Masonry cleaning’s most unwanted

Masonry, done right, is among the most sustainable and most beautiful of construction substrates. The unexpected can occur, however. If problems do occur, the first step is to correctly diagnose what’s wrong, even if that means calling in outside help.

The wrong “solution” can make the problem much worse. Grafitti is a prime example. Some cleaning methods will only result in making the vandalism permanent.

In the 62 years PROSOCO has been making cleaners and protective treatments for concrete, brick and stone architecture, we’ve run across a host of interesting stains and problems that can occur on new masonry construction.

Here’s our rogues gallery of masonry construction’s toughest, most troublesome stains. Recognize any of the characters on this “Most Unwanted” list? When these fugitives from cleanliness show up, they blight even the best designed and built structures. Stain, scum or efflorescence — they all spell trouble for masonry construction professionals.

First commandment for preventing or fixing: Know thy enemy!

Vanadium staining

Muriatic acid, used to clean excess mortar from these light colored bricks, reacted with metallic vanadium salts in the masonry, mobilizing these characteristic green stains.

Description: Yellow, green or green/brown stains in the heart of light-colored brick units common in new or water-saturated construction.
Cause: Water-soluble vanadium salts dissolve in rainwater, construction water or muriatic acid. As water evaporates, salts form on masonry surface to create unsightly stains.
Removal: Let masonry dry thoroughly. Apply Sure Klean® 800 Stain Remover following label instructions.
Prevention: Protect wall cavities and brick cubes from rain during construction. Let masonry dry thoroughly before cleaning with Sure Klean® Vana Trol® masonry cleaner. Protect the cleaned bricks with Weather Seal Siloxane PD or Siloxane WB concentrate.

White scum

Most conventional cleaning agents won't begin to touch this rock-hard insoluble stain.

Description: Uneven white or gray stain on brick face or mortar joints. Often appears as vertical run marks. Does not disappear when wet.
Cause: Inadequate prewetting or rinsing when cleaning with muriatic acid or other acidic solutions. Mortar dissolved by the acid is absorbed by the dry wall surface to produce insoluble silicate salts commonly referred to as “scumming.”
Removal: Use Sure Klean® White Scum Remover following label instructions.
Prevention: Clean with the appropriate Sure Klean® new brick cleaner.

Lime run

Lime run is the same process that forms stalactites in caves -- and some parking garages.

Description: Hard white or gray surface crust concentrated along a mortar joint or running down from a hole or fine separation crack between brick and mortar joints. Does not disappear when wet.
Cause: Water deposited or collected in the wall during construction or as a result of inadequate waterproofing dissolves water-soluble calcium compounds. Over a prolonged period of time, the water migrates through openings in the wall surface. As the water evaporates, the dissolved calcium reacts with the atmosphere and crystallizes to produce a hard calcium carbonate crust on the masonry surface.
Removal: Use Sure Klean® Custom Masonry Cleaner following label instructions. Repeated controlled applications and agitation may be required.
Prevention: Protect wall cavities from rainwater during construction. Clean with the appropriate Sure Klean® new brick cleaner. Protect the cleaned bricks with Weather Seal Siloxane PD or Siloxane WB concentrate.

Efflorescence

Efflorescence may eventually go away on its own, but I wouldn't try selling that to an architect or building owner.

Description: Loose, powdery surface deposit that disappears when wet and may reappear as drying continues. Seasonal.
Cause: Water-soluble salts dissolved in rainwater, construction water or groundwater. As water evaporates from wet bricks, it leaves the crystallized salts on the surface.
Removal: Let bricks dry thoroughly. Use the appropriate Sure Klean® new brick cleaner at the highest possible recommended dilution with water. Follow product label instructions.
Prevention: Protect wall cavities and brick cubes from rain during construction. Let masonry dry before cleaning. Protect the cleaned bricks with Weather Seal Siloxane PD or Siloxane WB concentrate.

Acid burn

The good news - saved a couple bucks by using muriatic acid to clean the masonry. The bad news - Cleaning with muriatic acid caused thousands of dollars in damage.

Description: Uneven yellow or gold stain on brick face and in mortar joints. Stained areas may also exhibit severe etching or discoloration of mortar color.
Cause: Cleaning with muriatic acid. Acid and impurities in the acid are rapidly absorbed by porous masonry and cannot be thoroughly water-rinsed. As the acid attacks the bricks and mortar, soluble and insoluble salts are mobilized to create unsightly stains.
Removal: Use Sure Klean® 800 Stain Remover following label instructions.
Prevention: Clean with the appropriate Sure Klean® new brick cleaner.

Brown manganese staining

Manganese staining is actually a form of efflorescence, in which salts from the brick's manganese oxide colorant, mobilized by acid solutions, including acidic rain, migrate to the surface. There they react with the alkaline mortar joint, precipitating the brown stain.

Description: Tan, brown or gray staining concentrated along mortar joints of brown gray or other manganese colored brick.
Cause: Manganese dioxide dissolved in rainwater, construction water or muriatic acid. As water evaporates, manganese reacts with the alkaline mortar joint to create an insluble brown stain.
Removal: Let masonry dry thoroughly. Apply Sure Klean® 800 Stain Remover following label instructions.
Prevention: Protect wall cavities and brick cubes from rain during construction. Let masonry dry thoroughly before cleaning with Sure Klean® 800 Stain Remover® masonry cleaner. Protect the cleaned bricks with Weather Seal Siloxane PD or Siloxane WB.

