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Tuesday, 16 December 2008 01:00 |
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When it comes to vertical surfaces in hardscape projects, landscape contractors often face two big problems: not enough time to do 12 months of work compressed into an abbreviated schedule of good weather, and finding skilled people to do the job.
For many projects, though, there’s a ready remedy for both: decorative concrete. Both formliners and stamping offer options for new construction, and the stamping process can also revamp older projects.
Stamping, particularly, offers a lightweight option to other construction methods. It goes up even faster than thin veneer, can be done with a less-skilled crew, and eliminates mortar joints that can sometimes lead to problems.
Even better, say practitioners of both methods, is that just about any look is possible, from brick to a local stone – or even wood.
FORM AND FUNCTION
For many years, the general rule held that concrete stamping went into flat applications, while using a formliner offered the solution when it came to vertical surfaces. Even today, the appeal of using a formliner is the straight-up structural durability.
“It’s ideal any time it’s cost-prohibitive to use real stone or brick,” says Ed Fitzgerald of Santa Ana, Calif.-based Fitzgerald Formliners . “It’s also at its best when the durability of concrete is needed, but where other aesthetics are also important.”
Perhaps the best testament to its durability is the heavy use of formliners by various departments of transportation for sound walls and underpasses. However, Larry Karlson of Amery, Wis.-based Karlson Forming Specialties Inc. says it’s certainly appropriate for lighter work.
 Formliners can add visual interest to structural concrete, such as highway underpasses. (Photo courtesy Fitzgerald Formliners)
He adds that one of his clients developed a niche in product pouring concrete basements. Karlson explains the formliner gives this particular contractor an edge in job bidding.
“He can say, ‘I’ll make the part of the basement that’s exposed to the outside look like rocks,’” Karlson says. “The guy gives the client a figure and walks away with the job because he’s added value.”
The idea behind a formliner is also fairly simple. If you’re pouring a structural concrete wall and want to make it aesthetic, the formliner provides an easy add-on.
“Say that you’re pouring a concrete wall that’s 8” thick,” says Karlson. “You use 10” wall ties and you have 2” of architectural concrete. There’s no changing of the mix; you just pour the wall and come up with a superb-looking product with little effort.”
Of course, that assumes you’re skilled in pouring concrete, which Fitzgerald says is a must for anyone considering doing this type of work.
“You really have to be a concrete contractor with a background in precast, tilt-up or cast-in-place construction,” Fitzgerald says.
For larger projects, it’s not unusual for the formliner company to be brought in by the architect or designer.
“That way, we can advise on depths and texture combinations,” says Fitzgerald. “We also need to understand the job, how big it is and how they plan to form it up. We also need to know if they wish to reuse the formliner.”
While a good formliner company will be able to generate custom patterns with a specific design for given job, the price for the formliner depends on how many uses a customer is realistically expecting to make of a size and design.
“We can create a single-use plastic, but some of our other designs run up to $50 per ft² for rubber that can be used many times,” says Karlson. “My job is to sell you what you want and need.”
Achieving a rocklike surface involves more than just pouring concrete. Getting the best coloring for a project is the second part of the job, and doesn’t take place until the concrete reaches the point when the free-lime escapes.
“When the concrete is 30 days old, we send a crew out to pressure-wash it to take off any latex and dirt,” says Karlson. “Then, we use a concrete stain sold by Sherwin Williams Co. that’s extremely durable on vertical surfaces. We’ll ask the person to take a digital photo and we’ll match that; most of our highway departments use federal colors.”
He adds that just about anyone can apply the base coat to these projects, although it takes an artistic eye to make the job look as natural as possible.
Fitzgerald says that company advises its clients to work with one of the large color suppliers, such as Solomon Colors Inc. or L.M. Scofield Co.
While a company’s willingness to take on this type of work ultimately depends on the skills its people possess, both Karlson and Fitzgerald say they’re happy to consult with interested contractors who have questions about taking on a particular job.
LIGHTWEIGHT AND FLEXIBLE
While formlining may be the usual choice for textured vertical concrete, manufacturers of vertical concrete systems such as Picayune, Miss.-based Flex-C-Ment and Phoenix-based FossilCrete offer an interesting alternative.
Designed to be troweled or sprayed on a myriad of substrates to a depth thick enough to stamp, users of the systems create rock and other looks in a much-quicker timeframe than even a mason installing thin or cultured veneer can hope to achieve – with more benefits.
Doug Bannister, owner of The Stamp Store in Oklahoma City, began working as a concrete contractor in the early 1970s. A decade later he started doing flat decorative work, selling stamps, and teaching classes on the subject.
