Stamped Concrete

How experienced are you in concrete placement? Do you have all the tools required? ie forms, trowels, bullfloats etc.

The process is the same as any pour up until the finishing except for the fact a dye is added to the crete at the site prior to pouring. It is also important that you let the concrete company know you will be adding dye as a lot of them use a particular truck for that purpose (it's messy)

After the concrete is down and bullfloated the stamping process begins. A release agent is scattered on the surface and the stamps are placed on top.(usually around 12-15) You have to work quickly as the concrete will be setting up and if it gets too hard it's gone.....

I would recommend a minimum of four guys to do the stamping (2 teams of 2). Once the stamping is complete you will treat it just like any other pour except for sealing that should wait for about 3-5 days.

It looks really nice and there are alot of different patterns to choose from, but you have to treat it with more care than standard concrete.
Make sure you seal it every year or it will start to flake and change in color.

I would recommend you hire a professional, $9 a sq ft will seem cheap after you see the process and investigate the costs of the tools required.
Plus you can sit back and sip on a cool beverage as you enjoy the show.

If you can't get info there you can make your own
pattern and stamp the concrete yourself. You can do the whole job without professionals but be prepared to work HARD AND FAST.

Concrete placing is best left up to professionals
but you might just be able to hire concrete workers from a local union and be the contractor yourself.
Good luck.

I bought some plastic flat rock shaped 2" forms from Burbee's seed catolog a few years back. I think there 2ft/sq each making 4 stones a form and about $20. They also had round and ? I then bought some crete color die from Home Depot, blue and red and made my own colored stones/tiles.

If you put in a 1/4tsp of liquid dish soap per 1/3 cu/ft mixer in the crete mix, then the concrete will be water tight if making a pool.

T_Bone

Dish soap is a old gold miners trick for increasing gold recovery while panning flour gold as it breaks the surface tension or the oils on the flake surface. The natural oils will cause the gold flakes to float on top of the water thus flowing gold out of the pan. The same therory applys to concrete. The sand has natural surface oils that create tiny voids of portland cement around each grain of sand. Adding the dishsoap will remove the oils and let the cement adhire to the grain surface thus making for a tighter seal around each grain or water tight.

T_Bone