That’s our rogue’s gallery for new construction. There’s plenty more villains out there for restoration cleaning — like algae, carbon staining and bird droppings, to name a few.

Existing masonry (I’ve always had trouble with that term — doesn’t all masonry “exist?” Supposedly refers to masonry that isn’t new, but isn’t old enough to be historic ) has its bad guys too — graffiti chief among them.

But those are stories for another post. Thanks for visiting!

gary

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New masonry cleaning: does one size fit all?

This partially cleaned brick and block wall shows the difference proper new construction cleaning can make. This masonry was cleaned with Sure Klean 600.

I saw an ad the other day by another manufacturer of new masonry construction cleaners. These specialized cleaners are used for the final cleandown of newly constructed masonry buildings.

Final cleandown is important, as you can see from the photo. It rids the wall of mortar smears and clarifies the mortar joints. Though it’s one of the least expensive parts of construction, final cleandown is crucially important to the building’s final appearance.

The ad contended that the product it promoted was all that you need to clean any type of new masonry – burnished concrete block to clay brick – one size fits all.

At PROSOCO, we recommend — and make — specific cleaners for nearly every type of masonry on the market – burnished concrete block to clay brick – the right tool for the right job.

Who’s right?

As a PROSOCO employee, you might expect me to be biased toward my company, and so I am — a little. But as a writer on construction issues, I have to be honest.

The fact is, IF you can get to the masonry cleaning soon enough — within seven to 10 days of the masonry going up, before the excess mortar has had a chance to really harden, just about any masonry cleaner will do the trick.

And in any masonry cleaning job, you always want to use the gentlest cleaner possible especially with your more acid-sensitive masonries, like concrete brick or artificial stone. And you will want to clean early as possible. Not before seven days though — earlier than that and you risk damaging the mortar joints, which are still setting.

After 10 days, or so, the mortar will be harder and will need a tougher cleaner to break its grip on the masonry. So PROSOCO looked at the different types of masonry, and tested them to see what they could withstand.

Then we made cleaners that were tough enough to get the hardened mortar off, but without damaging the specific types of masonry. Because masonry varies so much, the cleaners also had to vary.

For instance, red clay brick is acid-insoluble. So we recommend our strongest cleaner for that — Sure Klean 600. On the other hand, many light-colored bricks take their distinctive appearance from the addition of vanadium — a metallic salt — within the clay.

Of course we all know what happens when acid meets metal; big trouble. And so the acid content for vanadium-containing bricks — most light colored bricks — must be specially harnessed and buffered.

The wrong kind of cleaner reacted with the vanadium salts in this masonry to mobilize these ugly stains. There are specialty cleaners to repair this damage, but it isn't cheap. Sure Klean VanaTrol was designed to prevent this kind of damage.

The result — Sure Klean VanaTrol (Vanadium + Control).

IF you are really careful, and IF you do plenty of testing, and IF you have decades of experience with masonry cleaning — you MIGHT be able to get away with using a masonry cleaner on a substrate for which it isn’t intended.

But in most cases, your results will vary — from not getting the best results, at a minimum; to inflicting expensive damage on the masonry.

The point behind making precision cleaners for specific masonries is to eliminate that unpredictability. With today’s construction schedules, there’s barely time to do it at all, let alone to do it again.

When you use a cleaner that’s made for the specific masonry you need to clean, you’re already starting with a significant safety factor. And with the relatively unskilled labor that often does the cleaning — you NEED all the safety factors you can get!

It’s a fact — different masonries have different characteristics. There is no one cleaner suitable for all of them under most circumstances.

Whatever cleaner you use, though, you should always protect yourself by testing before you clean. Try the cleaner on an out-of-the-way area under the same conditions you plan to clean under — including dilution-rate.

You may have to do some adjusting of dilution-rates and dwell times, but in the end, you’ll have a beautiful, successfully cleaned building.

Short answer: In masonry cleaning, one size doesn’t fit all, and never has. And always test before you clean.

# # #

A marriage made in concrete

The polished concrete entryway floor at Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School (pronounced Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy) features a Navajo wedding basket design. The design is rich with meaning for the initiated. Scot Zimmerman photo

It’s a marriage of practical and esoteric, written in concrete at a remote Navajo elementary school set among the towering red buttes and mesas of America’s fabled Monument Valley, Utah.

When you stand on the polished concrete of Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School’s main entryway, you stand upon an iconic design central to Navajo life and understanding of the world.

The school’s name is pronounced “Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy,” says Project Architect Brian Parker, MHTN Architects, Salt Lake City. Parker worked closely with tribal leaders and teachers to first learn, and then incorporate Navajo culture into the school’s design.

“That experience was one of the greatest moments of my career,” he said.

The pattern in the approximately 1,000 square-foot entryway is taken from the traditional Navajo wedding basket design. Its central spot represents Mother Earth and the beginning of the world. The dark rays spreading out show the journey of life through clouds and mountains.

The red band is said to symbolize the sun, or rainbow, according to Utah’s State Historical Society.

The polished concrete floor in the school’s cafeteria/multi-purpose room features a design drawn from classic Navajo blankets. It was suggested by students, Parker said.

This floor plan for the Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School (pronounced “Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy”) shows the location and approximate colors of the polished concrete floors throughout the school. Copyright MHTN Architects

The round entryway structure is reminiscent of the traditional Navajo Hogan. Clerestory windows and a generous skylight keep the space alive with natural light, and the polished concrete gleaming.
The client, Utah’s San Juan School District, chose polished concrete as the medium for rendering the design, as well as for the rest of the school.