He was looking for someone to do a little work on the koi pond outside his shop about 10 years ago when a fellow in the process of moving back to Oklahoma from Florida stopped in with his sketch pad and some photos.
.gif "Image") Vertical stamping can mimic a wide range of looks, including cultured and thin-stone veneers, at a fraction of the weight. (Photo courtesy Pace Decorative Solutions)
“Until then, there hadn’t been a bag mix that was reliable,” says Bannister. “Ours was lightweight, you could build a thickness out to 6” in a single pass, and it could even be applied overhead.”
The end result is something that’s limited only by the user’s imagination, he adds.
“The vertical doesn’t need a foundation because it adheres to the wall,” says Bannister. “It’s not weight-bearing on a footing. It’s also waterproof and fire-resistant. It doesn’t suffer the degradation that real rock does, especially like with sandstone.
“However, the real weakness of stone is the mortar joint; this is seamless.”
Pace, now doing business out of Tecumseh, Okla., as Pace Decorative Solutions, says he started in the waterfall business utilizing boulders made from his concrete formulation. From there, he began doing retaining walls, then columns, and eventually entire building envelopes.
“It’s really a good product for anybody who likes the look of stone,” Pace says. “Plasterers are good with it, and so are stucco guys, although they need to learn how to stamp. The stamps take the hard part out of it; that’s what they’re for.”
Bart Sacco offers both major brands of products through his Throop, Pa.-based Concrete Texturing Tool & Supply , and teaches classes on all sorts of decorative concrete work through his Concrete Kingdom Training Center.
Sacco explains that growing up his father did plaster and stucco work, as well as decorative molding, and he and his brothers all went into various related trades. Sacco began doing concrete around 1990, leaving installation work to become a distributor about 10 years later.
He says vertical stamping is appropriate for just about any project.
“We supply product for both large and small jobs,” he says. “We’ve done training for people who are doing theme parks, but also folks who are doing residential and light commercial work – especially restaurants.”
He adds that restaurants are an especially good use for the vertical concrete because it’s so flexible – and can be used in retrofits.
“A lot of restaurant owners want the look of stone, but they don’t have the ability to bring the weight of stone into their spaces,” Sacco explains. “Not only does it have nowhere near the weight of stone, but you can make it look like stone or wood or whatever you’d like it to look like.”
TROWEL UP
That’s certainly not to say that it’s inappropriate outdoors. David Schwartz, owner of Makawao, Hawaii-based RockMolds.com , fell in love with the process and decided to offer original stamps that fit with the landscape. (His other business is a design-build landscape firm.)
“This is really appropriate for anyone who’s interested in saving time, saving money and reducing material costs,” he says. “In addition, it creates a solid wall of material, rather than one done in pieces.”
 What can take Mother Nature millions of years to create can be duplicated in concrete in less than 48 hours by a team of employees with a good selection of stamps and an eye for color. (Courtesy Rockmolds.com)
“Another thing I’ve liked it for is doing corners,” Schwartz adds. “Corners can be difficult for thin-stone or cultured-stone veneers. With this, the corners are built right in.”
Schwartz says he prefers the stamping approach to using a formliner because stamping can be done over just about any surface. For instance, in Hawaii, he says over the years people have erected literally miles of infrastructure using concrete blocks, and it remains a favorite of contractors.
“With vertical stamping, we don’t worry about the substrate as long as it’s stable” he says. “We just trowel it up, and we don’t leave any threaded bolt holes or any seams. Nor are we spending time trying to get pieces of stone to stick to it. We’re not having to pull apart a pallet, lay a veneer out, chip edges to hit the corners, and clean up at the end.”
Just how much faster it is to install compared with a thin-stone veneer is difficult to quantify, and a lot depends on the size of the crew and the level of experience. However, Schwartz estimates it’s at least up to 50-percent faster.
“A lot depends on what we’re doing and how artistic we need to be with the product,” he says. “However, I’d say we can easily do 500 ft² a day with a crew of three, and that’s being very conservative.”
Those who regularly do the process say it can be done by a person working alone, but they agree it’s generally a case where many hands make the job go faster. Sacco feels a crew of three-to-five is generally ideal.
“Especially if they’re using a pump to get the material on the wall, generally one guy will mix and feed the pump and another will spray it on the building,” he explains. “Then, the other two will come through troweling. Once it starts to set up, the different functions of each may will change, and they’ll go from application to pattern stamping and detail work.”
