated with, you know, polish and coatings and things on top that have hugely high maintenance; and they lose that shine over time. We have a system that we can incorporate to get a really, really nice sheen from day one. And the interesting thing is, as you wear it out, you actually enhance that sheen. It’s not the other way around like you’d get with the topical sealer.

INFRA-TECT, which we’ve been through today; protecting your car parks, your data centres, that type of thing; where there’s exposed concrete. A lot of schools as well; we’ve been doing a lot of schools with that lately as well. All the trend with exposed concrete walls and having that cool look, I mean, it looks good, but if it’s going to deteriorate real quick…

And then CIVIL-TECT. This is another bit of our business. At some point, people don’t realise that we do, we do a lot of remediation and a lot of durability treatments to infrastructure around the country, and other countries. Bridges, ports, wharves, those real strong projects that get broken down by just the conditions that they’re in. Mining’s another one. Yes, there’s so many places that you just don’t think of concrete being cause, you know, we drive on those roads and things like that every day. And they’re just used for day-to-day use, but they do break down and they do need maintenance and we’ve got some really good solutions for that.

ALEX: And the beauty of each and every one of these systems is that… and you mentioned it before, that holistic approach. So it’s not just one system, it’s a project. It could be multiple systems that can be incorporated to a project on different levels. So if you’re dealing with a project with a few levels of basement, obviously you can incorporate BASE-TECT.  As you move out of the ground you might have office spaces with resilient flooring. You can put your FLOOR-TECT system in there. Yes, rooftop spaces, etc…

WADE: And there’s heaps of products out there. There’s so many products, but if you just do… using a bit for this, a bit for that, a bit for this, someone else is installing that, someone else is installing this, and that’s meant to do this. And then this doesn’t work with that … There’s so much out there, so just being able to have a holistic approach; say, Look, this is what works. We’ve looked at all avenues. We’ve got well cured concrete. The concrete is sealed. It’s waterproofed.

ALEX: It’s a surety isn’t it? – of work.

WADE: Yes, absolutely. Yes, sometimes a concrete structure just can’t perform as it should, just on its own. It needs that help; and then we really look at that, make sure it’s going to work with other trades and all that sort of thing as well. Which probably brings us on to our next bit actually, and it’s, How does Markham help you? Alex, you’re going to run through a bit of this, and really put it into how we’re different from other companies. I mean, we’ve covered it a little bit there, but dive into it a little bit more.

ALEX: Yes. Excellent, excellent. Thanks for that, Wade. So performance based warranty is an extremely strong part of what MARKHAM do as a company. MARKHAM are actually the manufacturers of all the products within the technical systems as well. So you’re dealing with a manufacturer, you’re dealing with a company who’s helping and assisting in the design of the system within your project. So you’re meeting all the project’s performance requirements. We then are installing all of our own system. So as Wade mentioned before, you’re not selling a product or buying a product that’s come from someone supplying it, who’s a reseller, who then gets picked up by a subcontractor, who then subcontracts the work out to somebody to do the job.

WADE: Slap it on.

ALEX: MARKHAM are dealing with that and have the finger in the pie, so to speak, the whole way throughout that process. All of those processes lead to the application on site which is done with a high and strict quality assurance paperwork or documentation, which is then all tied up into a performance warranty.

WADE: Yes. And I think one really cool thing about that is like – we deal with it every day – where you’re out talking to architects and engineers and what they want out of the building; and then it gets written into the specs. And then from when it’s specified and goes out for tender, then I’m in touch with the builders; and once it’s awarded and goes onto site; and then I’m then involved with the application side of things and I talked to our operations team about what’s expected in the build and what needs to be done. And that conversation that is going on with the guys who are actually installing and doing the job on site is the same conversation that you’ve had with the designers and the asset owners. And it’s a cohesive thing.

ALEX: The whole way through, we’re in contact. It’s not just the project, or the project gets specified. I’m off and out and on the next one, so to speak.

WADE: The result you get on site is the same conversation that you’ve had from the start, which I think is really cool.

ALEX: In some cases I’m going along the site meetings as well with Wade, our other representatives around Australia.

WADE: Yes. And I think it’s something that no one else does. Sometimes if a product gets specified … by the time it goes through tender and the costs are cut out of it and then it goes to site with the builder and he knows a mate or he’s done this before and they use a different thing, and then the architect or just on and says, Hey, that’s not what we expected exactly. It’s something really unique, that MARKHAM look after the whole way through, which is really cool. And yes, I guess we like to call it end-to-end service. And it really is end-to-end, isn’t it?

ALEX: That’s exactly right. Yes. So just to recap on that, so “end-to-end” for us is manufacturing of the product; assisting with the design and install; estimating it through our in-house team; the supply and application; quality control, which then transforms into our performance-based warranties.