“They wanted something practical and durable,” Parker said. “Those floors have to stand up to hundreds of kids, year after year.”

Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School is the district’s first experience with concrete floors. “It’s a bit of an experiment,” Parker said. “Though you pay a little extra for polished concrete installation compared to other flooring choices like VCT, if you do it right, you save money on life cycle costs.”

This photo shows the Consolideck® GemTone Stain wedding basket design in progress on the entryway polished concrete floor at Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School (pronounced “Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy”). photo courtesy Hogan Construction & Associates

The savings stem from not having to repeatedly scrub, strip, wax or replace worn topping surfaces, Parker explained. He said the district plans to monitor the floors’ performance and cost-savings over the next three years.

Initial reports are good, he said. The floors have already proven to be lower maintenance than other flooring choices.

“The custodians seem to love the floors,” he said.

Work began as Bryan Borcher, Intermountain Concrete Polishing, Meridian, Idaho, brought his 900-pound grinders to flatten and prep the floor for polishing. The massive machines took the floors from a steel-troweled finish to the edge of polish with a succession of ever finer-grit pads.

Hogan Construction & Associates, Salt Lake City, the project G.C., used their own smaller machines for the final polishing from a 400-grit finish to a glossy 800-grit, said Project Manager J.D. Forbush.

Along the way, the installers hardened and densified the approximately 52,000 square feet of concrete floor with Consolideck® LS® lithium-silicate hardener/densifier.

After grinding, the LS® prepped the floors for polishing by filling microscopic concrete pores with tough calcium silicate hydrate – the same hard substance that makes concrete hard to begin with. Less porosity means the surface polishes faster and more effectively.

It also means the finished floor has greater stain- and abrasion-resistance than untreated concrete.
They decorated the polished concrete with water-based Consolideck® GemTone stains, in colors Desert Sand, Georgia Clay and Espresso.

The Hogan Construction crew then applied a micro-thin layer of Consolideck® LSGuard®. The protective treatment, burnished on at 3,000 rpm, liquefies and melds with the concrete for additional stain-resistance and gloss that never needs to be replaced.

Alberto Flores, a 20-year master concrete finisher with Hogan Construction & Associates spreads a thin coating of Consolideck® LSGuard® on the polished concrete of the cafeteria/multi-purpose room floor at Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School (pronounced “Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy”) just before high-speed burnishing. photo courtesy Hogan Construction & Associates

LSGuard® contains lithium silicate for a further hardening/densifying effect, which is why it bears the “LS®” prefix.

“We chose Consolideck® products because they’ve worked well on our other projects,” Forbush said. “And they have good field support.”

They needed field support on this project, Forbush said. Though decorating the interior floors went smoothly, the brutal July heat and wind made coloring about 25,000 square feet of exterior concrete recreation area difficult.

Forbush’s crew decorated the exterior concrete with Consolideck® ColorHard. ColorHard is a mix of colorant and LS®. After stirring a packet ColorHard dye into a bucket of LS®, you simply spray and spread the mixture onto the concrete.

You get hardening, densifying and decoration all in one simple step.

The problem was that the bone-dry concrete almost instantly sucked down the mixture’s water component, while heat and wind quickly dried the colored hardener/densifier on the surface, before it could penetrate. Even though the crews applied the ColorHard between 5 and 6 am, before the heated winds really kicked up, they still had trouble with warmth and excessive dryness.

Students play on the “Color Wave” at Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School (pronounced “Suh-Bee-Niz-Iz-Guy”), Monument Valley, Utah. The wave is meant to represent a flow of water to and from the building. Scot Zimmerman photo

“The local PROSOCO sales manager, Bruce Ferrell, showed us what do,” Forbush said. “He was pretty good.”

Forbush explained that Ferrell had the crew change out LS® for LS/CS® in the ColorHard mix. LS/CS® penetrates more quickly because it’s a thinner fomulation, Ferrell told the crew.

He also had them boost the water content of the mix, though he recommended using pure water to do that. Tap water may contain chemicals and minerals that can affect the densifier. Construction-site water is often really bad, Ferrell says, since it’s usually full of rust, minerals, sediment, and other potential contaminants.

With those adjustments made, the ColorHard went down fine, Forbush said.

Application of water-based Consolideck® SLX100® Water & Stain Repellent locked the color into the outside concrete against summer monsoon rains, soft-drink spills and other agents of destruction.

On the inside, the one thing you really have to be careful of is protecting the finished floors from other trades during construction, said Colby Davis, the school district’s director of buildings and grounds. He explained that even though the floors are durable concrete, their appearance can be marred by heavy construction traffic and materials.

“In the end it turned out fine,” he said. “We even saved money with the LSGuard®. It made our 800-grit finish look shiny as a 1200-grit finish, without the extra labor cost. It adds some protection, too.”

“People love these floors,” Davis said. “They love the colors, the patterns, the natural looks. These floors bring the natural beauty of our Monument Valley location into the building.”

The design of MHTN Architects' Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School, both inside and out, draws much of its inspiration from Navajo lands and culture. Scot Zimmerman photo

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Air barriers and mason contractors

A mason installs brick over a structural wall coated with a fluid-applied air & water barrier. Mason contractors are increasingly taking on installation of the air barrier.

I’m working on a story for Masonry Magazine about how mason contractors can profit from the new breed of fluid-applied air barriers now on the market.

I’ve interviewed two contractors so far, and both say the same thing.