Sacco adds that many smaller jobs don’t even require the use of a sprayer to apply the material; it can easily be troweled on the space to be covered.
Then, once the material has begun to set up, the stamping begins, after a liquid release agent is put on both the stamp (or mat) and the wall to ensure it comes off cleanly. Once the product becomes a little harder, it then becomes a matter of cleaning up the lap marks and raking the joints.
The material can be carved up to 24 hours after it’s been applied. Sacco says some jobs call for that sort of additional handwork, and some installers want to do it. However, for most, the second day on the job involves applying the correct colors – which most frequently is a two-step process.
 Stamped concrete can be a popular option for landscape contractors because of its durability and its ability to handle compound curves, such as around water features. (Courtesy Rockmolds.com)
However, there are also water-based stains, and many jobs call from an antiquing technique that involves applying a light color, then spraying a dark color and wiping it off to leave the darker stain in the recessed areas of the cement.
Schwartz describes the colors as “durable.”
“It’s like any color on any concrete surface: you have to seal it,” he says. “However, if you seal it properly, it will last a good long time. Sealing it every two or three years is just common maintenance.”
CUTTING EDGE
Everyone who does concrete stamping agrees there’s a fair amount of artistry involved, whether it’s in applying the color or choosing the best stamps for a particular job.
The Stamp Store’s Bannister says part of the beauty of Pace’s system (now used by FossilCrete and soon to be patented) is its simplicity and durability.
“It’s really a stroke of genius how simple it is, and it also protects the material and makes it waterproof,” he says. “I’ve had it on waterfalls where there’s ice hanging on it and the rockwork is underwater or half out, and after five years it still looks wonderful.”
However, Sacco says much of the final look depends on the installer. He mentions colorization techniques where the installer might lightly apply accent material with a sponge, or use a synthetic steel wool to lightly brush the faces for a more-natural and -realistic look.
The importance of having good stamps is also critical. However, there are a multitude of options available. Bannister, for instance, mentions that Pace took casts of the Great Wall of China and made stamps from them.
“It looks like each block would weigh hundreds of pounds each, but it’s actually like five pounds of material,” Bannister says.
Pace says it’s important for people doing vertical work to get stamps designed for that purpose.
“These are stamps that have deeper recesses and much-higher relief,” Pace says. “That way it gives you the most-authentic look. If you use stamps designed for flat work, it can be too flat for a wall.”
Because of his location in Hawaii, Schwartz says he found it difficult to find stamps that mimicked the local stones and wood, which led him to found RockMolds.com.
“We got into making stamps for our own projects, and then we found no one else in the world was selling lava-textured stamps, and that’s how we got started,” he explains. “There are people all over the world who have bought our lava stamps, but it may also look like something from Kansas. Each person can use it uniquely.”
Sacco says it’s also possible to get custom stamps made for a special job, although it’s usually not necessary.
“There are so many that are commercially available right now that there’s usually a mat that will achieve the look you’re after,” he says.
 Stamped concrete can also have an artistic side to it, as this bald eagle can attest. Many custom homebuilders use their own stamps to decorate their projects. (Courtesy Art Stamped Concrete)
“I have my own line of designs, but I also do custom designs for people who want them,” she says. “For instance, there are contractors who are interested in having a custom design – or their logo – on their custom homes.”
Other popular designs Ellis – a sculptor by training -- offers include wildlife, aircraft and school logos. Although designs from her catalog are less, a custom 12” X 12” mat begins at $200, while a 48” X 48” one may cost $1,500 or more.
“It depends on the degree of difficulty,” she explains. “The more information in the design, the harder it gets.”
Regardless of whether a landscape contractor is looking for a special design or just another way to install a stone look quickly, getting into concrete stamping isn’t that difficult. Not only do the product manufacturers offer classes, but people such as Sacco and Bannister also provide training programs.
Sacco says a good program will take students from the process for preparation of the wall and its priming right through the application of the material, the stamping and the coloring in only a few days.
“It’s an excellent opportunity for masons and stucco people,” says Bannister. “Instead of having rock delivered to a site, you can be making outdoor fireplaces, kitchens and pizza ovens – and that’s just for a start. It gives people who have been working with regular shapes all these years the ability to be much more creative.”
“Obviously, natural stone is the real McCoy,” concludes Schwartz. “It’s also expensive and time-consuming. For many of my clients, the vertical stamping is a more-attractive option. I think this is a cutting-edge trend in the landscape market right now.”
This article first appeared in the Winter 2008 print edition of AS&LD. ©2008 Western Business Media Inc.
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