At DuraCore, we take great pride when our customers come back to us with stories of their successes, especially if the project they were busy with was considered unsalvageable. Here’s one such success from McNab Construction, and how they had to mitigate a bad case of concrete dusting.

The problem

Most construction contractors will know that the sight of dusting concrete after curing is one to dread. This is exactly what happened at the Palm Beach swimming pool complex on the Gold Coast that was undergoing an upgrading project by McNab Construction.

During the construction project, a section of coloured concrete of approximately 100m2 was poured during the morning, and was unfortunately caught in a freak storm later that afternoon, which caused very bad dusting of that section of concrete.

Several companies were consulted to try and fix the dusting, however all of them told McNab Construction that the concrete was beyond repair and needed to be pulled up. This obviously would have been an incredibly costly and time-consuming outcome.

The solution

Luckily McNab Construction contacted us before pulling up the concrete. We suggested that they try our Densi Crete concrete surface hardening product. Densi Crete was first only used on a small section and showed great results. Soon afterwards, the whole section was treated with Densi Crete, which arrested the dusting permanently.

How does Densi Crete work?

Densi Crete is a 100% colloidal silica, and the product was able to help McNab Construction’s concrete dusting problem because it penetrates up to 100mm into the substrate, creating a permanent barrier which improves the integrity of the concrete, no matter how old it is. Densi Crete also hardens the surface of any concrete slab by four to six times, creating an incredible resistance to concrete dusting.

And seeing as Densi Crete only needs a quick, one coat application, the entire application process only takes a couple of hours to finish. In the case of McNab Construction, the section surrounding their concrete was only interrupted for about two hours, and was opened to the public that same afternoon.

The benefits of using Densi Crete

• Densi Crete allows construction projects to save massive amounts of time and money, and will also help with:
• Reducing the concrete’s abrasive wear.
• Preserving the colour of the concrete.
• Stopping harmful chemicals and water from penetrating into the concrete’s matrix and corroding the steel rebar.
• Retaining the concrete’s natural slip resistance.

For more information about DuraCore’s range of products, please feel free to contact us or visit www.duracore.com.au. Alternatively, to find your nearest distributor please click here.