It’s WAY worth it for contractors to “self-perform” air barrier installation because it just about always costs less than subbing it out. It also gives the mason contractor more control at the job site. Obviously, a sub who gets delayed installing the air barrier also delays the masonry installation.

Ed Purdy, Vice President and Co-Owner of Purdy Masonry, Zionsville, Ind., said his company has been installing air barriers for about five years.

“We usually had to supply the scaffolding and other equipment anyway,” Ed said, “so why not do it ourselves?”

Brad Dennis, Ziolkowski Masonry, South Bend, Ind., said his firm also began installing air barriers about five years ago, and for the same reasons Ed cited — cost and control.

He says the “new breed” of easy-application, sprayable, water-based air and water barriers make it easy.

“We won’t get involved with air barrier installation when fabric wraps or peel and sticks are specified,” Brad said. “That level of difficulty and complexity isn’t worth our time. We’ll sub those out.”

Ease of installation isn’t the only factor Brad looks at in deciding whether to take on air barrier installation. He says the specified air barrier must be readily available and have first-class manufacturer back-up, including formal hands-on training in the products and no-cost job-site and telephone technical assistance.

“Our first job was about five years ago. We applied a sprayable product to block back-up at the riding stables at Culver Military Academy in Northwestern Indiana,” Brad said. The building had a brick veneer with a stone base.

“The air barrier installation went smoothly. That was due in large part to the training our guys got from the manufacturer beforehand,” he said.

Though product data sheets and instructions are usually comprehensive and informative, there’s no substitute for hands-on training, especially when you’re doing it for the first time. Even the best product literature won’t help you understand how important it is to connect your air barrier to the roof and to the slab or below-grade waterproofing.

The printed page can’t give you the “feel” of how to correctly spread or tool the material. You can only get that by trial-and-error experience — or through training and practice.

“We’ve done about 50 air and water barrier installations since that first job,” Brad said. “If we can do them, we will do them.”

# # #

E-mail me if you can correctly pronounce it

Consolideck ColorHard 1-step hardener/densifier/colorant decorates the courtyard at Tse'bii'nidzisgai Elementary School in Monument Valley, Utah. Colors (L to R) Light Roast , Desert Sand, Georgia Clay and Light Roast again. photos courtesy of Jared Buckley, Hogan & Associates Construction

Just got this batch of cool photos (click pics for larger view) of the newly constructed Tse’bii’nidzisgai Elementary School in Monument Valley, Utah. I wanted to put the correct pronunciation of that exotic name in parenthesis following it — but try as I might to dig it up on the web, no phonetic transcription was forthcoming.

I think it’s Navajo. If you can pronounce it, leave a comment on the blog, or e-mail me at gary.henry@prosoco.com. I would love to know.

Inside, the school’s floors are polished concrete, hardened, densified, colored and protected with Consolideck products.

This polished concrete entryway was hardened/densified with Consolideck products LS (lithium-silicate), decorated with GemTone Stain, and protected with a micro-thin coating of LSGuard. Colors are Desert Sand, Georgia Clay and Espresso.

Hogan & Associates Construction, Centerville, Utah, built the school. They also created the polished floors and colorful courtyard, rather than subbing out the work. Border Construction Specialties provided the Consolideck products out of their Flagstaff branch.

I’m working on getting more details and photos for a full story, but wanted to share these great pics. I got them from Bruce Ferrell, who is part of our Concrete Products Group. He got them from Hogan & Associates Project Engineer Jared Buckley.

Bruce showed up at the jobsite in response to a trouble call. The ColorHard on the outside courtyard (top photo) was drying out before it had a chance to penetrate the concrete. The concrete was so dry that it instantly sucked down the water-component of the ColorHard solution, leaving the color and hardener/densifier to dry on the surface.

This was in July, when daytime temps get around 100 degrees F, and sun-heated concrete gets as hot as 140 degrees, Bruce said. Even though the crews were applying the ColorHard between 5 and 6 am, before the heated winds kicked up, they still had trouble with warmth and excessive dryness.

Bruce Ferrell, of PROSOCO's Concrete Products Group helps train the next generation of concrete professionals, while at another elementary school jobsite -- this one in Bentonville, Ark. John Young photo

Bruce showed them how to compensate for the extreme conditions. The first fix was to replace the LS (lithium-silicate) hardener/densifier used to mix with the ColorHard dye with LS/CS, which is a thinner, though still effective hardener/densifier.

He also recommended boosting the water content of the mix.

When doing that, though, always use filtered or distilled water, Bruce says. Tap water may contain chemicals and minerals that can affect the densifier. Construction-site water is often really bad, he said, since at the early stages they usually tap into fire-hydrant water, which is full of rust, minerals, sediment, and other potential contaminants.

With those adjustments made, the ColorHard went down fine, Bruce said.

Indoors, he said, away from the weather, everything went smoothly.

On another subject — Happy Veteran’s Day, everyone, and thank you to all who have served!

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Polished concrete flooring at Tse'bii'nidzisgai Elementary School, Monument Valley. Colors (L to R) Bronze, Espresso, Georgia Clay, Light Roast and on the far right edge, Desert Sand.

Polished concrete hallway floor at Tse'bii'nidzisgai Elementary School, Monument Valley, Utah. Light Roast on the left, Georgia Clay on the right.

The view from the shool courtyard faces East into the community and nearby buttes.

Polished concrete flooring at Elementary School, Monument Valley, Utah. Desert Sand surrounded by Espresso. I believe that's a representation of a cougar footprint etched into the concrete.

