Concrete Re-Surfacing

An idea comes to mind. If the puddles are only one inch deep, maybe you could saw a slot in the concrete to allow the puddle to drain naturally? 30' is not very far to drain to the edges: 15' at 1" is already 1/180 slope which is nearly enough to properly drain. Use a diamond saw and check on the cover to the reinforcement.

When you are willing to cover everything, this is a way to go:

Acid wash with Muriatic acid solution in water 1/3. A flower pot sprayer can do it. Clean with water.

Apply a coating with sand, coarse sand, cement, microfibers, compactuna and the lowest required volume of water, add color pigment or acrylic paint if you want special effects. The compactuna makes your mud flow and elastic and watertight. It also improves the adhesion to the base layer.

You can finish with brush and/or stamp. Minimum thickness 3/4" to be sure. Cement - to solids 1/2.

If the concrete you have is porous and sponges water, wait for a better season. Impregnate the concrete with diluted compactuna. Otherwise the frost will get to it.

any concrete leveling ,patch material is not going to be cheap. you can call sikka and see what they recommend, you could clean it with acid,apply concrete primer then install rapid road set. i have used this on bridge decks on the Atlantic city expressway. to date it has held up very well. saw cutting is out, it will be to slow of a drain and freeze prior to where you want it to go. personally i would over lay it with bituminous,creating a high point or crown in the center of the pad and put a 2-1/2 to 3% slope on it . at 4" average it would take 115 ton of asphalt at around 75 bucks a ton($8625) plus installation. or if the tanks are not to tall put a pole barn roof on it.you could cut out 2 foot wide trenches and pour a swale but this could be a tripping hazard.if you put it out to bid,spec out that the intent is to rid the ponding.

I suggest that you grind down the low areas with a parallel set of diamond-tipped wheels in the same fashion where concrete highway and airport pavements are grown down to form grooves used to evacuate water off a surface.......go down at least 2 inches, then acid wash as previously suggested. Make sure you grind in "key-ways" along the periphery of each low area which are currently pounding water/ice/snow. These key-ways will help lock-in the new epoxy/cementous overlay to the exist concrete slab-on-grade.

I've employed this rehabilitation technique successfully in the past on several existing highway bridges as well as at existing airport concrete runways, taxiways, and aprons at Military airfields (while serving with the USACE) and public airports (as an Engineering Consultant). If you desire, I can email you a copy of a FAA or USACE airport concrete rehab Guideline Spec that'll help you out tremendously.

Sikka has some great products for concrete overlays. I agree with using their product or an equivalent one. Key here is product performance!. I do suggest that you utilize a high solids epoxy/cementous binding overlay applied to the low areas which is self-leveling and can be bull-floated as well. Make sure that you use a laser level or surveyor's level to check flatness. If the existing slab is flat aim for a flatness of at least 1/32-inch per foot run (~ 0.26% gradient). If the existing slab has some sort of slope to it make sure you try to match the slope in both the X and Y axis.

This won't be cheap, but it will hold up very well. May sure you use the concrete primer that the manufacturer's tech rep recommends.

I would not asphalt overlay the concrete pavement since most asphalt pavement are porous to some degree or another and will let water percolate through. Once that water freezes and then thaws it'll pop-off the asphalt overlay; a total waste of time, money and effort.

====Signed, CaptMoosie, PE

This is the best method and means, I also have done runways with this and find it holds up extrememly well. May want to waterproof the slab with Stablecrete after application.

Hi there. We are actually resurfacing a 20' x 100' flat slab with similar problems to yours, plus it was originally done with a hard trowel finish. This is horrible for fork lifts in the winter, so we are resurfacing the entire area with a polymer product called MG-Krete. Tons cheaper than sika types, and requires only a clean surface. It will not delaminate, cures to like 11000 psi. Very good stuff for filling low spots.

You can see the product at www.imcotechnologies.com Talk to Greg there for more info. I could email you product info, before and after pics etc. as well.

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regards Rod, Prince George BC

Hi kbp,

In the late 50s, I went from France to Algeria to coat with "Butyl rubber", flexible coating hardener with "lead oxide". These concrete ponds or reservoirs, 25 m by 50 m and 5 to 5 and half m deep was made, coated, and covered with a huge plastic sheet, one piece, to containing future drinking water before treatment. After the concrete surface was sand-blasted and grinded, a thick 2 to 3 mm thick coating was spraid with stiff brooms, large brushes, and squeegees.

Today, water impermeable flexible coating with good surface preparation should do the job. Flexible, Epoxy/Thiocol most be the best. Talk to coating manufacturer or check on internet, Gil.

I can recommend Gardon Concrete floor solutions 800 631-5380 www.gardonproducts.com I have used their concrete coating products for repairing broken or cracked concrete on heavy traffic load areas such as fork lifts, non-slip coatings in food processing plants, coating for caustic or acid emergeny spill protection empounds, they even have a concrete mortar repair that is heat resistant to 3500 degrees F and a freeze resistant concrete repair I used in a cold storage facility, a collored grip coating that I used on an outside running track at a community school and a pebble teck that comes in different colors that I used to repair my own cracked patio and folks always admire the look. I can highly recommend their products looks and durablity.

with using the machine to cut the grooves i dint think it would be practicable do to the size of the machine,the obstacles and size of the area. i do not see a problem with the asphalt overlay, it is done every day on state highways,it also depends on what mix design you use. its not like your slab is a military runway or the driveway to the white house. open friction course asphalt is use on top of concrete roads for drainage of high impact area's,yes it has more maintenance but works. 12.5 M 76 is what i would spec for your slab, for the point of debate take all the concrete out and re-pour it. we have all talked about this enough that in this time we could have been completed the job by now. If moisture getting past the asphalt bothers you , you could coat it with tennis court paint.this also brings up another way to fix the problem. tennis court company's will level the low area,s with the paint then cover the whole area. i do agree that i would rather place asphalt on surfaces other than concrete.

Thanks to all for your suggestions and historical trials and tribulations. We'll contact a couple of the companies provided and see if they can offer a product for the application.

b-bond seems to adhere well to a properly prepared surface. you might want to consider using a 7 1'2 ' concrete power saw blade attached to a large hand grinder for the prep work. use caution. b-bond it's relatively inexpensive and available by the sack. it also has a high psi