Ok, when I got a couple bids from concrete guys for redoing my driveway, they all looked at me like I was crazy when I made my wife’s request. Here is the request:
My wife hates the look of fresh concrete, ie the blinding bright white color. What she would like is to somehow tone down the color to look like more aged concrete (more gray than white). Dye is obviously one possibility, but I was warned that we would have to seal the concrete, and I’m not terribly keen on doing that. Another guy mentioned some sort of acid spray to tone it down, not sure if that was acid stain he was referring to or not. Either way, I was also warned of the danger of the concrete looking splotchy down the road.
So any thoughts? No comments on the sanity of the DW, but on how to accomplish her request please!
Thanks!
Replies
you can order ready mix in different colors......
At least around here.... I got some in a reddish shade for some stampcrete once.
I know you can have the supplier mix a batch to whatever color you want -- but bring lots of dollars.
Seems to me I heard of a technique where the finishers sprinkle powdered dye over the pour and then trowel it in. Gives the surface a kind of mottled look, which some people find very pleasing.
********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
What the other boys have said.
Easiest and the least expensive is to have the plant add some carbon black to the mix. Takes it from a bright white to a gray with a few percent by weight added, to a dark charcoal with about 8% by weight added. Some add it as a powder, some as a liquid slurry.
http://www.lambertusa.com/color/id145.htm
http://www.lambertusa.com/resource/spec/dispersedblack-sp.pdf
http://www.harold-scholz.de/pro4uk.html
A couple percent will be enough to tone down the slab so it won't stand out like a sore thumb. It'll be a fairly uniform color.
Plus with integral color, chips in the driveway won't look light gray underneath.
Watch guys who do stamped concrete...they toss handfuls of pigment across the slab. You could do that then go for a broom finish. That'd give you more variation in the color.
Acid staining opens up a whole new world. The stain is more effective the greener the concrete is. You want the surface as clean as you can get it when you go this route. You can get nice variations by mixing colors, or go decorative by scoring lines and doing a design.
http://www.kemiko.com/photo_gallery.htm
Let your wife stare at this site for a while:
http://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/concrete_driveways/index.html
Excellent! Thank you for the tip, that sounds like the best way to go. There would be no need to seal the concrete with an integral color, right? I'm not sure I want my wife to see the pics of the nice driveways. She has more than enough expensive ideas as it is.