Sorry, Jayhawks

Technicians from specialty contractor ARID Resources apply PROSOCO R-GUARD Spray Wrap Air & Water-Resistive Barrier to East elevation pre-cast concrete walls before the metal cladding goes on at the new Hendricks Training Complex at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. photo by Matt Henderson, PROSOCO

We’re mostly KU Jayhawk fans here at PROSOCO.

Many of us are KU graduates — not me, but my spouse is, and most of us live in Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas. And yes, the football team is struggling now, but not too long ago, they won the Orange Bowl. And basketball… well, it was invented here.

But PROSOCO is an equal-opportunity manufacturer. So when PROSOCO R-GUARD Spray Wrap, a fluid-applied, vapor-permeable air and water-resistive barrier was specified for and then installed by specialty contractor ARID Resources, Omaha, for the incredible new Hendricks Training Center at arch-rival University of Nebraska, we didn’t say a word.

The $18.7 million addition to the university’s Bob Devaney Sports Center opened Oct. 13. It features amenities by the ton — wooden lockers with built-in iPads, for instance.

The building will also be energy-efficient due to Spray Wrap helping to stop air and water leaks through the building’s exterior walls. That will also help the building stay more comfortable for the occupants.

Alas, since the complex is a training facility for men’s and women’s basketball teams, and the wrestling team, it may actually help the Cornhuskers come onto the court or mat better prepared than they would be if they had trained in a building that leaked air and energy.

Sorry, Jayhawks.

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Polished concrete seminar

Participants at the "Installing polished concrete floors" seminar, hosted by PROSOCO -- (L to R) Dana Rickerd, Ace Concrete by Design, Salem, Mo; Deb and Jim Carson, Unique Concrete LLC, Sioux City, Iowa

We’ve got company today.

About 40 or 50 contractors, distributors, consultants and manufacturers, all who are involved in polished concrete flooring or who would like to be, are attending the year’s fifth professional seminar and hands-on demo “Installing polished concrete floors.”

PROSOCO is hosting this edition of the seminar here in Lawrence. We’re providing info on hardening/densifying, coloring and protecting polished concrete floors The program’s other sponsors are Metzger/McGuire and SASE.

Metzger/McGuire will teach participants about joint installation and protection and floor repair. SASE is handling the grinding and polishing.

SASE's 1,050-pound PDG (Planetary Diamond Grinder) 8000 is one of the pieces of gear participants will get hands-on experience with during the polished concrete flooring seminar.

“This is not about sales,” Joe Reardon, of PROSOCO’s Concrete Products Group, says. “It’s for education only.”

Along with demonstrating basic techniques for making a gleaming colorful floor out of a rough steel-troweled concrete surface, the seminar leaders will discuss with participants many of the commonly encountered problems and situations encountered in this work.

“Color situations are an example,” Joe said. “High moisture content in the concrete can affect appearance. So can high atmospheric humidity. We’ll talk about how to deal with those and other problems.”

Though the seminar is free, participants still pay to attend, in terms of travel costs, and time away from work.

Deb and Jim Carson, Unique Concrete LLC, Sioux City, Iowa, drove 300 miles to attend.

“We do mostly overlays and countertops,” Deb said. “We want to expand into grinding and polishing.

“I’ve seen some horrible work in our area. I know with my attention to detail we can do better.

“Most of the polished concrete floors I’ve seen are just boring single colors. I want to bring some design and movement to our polished concrete floors; make them more artistic.”

Dana Rickerd, Ace Concrete by Design, Salem, Mo., does acid-staining. He’s here to learn the basics of polishing and water-based dyes.

Dana, Deb, Jim and other participants will get hands-on experience on a concrete floor. PROSOCO and Deco-Pour, Snohomish, Wash., put down a 12 by 20-foot overlay Wednesday for the seminar.

Deb Carson wrangles the half-ton PDG 8000 planetary diamond grinder during the "Installing polished concrete floors" seminar, Nov. 2.

“The overlay went atop of an old slab we’d poured back in 2008,” Joe said. “Actually, it went over another overlay we poured two weeks ago as practice for our upcoming World of Concrete demo.”

The overlays work just as well as a slab, but give you a fresh surface on top of a slab that’s badly damaged, Joe said. They’re also good for topping floors covered with mastic or old adhesive that you don’t want to go through the time and trouble to remove.

This is the fifth edition of “Installing polished concrete floors.” It’s previously been hosted by SASE at locations in Tennessee, Texas and Pennsylvania. Another seminar was hosted by PROSOCO distributor CPD in Ontario, Canada. About 400 concrete professionals have participated in the seminars, including today’s program here in Lawrence.

Though this is the final seminar for 2011, another round is planned for 2012, Joe said. The first of them is set for Feb. 16 in Kent, Wash. Check the “Latest News” column at www.consolideck.com for updates and information on how to register.

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Marcus Turek, SASE, one of the seminar instructors, displays the heads and drum of the PDG 8000. "Planetary" refers to the fact that all three heads revolve in one direction, while each individual head rotates in the opposite direction. The double motion minimizes the chances for gouges and "cornrows" during grinding and polishing.

Trial by water

The art deco Asheville City Building (1928), Asheville, N.C., drowses in autumn afternoon sunshine. Recent testing revealed the beautiful though octogenarian building fabric to be surprisingly leaky. photo courtesy of the City of Asheville.

The eye-catching art-deco Asheville City Building in Asheville, N.C., is an iconic landmark for the town of about 83,000, nestled on the western edge of the Great Smokey Mountains.

