Warehouse Floors & Naked Concrete

WADE: All right, we’ll kick us off. Those that want to join in can join in as we go. So today we’re going to be covering New Warehouse Floors and Other Naked Concrete. So basically, any concrete that’s left exposed that you see – that needs protection, mainly against hardware and things like that – is what we’re going to be covering today.

I’m Wade. Some of you may have seen me on these before; I’ve been through quite a few. I’m based out of our Sydney office in Australia. I’m joined by Christine – give us a wave, Christine! Christine is over in our Napier office in New Zealand, where our head office is.

CHRISTINE: Kia ora!

WADE: Throughout this process, feel free to ask as many questions as you like. We’ll do a question session at the end; we’d like to try and cover as much as we can in that question study. This presentation is almost just to provoke a few questions, and then we’ll go through that at the end. So yes, bash them through for the question-and-answer session as we go, and we’ll leave them to the end, and we’ll get to them at the end.

What we’re going to quickly do is just throw up a quick welcome poll, just to see why everyone’s joined us today. You’ll see there’s just four options. What we’re going to do is try and word it towards more about why everyone’s joined us today. So if you don’t mind just quickly answering that, I’ll leave it for about 20 seconds or so, just to get your answer in, and then we’ll have a look.

All right, hopefully, we’ve got those answers now. Here we go. It’s a good even split actually. Structural engineers, builders, remediation, a good topic to be in for this, and interested in new technologies; that one always seems to win for most of these. So yes, all very well-suited, we’ll keep this pretty well balanced.

So what we’re going to go through today is identifying what these structures need, why there’s special requirements for these concretes in this type of environment, understand what can possibly do damage to the concrete, how the moisture gets into the concrete and does damage over time. We’re going to learn about using advanced solutions on day one; how that saves us time, and also, how that can protect you for much longer into the future with these structures.

Now, we’re going to be pretty focused on warehouses and those types of environments that do cop a lot of wear, they really need highly engineered concrete. But we’re not just talking about warehouses. We’re talking about car parks, factories, data centres are a big one, storage units, some retail centres. A lot of retail centres now are going to exposed concrete over traditional vinyl. So basically, anywhere that needs a high-performing exposed concrete floor is where this technology will be able to help you out. Christine, do you want to go through a bit more in detail some of the situations and challenges that these structures have?

CHRISTINE: Yes, sure. So in terms of the situation or challenges that Wade was just talking about, these floors are in a demanding environment. In this picture here, obviously a distribution centre, you’ve got trucks coming in, you’ve got forklifts going over that surface, and all of the abrasion from that traffic as well on the surface of the concrete.

As you touched on briefly, the contaminants are coming in from outside on the wheels of those vehicles; you’ve got carbon etc, from road traffic, and that’s all coming in. If it’s raining, that’s coming in with moisture; moisture is seeping down into the concrete slab, and obviously, you’ve got the structural steel underneath there. Yes, in terms of that, the moisture is the vehicle for contaminants, which can start creating reactions like concrete dusting, which is hazardous to health; or problematic in terms of keeping things clean, especially in the likes of data centres, keeping that concrete dust out of sensitive robotics and also computer systems.

So yes, if we look over to the operational challenges in terms of these types of scenarios, you’ve got a very busy situation; you’ve got workers needing to keep things running, keep things tracking, and downtime for maintenance or just cleaning is hugely inconvenient. So people are wanting something that they can do once and then maintain very easily, if at all, and clean easily and keep that surface as schmick as possible with as little downtime as we can manage.

So again, if we just head over to the next slide, in terms of our solution for this, we’re talking about a hydrogel solution. This is a colloidal silica hydrogel, which can be an admixture. But often in these sorts of exposed surfaces, this will come in at the time of pour, just after the concrete has been poured. What it does – very briefly, as an overview – is that it penetrates into the concrete slab and transforms any of that free moisture into a hydrogel state permanently.

Wade is going to go into more depth in terms of how that impacts on curing, and I’m going to cover a little bit more in terms of the penetration of that. What you need to know is that that’s going to look after 150 mm of your slab. So again, in terms of the importance of that, when you’ve got a scenario, as in the previous photos, where you’ve got heavy traffic etc, a lot of alternative curing products, like sodium and lithium silicate, they will only densify that top 2–4 mm of the surface, due to just the larger scale of the particles involved.

So when we’re talking about colloidal silica, this comes in at 10 nanometres. A typical concrete pore is around 50 nanometres, and a human hair is 150,000; so we’re talking tiny scale here. So in terms of that, our colloidal silica hydrogen is able to penetrate due to the nano-scale of the technology. But also, there’s a chemical attractant involved, which means that it can penetrate into the slab 150 mm, regardless of gravity. But yes, in this case, we’re talking about warehouse slabs. So in terms of shallow hardeners, that can cause a lot of… something that you see often is that ‘map’ cracking and the delamination etc. because you’ve got a different surface in that top 2–4 mils to the rest of the slab. Then, of course, as things traffic over there, it tends to create cracking due to the difference here.

