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Sealer Problems
Tue, 2011-11-01 13:00
I sold a family member some sealer for his driveway, he wanted to do it himself. Im not sure details on how he applied it but i told him to stir it good, keep stirring it as he goes and apply fairly thin so he has enough for 2 or 3 quotes.
He applied it in +10 weather so it should have soaked in nice. It is an elite sealer CSS emulsion diluted 2:1 ?
His problem is it is very slippery now, he said they just got a bit of snow and he can barely walk on it?
Any suggestions?
It should have had a non-skid micro-media added into it for traction purposes in order to address slip/fall slick surface issues. There are numerous types of micro-medias, as well as manners in which they can be incorporated. How long they will remain in place, doing their job, will depend on the dry mil build of the sealer being used (ie: thin-mil build sealer, when dry/cured have much less mil build than high solids/resin content sealers; therefore, they are prone to wearing off faster). At this time, the surface can be cleaned and properly prepared for an additional coat (as per manufacturers directions for doing so, there may be a window of time hours/days as to when subsequent coats can be applied, if this window of time has passed the surface usually required sanding/abrading prior to applying subsequent coats).
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Micro-medias that can be used are:
** shark grip ... broadcast very sparringly (shaking them on like out of a large salt shaker, or some (I know this sound dumb, but it works, shake them through the leg of panty hose) into wet sealer as you go (if you are using a low resin content/low mil build sealer, it may require adding it into the 1st coat then applying a 2nd coat of sealer to further lock it in place)
** personally I perfer micro-fine acrylic beads that can be added directly to many types of high resin content sealers (epoxies, urethanes, and PAPs) that will not sink or float, allowing you to roll the sealer out with them in it for more uniform application.
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There are also glass beads, very fine garnet, alumium oxides in different sizes, crushed walnut shell, fine/crushed oyster shell, and a great many other skid resistant medias (packaged under trade names other than Shark Grip). Some broadcast very fine sand into their sealers; however, I don't do so since it shows up and give the surface a dirty look to me.
Lindy A.