The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Unfortunately, it leaks.

It leaks so badly, the 7th and 8th floors are now unoccupied. That’s no reflection on the building. The Asheville City Building (1928) is 83 years old, and at that age, without a little specialized attention now and then, is entitled to leak.

The city, to its credit, is giving this splendid old building that attention now. Consulting engineers Sutton-Kennerly & Associates, with offices in Greensboro, Charlotte, Asheville and Wilmington, N.C., and Birmingham, Ala., is heading up the effort.

The project is still in the planning stages, according to Zeb Wells PE, an engineer at the firm’s Asheville Office. Part of that planning is a systematic analysis of the building’s troubles, including learning how and how much the masonry, terra cotta and marble fabric admits water.

To get an idea of what they were up against, Mr. Wells said, the company called on specialty facade restoration contractor Masonry Preservation Services (MPS), Bloomsburg, Pa., in July to run ASTM C1601 Standard Test Method for Field Determination of Water Penetration of Masonry Wall Surfaces.

The testing is part of an overall pilot phase MPS is conducting to prove effectiveness of planned repairs and establish standards of quality, said Erik Valentino, architectural engineer and building envelope specialist in charge of field testing at MPS.

The non-destructive test method involves attaching a 12 square-foot pressurized test chamber to the masonry and cycling .68 gallons of water per minute from a top-mounted spray bar through it, with air pressure of 10 pounds per square foot. This keeps a running “sheet” of water on the wall throughout the test. The difference in the volume of water at the test’s beginning and end indicates how much water penetrated the wall.

The test simulates a storm dumping 5.5 inches of rain per hour on the wall with 62.5 mph winds.

The ASTM C1601 test apparatus prepares to drench the test panel. photo courtesy Erik Valentino, Masonry Preservation Serivces Inc.

The wall, as Sutton-Kennerly and MPS found it, allowed a staggering 7.48 gallons of water per hour to penetrate the surface.

"We knew it was leaky, but we didn't expect that much," said Mr. Wells. That volume of water soaking into the wall is easily enough to make its way to the interior, causing mold and stains — exactly the problems the Asheville City Building is experiencing.

MPS then repointed the test panel. They used a Type N mortar and followed Secretary of the Interior standards for preservation of registered landmarks. While the pointing mortar used for the test area was made using a commercially available sand, the same originally-specified coarse-grained sand from the nearby French Broad River use was located and will be used for all future pointing on the building.

MPS let the new mortar cure, then reattached the test apparatus for another round.

The repaired wall withstood the simulated storm much better, at only 2.93 gallons per hour — well within an “expected” range for masonry of this type, and an improvement, by the numbers, of 60.9 percent.

“At the suggestion of Jeff Erdly, CEO pf MPS, we decided to take it one step further,” Mr. Wells said. “We wanted to see if we could reduce the water penetration even more by limiting the brick absorption.”

MPS recommended and roller-applied PROSOCO’s masonry water-repellent Sure Klean Weather Seal Siloxane WB Concentrate. The “WB” stands for “water-based,” which, along with “no odor,” was a Sutton-Kennerly specification.

The penetrating treatment soaks into microscopic masonry pores where it chemically bonds, lining the masonry pores with water-repellent molecules. Liquid water won’t enter the pores. However, water that’s already in the masonry can still evaporate out — a characteristic known as “breathability.”

The protective treatment isn’t an alternative to repair — any small gap in the masonry or mortar joints will still admit water — but the normal porosity of masonry is taken out of the game.

A third round of ASTM C1601 confirmed it. Water penetraton decreased again from 2.93 gallons per hour to .76 gallons — a virtually negligible amount of water penetration, and an 89.9 percent improvement over the original unrepaired wall.

“The testing helped us judge the effectiveness of the repointing and water repellent procedures,” Mr. Wells said. “Now that we know how much benefit they bring to the building, our next step will be to include them as we evaluate our recommendations to the building owner.”

# # #

Colorful terra cotta crowns the eight-story, 83-year-old Asheville City Building, Asheville, N.C., now being prepped for restoration. photo courtesy of Erik Valentino, Masonry Preservation Services.

Can you identify this project?

Can you identify this project, which was cleaned, inside and out with PROSOCO products? More than 50 readers of last issue's PROSOCO News got it right in that edition's installment of the "Can You Identify This Project" contest.

It’s Union Station, Kansas City, Mo.

You probably already knew that.

We run the “Can You Identify This Project” contest in each edition of our flagship newsletter the “PROSOCO News.” Sometimes I put easy ones in there like — well, like Union Station, or Frank Lloyd Wright buildings (love that Prairie Style). Other times they’re more obscure, like the national headquarters of some big corporation or other.

PROSOCO News -- This cover story won an "honorable mention" for writing in a Publications Management newsletter contest in 2005, but I just like the design. Click on the image to go our archive of PROSOCO News newsletters.

One thing all the mystery projects have in common — contractors used PROSOCO products, natch, to clean, protect and/or maintain the buildings in some way.

When our readers, who are the elite of the construction industry, imho, equalled only in brilliance by the readers of this blog, e-mail, fax or call me with the correct answer, I publish their names and companies in the “Can You Identify This Project” winner’s column in the very next issue.

I ask permission first of course. In all the years I’ve been running the contest, only one person asked me to not put his name into print.

Winners also get some sort of fabulous prize — usually a PROSOCO ball cap. Even better, they get the “You sure know your stuff” certificate.