So as far as a brilliant project example, we have close to our head office, two big-box retailers, and both poured within days of each other, same mix, same places, etc. One used a really common sodium silicate cure, and the other one used the AQURON-1000 as a cure actually. In terms of 10 to 15 years later, we’re looking at two very different surfaces. The sodium silicate slab has a lot of ‘map’ cracking and the surface is quite dull, and the other with AQURON-treated concrete has got a beautiful sheen on it, and it’s just continued to get better with use. So it’s a brilliant visual aid for us so we know that we’re doing the right thing.

WADE: I’ll look after you from here, Christine!

CHRISTINE: There you go, Wade!

WADE: Yes, really important with that penetration, it really does make a big difference. Even with simple things, like making sure that line marking is going to be compatible with products; having to recoat different sealers if you’re just using a surface sealer, it really does make a lot of sense to use a deep penetrating sealer like colloidal silica, like AQURON.

Now when we talk about using these products early on a curing stage, the reason we do that is due to the De Sitter’s Law of Fives. Now, if you haven’t heard of that, it’s fairly simple. $1 spent at Phase A is equivalent to saving $5 at Phase B, $25 at Phase C, and up to $125 at Phase D.

Now if we’re looking at that in terms of construction, Phase A is when we design and build the structure; in terms of the concrete itself, we’re talking about the concrete curing stage, the day it goes down, essentially. Phase B is when corrosion has started to come in and you’re starting to get wear on that concrete. Phase C is when that concrete is physically deteriorating, and you can visibly see the damage getting done to the concrete. Phase D is when corrosion is well advanced and we’re talking about remediation and replacing. So if we can focus on that at Phase A and getting that right, then we can actually create quite a good structure initially, and the cost is well down on having to do things later on.

So we’re talking about concrete curing. So what concrete curing is, is keeping that moisture that’s in that concrete initially, and keeping that moisture in there, so it can hydrate that cement so you can get that chemical process happening. Very, very important. If you let that moisture escape too quickly, you can create a lot of cracking; the concrete shrinks, so that’s where that cracking comes in. It can create quite a weak surface which dusts up and deteriorates very quick.

So by having really good curing from the start, you’re going to get a really good concrete structure; that’s regardless of whether you use our technology or other forms of concrete curing. But it really is pinnacle to getting a really nice concrete to start with.

When using AQURON on these colloidal silica as opposed to other moisture retention systems, most moisture retentions are based off about a seven-day water ponding setting. So if you can imagine sprinklers with hoses and things like that, keeping it for seven days, where you’ve got a curing compound on the top which has got the equivalent moisture retention of seven days. By using AQURON, it’s actually equivalent to 14 days water cure, so double the standard. So you get a really nice well-cured slab, but you’re also getting those benefits of being internally sealed and moisture-controlled in the future as well.

So what I’m going to do is put that into a project that we’ve done. You’ll see in this next slide that we’ve got a Kenworth warehouse, which is down in Victoria, Australia. As you can imagine, Kenworth being a major truck brand, this warehouse is going to cop a lot of wear and tear. It’s used for heavy machinery where they keep a lot of parts for the big heavy trucks, and you’ve got forklift traffic and things running through there all day long. So the slab has got a really high requirement on its strength and abrasion, that really, there’s no other way to do it than using an internal sealer; topical sealers would be worn off, topical densifiers would break down the concrete, like Christine mentioned, where it’s weaker underneath. So we need to come up with a really well-cured slab that’s going to have internal protection right through that slab.

So these were completed late last year. We’ve completed quite a few similar warehouses to these in Australia for that exact reason; they’re really hard-wearing. Christine, do you want to go through a New Zealand project with us, have you got one over there?

CHRISTINE: Perfect. So I assume that Australians are familiar with Fisher and Paykel whiteware as well, but that might be a wrong assumption.

WADE: Yes, they are.

CHRISTINE: So fridges and washing machines. But this project was actually for their healthcare division. So they’re involved in healthcare machinery as well, and so this is a huge manufacturing and distributing facility. So in terms of that, they’ve got a lot of pallet racking etc on this massive slab, and they’ve got day and night operation. So in terms of downtime for maintenance etc, that was a huge consideration. You can see a section there, it has also an added CRETEPOLISH on the top. But this entire slab was densified, permanent anti-dusting, curing etc with AQURON 1000 at the time of pour. Yes, it’s a beautiful slab still. I’ll hand it over to you, Wade, for another NZ project.

WADE: Yes, thanks, Christine. So this one here is for packing. This one’s actually for fruit, I believe, kiwifruit or something, which actually creates its own environment; you’ve got cooled and chilled areas. So that concrete is going to go through hot and cold cycles, which can create a lot of damage. You’ve also got spillages and things that can be quite acidic, which can also break down a lot of sealers. So again, it’s really important to come up with the right sealer that can handle all those situations.

And it’s not just warehouses. Today we’re very focused on warehouses because of the hard durability that these warehouses maybe go through. But we do plenty of other projects with exposed concrete; things such as car parks, data centres are becoming very popular. I’ll bring up a few examples of those in a minute. But all these types of structures, anywhere you think that there’s exposed concrete, there’s need for this sort of treatment, where you’re not just treating surfaces, but you’re really treating that whole concrete structure.