And the beauty of our performance-based warranties, they aren’t just a product replacement warranty. If we’ve said that the system’s going to perform in a certain way, let’s call it dusting…

WADE: Yes. Dusting is a good one.

ALEX: …we go, we fix it. We make sure that it stops dusting. Resilient flooring is a good one. We say that the flooring is not going to pop due to moisture borne elements coming through and affecting that adhesion. If that were to happen, that’s something that we don’t just go, Oh, here’s some more product.

WADE: Yes, when you’ve got the floor up, we’ll just put some more product on, and away you go. No, we look at it much more than that and we’ll actually cover the cost of that floor coming up, it being re moisture controlled and that flooring being reinstated. That’s how confident we are.

ALEX: Exactly right. So yes, it’s more than just a product replacement for us. It’s a whole service, a whole system which we really pride ourselves on.

WADE: Yes, it’s unreal. Something I’ve never dealt with any company I’ve been through before.

ALEX: Neither have I.

WADE: So we’ll go through some questions. I think first, we’ll probably bring up some of those ones that that were coming through during the podcast and then we will also…

ALEX: Yes. Feel free to jump in.

WADE: …feel free to jump in, right? Yes. Ask more. Jump on the Q&A, jump on the chat. I’m going to try and get them open. I don’t know if I can do both at once. One at a time. That’s all right. Chat, chat, chat. Let’s go through chat.

This one’s probably the first one that came up. And we both went, Oh yes, I like that one. And it’s, Is hydrogel better than a crystallisation product? We’ll say yes! but let me tell you why.

ALEX: There’s a lot more technical answer to it.

WADE: Yes, they’re both essentially microsilicas. When we think of pore-block in concrete, crystalline products are usually the first one that comes to mind. They work really, really well in certain applications. So for instance, if you’re building a lift pit. And you’re in a dark cold basement; your lift’s stuck in formwork forever. You’re cured really well; it’s a small pour. Then those crystalline products work really, really well. But you’ve got to remember, they’re like a crystal-type particle. They’re really highly reactive. When you try and use them in certain situations, like, let’s go our TOP-TECT system where you’re trying to do a rooftop deck in a big open slab. The first issue you have is that reactivity sucks the moisture out of the concrete. It can’t hydrate the concrete enough. It makes it hard to pour. You get weak concrete, you get shrinkage. It cracks bigger than what that product can heal, and you end up with a non-waterproof structure.

ALEX: Yes. I guess in a sort of, I guess a simplistic term as well; you’ve got your cement paste in the back of your concrete truck, which is competing for the moisture that’s been given to it at the batching plant. You’ve also got a crystalline product that’s actually reacting and trying…

WADE: Super reactive dry powder.

ALEX: …hydrate itself with the same amount of moisture.

WADE: Yes, and they often need to change the mix designs and all sorts of things. Add reinforcement steel to compensate for the downside of those products. And once they pore-block, that’s the end of their job, they’re done.

So where the hydrogel is different – it’s a colloidal silica. It’s a round particle, for a start. It’s non-carcinogenic. It’s a nice controlled reaction. We can control the reaction through particle size. It’s a liquid. It’s a fluid, so it’s not relying on the moisture that’s designed to go to the cement.

ALEX: Yes, acting like a lubricant.

WADE: Yes, it’s initial gelling state actually lubricates the mix. It makes it easier to pour. So you don’t get that honeycombing and things like you would with those other products. It reduces shrinkage significantly, and especially when it’s combined with some of our other products when we’re doing these systems, so you can get really large pours with really high-quality concrete for a start. And then you forming more calcium silicate hydrate, that bonding agent in cement. So you’re really building on the structure of the concrete, not just blocking pores which is …

ALEX: So positive, positively, reacting to the strength gains that are already designed into the structure, You’re actually almost enhancing those.

WADE: Yes, we get it a lot where our structures may be designed for like 0.2mm, 0.3mm crack tolerances; and because of that extra strength, and that shrinkage reduction, you actually find you get a lot less than that. You get earlier, strength gains long term strength gains. But you don’t have to change mix designs. You don’t have to put more reinforced concrete or more mesh into the concrete.

ALEX: You’ve actually brought up a good point there. Within this INFRA-TECT system, and a lot of the other systems that we’ve got where we’re using our spray-applied treatments, you’re actually getting self-healing capabilities of up to 0.5mm for the life cycle of the structure. So it’s not something that you just spray on at the beginning and, you know, it has a life cycle or an expiry date, so to speak. It’s actually active for the life cycle of that structure, and self-healing cracks up to 0.5mm.

WADE: Yes, that’s right. And without those chances of having those cracks in the first place, you really are building a waterproof structure and a strong structure. It’s not like some of those other products where as soon as you get a crack, it’s not waterproof any more.