The "You sure know your stuff" certificate, awarded to winners of the "Can You Identify This Project" contest constitutes absolute documented proof that the holder knows his or her stuff.

This valuable certificate can come in pretty handy. Let’s say you’re in an argument with some rude person who declares “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” You just whip out the certificate, which clearly states that you sure know your stuff. Argument over.

The certificate template was created by our graphic designer Stephen Falls, and each winner’s award is filled out by Systems Support & Training Specialist Candy Monroe. Candy really did correctly identify the Medtronics HQ as stated in the certificate; it’s not just done for example’s sake.

The only drawback to the Can You Identify This Project contest is that sometimes I get more correct responses than I have room to print in the PROSOCO News. The last time it happened was for a Frank Lloyd Wright building near Chicago. I think the entire state of Illinois responded to that one.

So we printed as many winners as we could in the newsletter, alphabetically by first name, and published the full list on a special webpage. That was in the days before blogs. Now that we’re in the days OF blogs, I can publish the full list of last issue’s winners right here, since there’s far too many to put in the print edition of PROSOCO News.

And truly it’s an honor to have the names of these architecturally aware and constructionally knowledgeable building professionals gracing this blog. Here they are for last issue’s “Can You Identify This Project” — Union Station, KCMO. I wouldn’t be surprised if you spot someone you know in their ranks.

Andy Vohs
Chamberlin Contracting
Kansas City, MO

Angela Myler
Univar USA
Kansas City, MO

Bill Morris, AIA
Augusta, KS

Bill Neville
Chamberlin Contracting
Kansas City, MO

Billy Vicic Jr., RLA
Newman, Jackson, Bieberstein
Dallas, TX

Brian Pape
Historic Preservation & Green Architect
New York, NY

Chelsie Booker
RIM Architects
Anchorage, AK

Ching-Ya Yeh
Historic Preservation & Green Architect
New York, NY

Connie Watkins
Scott Rice Office Works
Lawrence, KS

Daryl Carter
ACI/Boland
Kansas City, MO

Doug Kouba
Kouba + Knoop Associates
St. Louis, MO

Elliott E. Dudnik
Elliott Dudnik + Associates
Evanston, Ill.

Frank Halsey
Mid-Continental Restoration
Fort Scott, KS

Gary Becker
Hesston, KS

Gerald Morgan
University of Missouri
Mexico, MO

Gerard Alba
Studio 804
Lawrence, KS

Gerri Kielhofner
Butler Rosenbury & Partners
Springfield, MO

Howard Langner
Texas Historical Commission
Austin, TX

Jack O’Roark
BAC Local #15 MO/KS
Overland Park, KS

James W. Rhodes, FAIA
PRESERVATION DESIGN
Croton-on-Hudson, NY

James Warren
New York State Historic Preservation Office
Waterford, NY

Jessica Gates
Sherwin Williams
Independence, MO

Jim O’Neill
Contractors Supply
East Providence, RI

John E. Heckman, AIA
Heckman & Associates, P.A. Architects
Independence, KS

Jonas Packer
AECOM
Chicago, IL

Jonathan Brooks
PBA Architects, P.A.
Wichita, KS

Joseph Le Pique
New York City Department of Design + Construction
Long Island City, NY

James R. (JR) Baron Jr., RA, CSI
Norcross, GA

Karen MacCannell
The McIntosh Group
Tulsa, OK

Kathleen Alberding, AIA, CSI, LEED AP
Heller & Metzger, PC
Washington, DC

Keith Anderson
WRA Architects, Inc.
Dallas, TX

Ken Kaiser
Ken Kaiser Restoration
Des Moines, IA

Kevin L. Jarman, AIA
Johnson Cartwright Jarman Architects, P.A.
Tampa, FL

Kimball L. Hales, AIA, LEED AP
Hufft Projects
Kansas City, MO

Kirk Delzer, AIA
Integrated Design Solutions
Troy, MI

Larry Lisbona
Lisbona Architects, Inc.
Shawnee, KS

Lurita Blank
Walter P Moore
Kansas City, MO

Mark Critchfield
Columbia,MO 65203

Mary Beth Oberlin, AIA, LEED AP
Bond Wolfe Architects
St. Louis, MO

Michael Morley
Sipsmart Building Systems
Lawrence, KS

Milton Grenfell
Milton Grenfell Architecture
Washington, DC

Norman Sneed
Allen & Hoshall
Memphis, TN

Paul J. Sanders, Associate AIA, Project Designer, LEED AP
Burns & McDonnell
Kansas City, MO

Phillip Schuler, AIA, CDT, LEED AP
Cannon Design
Boston, MA

Rebecca Davis
RBS Design Group Architecture
Owensboro, KY

Rich McGuire, PE
Structural Engineering Associates
Kansas City, MO

Richard J. Schuetz, AIA
Arlington, VA

Robert Dye, FSCI
Overland Park, KS

Scott Slimp
Intrepid Enterprises, Inc.
Harvey, LA

Shannon Pollard
hollis & miller architects
Lee’s Summit, MO

Terri Heitzman
Station Nineteen Architects, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN

Thomas McKenzie
Agile Pursuits Franchising, Inc.
Olathe, KS

Timothy G. Carlson
HGA Architects & Engineers
Minneapolis, MN

William J. Richardson, AIA
URBAN DESIGN GROUP
Dallas, TX

If you would like to receive the PROSOCO News and participate in the “Can You Identify This Project” contest, just shoot me an e-mail and I’ll get you signed up.

gary

Dirty to dazzling

Here's the concrete floor Bill Fansler and crew started with in the newly constructed Donald V. Fites Engineering Innovation Center at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind. photo courtesy Smock Fansler

This is what they did with it. photo courtesy Design Organization

The transformation of the concrete floor from steel-troweled to polished in the newly built Donald V. Fites Engineering Innovation Center at Valparaiso University in some ways resembles the mission of the College of Engineering, of transforming high school students into engineering professionals.