So we’ve got a couple of car parks here. We tend to treat most major car park structures through Australia and New Zealand. We treat both the hardwearing floor that the cars drive across, and quite often we’ll do this a feet up the top to stop any dusting and things like that creating any bad environments in the atmosphere.

Data centres are a big one. Exposed floor slabs, as I mentioned earlier before, a lot of retail centres are going away from vinyl flooring, and they’re starting to use exposed concrete floors. These have got foot traffic, trolleys, and all sorts of things through them, day in, day out. So they’re very hardwearing floors. Then we’ve got other things like we’ve got a concert hall here, we do stadiums; a lot of the stadium concrete. So there’s so many different examples where we can use this where you need that high-performing concrete.

So we’re going to run through into question time now. So feel free to load up as many questions as you can, and we’ll get to them while we’re here. Also, if you do think of questions later on, you can shoot us an email, give us a call if you’ve got our numbers. I’ve got both myself and Christine’s email there. I’m going to have a flick through to see what we’ve got in questions. None so far. We must have done a good job, Christine!

CHRISTINE: There’s got to be something. Yes, another thing that we can mention as well that was not specifically covered in this webinar is the safety of these products that we’re talking about. They’re all nil-VOC, so safe for the life of the structure, as well as safe during application time. I know a lot of other protectants can involve chlorine, etc. and it gets a little bit hazardous. But yes, in terms of proximity to sensitive environments, as well as just people inhabiting the building, good to go with nil-VOC. We’ve got a couple of questions in there now.

WADE:    Yes, I’ll just touch on that safety too. What we’re doing by locking up that concrete structure and making it harder is, we’re also reducing the silica dust that comes out. So yes, it’s not just the application process that’s safe, it’s also the ongoing structure’s a lot safer in regards to silica dust. All right, I’m going to grab a question now.

CHRISTINE: I’ll grab the first one, that line marking one. So in terms of line marking, I’m assuming you’re talking about line marking afterwards. We guarantee that anything compatible with untreated concrete is compatible with AQURON-treated concrete, because this product is a penetrating product, as well as it’s not introducing anything into the concrete slab that doesn’t already exist chemically. Once it penetrates into the slab, it creates more Calcium Silicate Hydrate bonds, which are the bonds that hold concrete together anyway. So we will guarantee that it’s compatible with all line marking, and then line marking flooring etc. Anything compatible with untreated concrete will be compatible with AQURON-treated concrete.

WADE: Perfect, Christine. Yes, we don’t change the chemical makeup of the concrete, so whatever is compatible with concrete in any situation is compatible with AQURON-treated concrete. I’ll jump on the next one, because this is a really good question that I get quite a lot, which is, Can you comment on your compatibility with burnished concrete? We get this all the time. A lot of penetrating sealers don’t work on burnished concrete; the surface is too tight, it can’t penetrate, therefore, those sealers can’t stick.

In our case, as Christine covered it earlier, we’re using a really, really fine particle. As much as our application process is a little bit slower, and a little bit more precise, we can definitely penetrate burnished concrete. We do it day in and day out, it’s one of the good features about this. You don’t get any residue on top; it all penetrates through that burnished layer. By burnishing the concrete, you’re creating quite a hard surface, and you get that soft bit underneath that Christine was talking about. We’re densifying and hardening that bit underneath, so it’s really important with long-term wear as well.

CHRISTINE: Absolutely. Yes, another great question from Trevor in terms of the treatment and slip resistance. As far as that goes, because once again, it’s a penetrating sealer, we have no impact on the slip resistance of the slab also. Whatever surface it was previously, it’s going to be that same slip rating in terms of after treatment. We do have other products that can add slip resistance and other topical sealers, but in terms of our penetrating hydrogels, they will have no impact on the slip rating of the slab. Have you got anything to add to that, Wade?

WADE: Just one, it’s probably not really applicable to warehouse type things. But on that, we don’t affect the surface except for hardening. So if you are trying to achieve a high slip rating with your concrete, for instance, something like a broom finish, the hardening of the AQURON will actually hold that broom finish for a much longer period of time than what it normally would. So yes, as much as we don’t affect the slip rating directly, we do have a lot of benefits regarding to maintaining slip ratings into the future. All right, I think we’ve got everyone so far unless someone can sneak a quick question in before we finish up.

CHRISTINE: Yes, just covering also, a lot of surface sealers, for example, in car parking buildings can create that horrific tyre squeal effect. As we’ve been talking about, because of the penetrating nature of the sealer – it’s not sitting on the surface – it’s going to reduce that car tyre squeal effect that you can get with some of the surface sealers.

WADE: Yes, good point, Christine. Lots of traffic usually head through these types of surfaces, and it can drive you insane, especially if you’re in quite a public area as well.

All right. Well, that wraps us up, guys. Again, if you’ve got any questions, reach out to us; we’re happy to help you. Quite often, we get more questions after these than we do during them. So yes, feel free to reach out, we’re really happy to help. If you want us to help integrate this technology into your projects, again, reach out, let us know. Thank you.