Suspended floors have been benefiting from lightweight concrete for years as it reduces the weight on the structure and increases fire resistance.
Lightweight concrete finish floor.
We have installed hundreds of thousands of square feet of suspended floor slab on metal decking using lightweight concrete and we ve found it s next to impossible to get a smooth level floor.
These floors are constructed for different purposes but the reduction of dead loads on the structure is.
For workability and weight reduction escsi recommends 4 to 7 percent air entrainment.
There are two principal reasons for its use.
Applying color hardeners stamping sealing scoring and chemical staining are among the top concrete finishing methods favored by many homeowners today.
Finishing lightweight concrete floors by the expanded shale clay slate institute escsi publication 4640 december 2003.
Nowadays there are several types of finishes that you can choose for you to make your concrete floor look attractive.
Cost savings and fire resistance.
According to john ries executive director of the expanded shale clay and slate institute escsi salt lake city lightweight concrete floors are typically 25 to 35 lighter than regular concrete aggregate.
If the surface of interior floors are going to be hard troweled use precautions to minimize the formation of blisters and delaminations.
Lightweight aggregate air entrained concrete is increasingly used to cast interior above grade floors.
Excessive amounts of water or higher slumps will cause the lightweight aggregates to segregate from the mortar.
Finishing light weight concrete requires special attention.
Workability reduces bleeding and is recommended for lightweight concrete by both aci 211 2 and aci 302.
When our client proposed a polished finish which requires grinding densifying and penetrant coatings the negatives for lightweight concrete began to emerge.
Lightweight concrete floor provides more efficient strength to weight ratio in concrete floor systems when compared to other conventional concrete floor systems.
All our work is done with power trowels and when the slab is.
Lightweight concrete instead uses a variety of alternate aggregate materials that may include more porous rock like pumice manufacturing byproducts like fly ash or slag or clay shale or slate that has been treated with a heat process that expands the material and creates a series of internal pores in the aggregate.
In both normal weight concrete and lightweight concrete water that is not consumed in the hydration of the cement particles slowly evaporates through the exposed surfaces of the concrete which as is later discussed can create problems with floor finishes.
Most notably renzo piano s the shard a marvelous 95 floor structure made of lightweight concrete that took only four years to build.
Almost all concrete mixes contain more water than necessary for the cement hydration.