ALEX: Yes, exactly right.

WADE: I’ve got a really good one here; If it reduces carbonation, can it be used to reduce cover? The quick answer that is, Yes. We’re involved in a lot of situations where low cover is an issue. If there’s reinforced steel hanging out of the concrete, we don’t have a solution for that! Essentially, if you know that you’ve got low cover issues, by using AQURON in the concrete, or one of these, especially the CIVIL-TECT type products…

ALEX: That’s what I was going to say. You mentioned the exposed reinforcement; we can actually halt that deterioration at that point, and then working with remediation specialists to fix.

WADE: And we effectively double the amount of cover. So if you’ve only got 20mm of concrete cover – by us incorporating our CIVIL-TECT systems, you’re effectively doubling that level of cover, right? Yes, really, really cool question there. And it does come up a lot.

Budget purposes. [For budget purpose, what sort of $/m2 or $/m3 shall we allow at early stage of project for each of your products?] Look, they’re all a bit different. It’s all project-specific.

ALEX: That’s right. … mix design when you’re talking about cubic metre cost etc.

WADE: We do have a bit of a guide. In terms of INFRA-TECT systems… I mean the basic sort of thing, I don’t know… It starts from sort of about $5 or $6 a square metre. So when you look at it, it is dearer than curing. It is dearer than sealing. It is dearer than densifying. But you’re getting all of that in one.

ALEX: When you add those three together, you’re at the same.

WADE: And you’re not having any of those compatibility issues. You never have to reapply it. So you don’t have any maintenance on it.

ALEX: So I think that answers Nick’s question above, which is, How often do you have to reapplicate? – which is never.

WADE: Oh yes, good question. Sorry, I actually missed that one! Sorry about that. Yes, never needs to be reapplied – once it’s done, it’s done. It’s there for the lifetime, like you mentioned. It’s active for the lifetime. In a lot of cases, it improves over time with the way it looks, and things like that, as opposed to deteriorating like a lot of products and things out there do.

ALEX: Absolutely. And I think you mentioned quite early in the piece that new concrete is the best time to incorporate it. However, it can be done retrospectively as well. You’re still getting those benefits from it.

WADE: Yes, and new concrete… The main reason we say that is, there’s so much moisture in the concrete from new; we can lock that moisture in, which really helps cure the concrete, and get really good quality concrete. Retro-applied to existing concrete is AOK, just obviously don’t get that curing benefit; and quite often we will actually put moisture into the concrete to help with that reaction and help almost get it back to like it’s a newer style of concrete.

Next one I got here from Cade is, If INFRA-TECT needs to be applied the day of the pour, how do we apply to soffits?

ALEX: Good question.

WADE: Yes, it again comes back to what we were just saying. We generally do it as soon as that formwork is being pulled away. It’s going to get its moisture locked in from the formwork on there. And then if we’re locking moisture in from the top, like, we’re getting really, really well cured concrete, that’s more about protecting from that carbonation and that sort of thing getting into the concrete.

ALEX: A soffit would almost fall into a retro-style application, based on the fact that you’ve mentioned, you know, we spray that once the once the formwork has been removed; and that there is then looking at that long term durability; because it’s done prior to handover, which is then when you start getting, you know, vehicles trafficking around a slab, which is where you get carbonation rising from etc, etc. So It’s all sort of detailed into, I guess, a project brief or project specification, which we’re quite open and transparent about as we assist in designing these. We wouldn’t say that, you know, you had to spray the soffit within 24 hours, for example. You’d go through its cycle. Once that formwork gets stripped and removed, that’s when we would programme in with the site teams as to coming back and then starting to spray those areas out.

WADE: The next one – actually the next two are sort of linked, from Michael and Mark there – Are all MARKHAM products exclusive to MARKHAM? and then it follows through, Can concreters apply the products? or does MARKHAM supply a list of approved applicators? So for these TECT systems, because they’re usually a multiple part process, we use our MARKHAM applicators to do it. They are MARKHAM products. So we do sort of have that exclusivity just based on the quality control and what we’re trying to achieve with the concrete. It’s not a, We can do it and no one else can, type thing. We do actually supply a lot of products and it’s something that we’re branching into a little bit more, is opening up that availability of what we do, to people like concretes, and painters, and waterproofers, and that type of market. We’re in the early stages of that side of the business. So traditionally, we’ve always quality controlled it. Doing it all ourselves, making sure everything’s right and then as we’ve got bigger and bigger and bigger, we’ve sort of looked at, Well, we trust you to install it. We trust you to do this. Here’s our QA. There’s all the markups, etc. If you can follow this. We can honour that. And we’re going one step further where we’re coming up with our own product range that’s a bit more user friendly, that you can just go out there and get it. Again, it’s very early stages, I don’t want to spoil too much there.