In both cases, there’s some grinding and polishing.

“We decided early that we wanted sustainable flooring for laboratories and public spaces,” said Project Architect Victor Ritter, LEED AP and Principal of Chicago and Valparaiso, Indiana-based Design Organization. Tile, vinyl and other flooring choices were considered before deciding on polished concrete.

“It has several advantages no other flooring has,” he said.

In addition to its durability, one of the main advantages for the project was the fact that no other flooring material needed to be bought — and transported — to be put on top of the concrete. “Using concrete saved resources, and also eliminated the use of adhesives, which can have a negative effect on indoor environmental quality,” said Mr. Ritter, who indicated the goal for the project is LEED Gold certification.

The building also boasts low-VOC paints and sealants; a highly insulated, reflective roof; lots of day-lighting, and exterior hardscaping of reflective concrete rather than heat-absorbing asphalt. Also, construction manager Turner Construction, number-one in Engineering News Record’s top 100 green contractors, instituted an aggressive recycling program throughout the construction period, Mr. Ritter said.

The $6.9 million project is actually an addition connected to the south side of Gellersen Center, which houses the College of Engineering and Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. It creates a second “front door” for the College.

A little over half of the building’s 13,600 square feet is polished concrete, according to polishing contractor Bill Fansler, a vice president, estimator and project manager at Smock Fansler Corporation, Indianapolis.

Mr. Fansler and crew got the nod to go to work in January, about a month after the slab was poured and the building shell was up. Following the procedure they developed on their test panel, they flattened and “opened” the concrete with 650-pound grinders equipped with 40-grit metal-bond abrasive diamond pads, and moved up to 80- and 150-grit.

“Bond” refers to the matrix that holds the diamonds on the pad. For grinding, it takes metal to hold the diamond “teeth” solidly and immovably to the pad. Polishing pads hold their diamonds to the pad with resins. That more flexible bond keeps the diamonds from gouging the concrete as deeply as a metal bond.

In some places, the concrete had unexpected densities due to variations in the way it was troweled, and the operators had to change pads to adjust, Mr. Fansler said.

A three-day winter storm Jan. 31- Feb. 2, nicknamed the “Groundhog Day Blizzard” added another complication. As snow blew in the temporary exits, or was tracked in on boots it melted on the concrete floor. The water, where it wasn’t mopped up right away, pulled salts out of the concrete, which hardened into insoluble white deposits on the surface.

“Re-grinding was the only way to get rid of them,” Mr. Fansler said.

The storm also helped, Mr. Fansler said. The deep snow marooned the polishing crew at the jobsite and at their hotel across the street — they had nowhere to go and nothing to do except work on the floor. Other trades, who were local or housed further away, weren’t able to make it to the campus through the snow, so Smock Fansler had the floor to themselves for a few days.

After getting the floor to a 150-grit metal-bond finish, they switched to softer resin-bond diamonds of 100- 200- and 400 grit.

At 400 grit resins, generally considered the line between grinding and polishing, it was time to harden and densify the floor. Consolideck LS (lithium silicate) Hardener/Densifier was specified and used. Applied with pump-up sprayers and micro-fiber applicatoers, LS hardens and densifies concrete by filling the concrete pores with rock-hard calcium silicate hydrate. That’s the same durable material that makes concrete hard to begin with.

Along with being more abrasion- and spill-resistant, the hardened concrete polishes faster and more easily.

Because the treatment penetrates easily and rapidly, there’s no scrubbing in or flushing excess, as with older potassium- and sodium-silicate hardener/densifiers, so jobs go quicker.

After hardening/densifying, the techs took the floor up to a 1500-grit finish with softer resin-bond diamonds.

They protected it with a micro-thin coating of Consolideck LSGuard. The “LS” prefix means the protective coating contains lithium-silicate, like LS, for a further hardening/densifying effect.

LSGuard heats up while being burnished on, and “melds” with the concrete, providing a protective gloss that never needs to be stripped or replaced – a huge savings over the life of a floor compared to other flooring choices.

Heavy propane burnishers running specialized Consolideck HEAT burnishing pads are the recommend application tools, but Mr. Fansler’s crew only had a light-weight electric burnisher.

“Even though we had the HEAT pads, our burnisher didn’t have enough weight. We couldn’t create the amount of friction we needed to heat up the LSGuard to the temperature needed to get the gloss level we were after,” Mr. Fansler said.

They switched back to their 650-pound grinding-polishing machines — which easly had enough weight — equipped with the 1500-grit resin bond diamonds.

“That did the trick,” Mr. Fansler said. “In some places you look down the hallway and you can’t even see the floor. All you can see are the lights and walls reflected in it.”

“We’ve done acid-stained and epoxy floors, but this was our first experience with polished concrete,” Mr. Ritter said. “We won’t hesitate to recommend polished concrete again on projects where appearance, performance and sustainability are the priorities.”
# # #

Students file into the recently completed Donald V. Fites Engineering Innovation Center at Valparaiso University. photo courtesy Design Organization