ALEX: To answer a little bit more in regards to concreters, can they apply it. There’s been a fair few instances on a few sites where concreters actually, we’re engaged to the concreters’ package; and they almost prefer it because it’s less labour that they have to have on site, less thought process that they have to put into curing the concrete. They work on the finish, doing what they do best, and then we come through and work in conjunction with them to get the result for the project.

WADE: We’re regularly engaged through those other contractors and do do that. And people think that it might out of reach having to get this done, but we work with most of the major concreters and things like that.

ALEX: As much as they might miss out on that small dollar figure for that curing thing, they benefit from, That’s a lot less hassle. Move forward onto other projects and new pours etc.

WADE: Yes. Do we provide certification of the waterproofing? We warrant anything that we do; so by saying that, if we do a basement, we guarantee that that basement’s going to be waterproof. There’s actually no certification for basement waterproofing. There’s no Australian standard, there’s nothing there. I mean, you can build a wet basement. That’s one thing that in Australia it’s not really well done. Yes, British standard is probably the best to go off. I think there’s a few people that are trying to push that sort of thing, to incorporate that into Australia, which would be really good. We deal with a lot of waterproofing consultants such as like, Building Diagnostics has been really good; and places like that to work in conjunction, where we need to get more certification, where there’s not really… or it’s a grey area. Not dead set, this is the rules. But hopefully that’s coming. I know there’s a big push here in NSW with the deterioration of buildings that we’ve had, with waterproofing leaks in, especially apartment type buildings, absolutely that there is a big push to actually have something that’s written in stone saying this is it, you’re certified to do it, let’s do it. But at this stage, we can try and tell as many people to do it properly…

ALEX: As we’ve mentioned before, with the technical systems, they’re almost not off the shelf in regards to, you just add it in. It’s very heavily scrutinised in that design phase. The reason we do that is to ensure that it’s actually going to gain a result. Now, if that is the case and we do get the result, then our performance-based warranties are locked in, you know, in that in that design phase, so that when it gets installed on site, that in itself is almost I guess a certification to the system. It’s a performance-based warranty. If something were to go wrong based on the project and we said that it wouldn’t, that’s when the warranty kicks in. Therefore, that you know, it’s sort of a, I guess, a round, infinite circle.

WADE: Yes. It looks like Cade’s jumped off, but I will answer his question, which is, If we’re reducing the rate of moisture loss, what’s the usual time delay increase before applying screeds, vinyls, or glues? That’s a really, really cool question. There’s actually no increase. We actually decrease the time. Normally, if you’ve got a normal concrete, say you’ve got a 150mm concrete thick slab. That roughly takes about a month per inch to dry –

ALEX: From the last time it was wet!

WADE: …from the last time it was wet. Yes, not from when it was poured. So you’re generally talking about 6 months for a 150mm thick slab before you can start putting anything on it safely with the moisture content in there. With AQURON, the way … and even the FLOOR-TECT system – the way that they work is they lock that moisture in, which makes really, really good quality concrete. But then it’s not letting that moisture escape to affect other coatings, like epoxies and floorings and things like that. So you can actually lay flooring, and do all these screeds and vinyls and things like that, 28 days from new concrete. And existing concrete it’s like 72 hours. So we actually really speed that up.

ALEX: That’s right, yes.

WADE: It looks like that’s all the questions. And we’ve gone a bit over time because we got some really good questions, which is fantastic!

So what we’re going to do is run over a few quick takeaways. And then we’ve got this recorded. This generally goes on our websites. So you’ll be able to get access to this for future reference.

So the key takeaways, so write these down, take these with you is:

• Moisture carries reactive contaminants into the concrete. That’s the main way to stop concrete breaking down.
• Concrete needs protection to ensure it lasts its intended service life. It can’t do it on its own. It’s strong, it’s robust, but it does have its downfalls.
• Concrete impermeability is the key to its durability; and I think that’s that’s a really good one. And making sure nothing can get in or through, will make it last a lot longer.
• Hydrogel treatment impermeability can reduce long term deterioration. We’re not just doing it on a short term, it really is long-term protection. And it can restore older structures as well, which is a really important thing.
• INFRA-TECT system takes this principle that we’ve talked about, with all this moisture ingress and things like that. And you can to apply it to so many situations, which we covered as well. Anywhere there’s exposed concrete, you can treat with this.
• INFRA-TECT system is one thing we do, but we do have all those other TECT systems for different situations.

So, we’ll quickly display up our emails and phone numbers. If you do have any questions feel free to reach out, we’re more than happy to help.

ALEX: Absolutely! Thanks everyone, for your time! Keep in touch.

WADE: Thank you very much! We’ll leave this up just for a second so you can get it written down.

Thank you!