While water damage is an obvious potential damage a home or building owner has to worry about when it comes to concrete, there are other potentially harmful things that you may not even notice. The passage of radon, a gas linked to cancer, through your concrete into your home or building is one of these. Concrete, by its very nature, has a large amount of tiny pores and hairlines cracks that extend throughout it. Beginning at the surface, these pores can allow gases like methane and radon to pass through your concrete with little problem.
While concrete as a structural material often makes it the only choice for construction, regardless of drawbacks like the passage of radon, you can easily defend your home or building from this potentially carcinogenic gas. Radon is a colorless, tasteless, and odorless gas that is actually the second greatest cause of lung cancer, after smoking, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In order to know if radon is afflicting your home or building, you need to get a radon test kit and follow the instructions. As the gas cannot be tasted or smelled, these test kits are really the only way to know if radon is plaguing your home.
If you have radon in your home, a possible cause could be that it is coming through the concrete. Therefore, the solution to this problem would be to use a quality concrete sealer specifically designed to block out radon, methane, and similar harmful gases. A surface sealer is not a great choice, as it would not comprehensively block out the gas. The best choice for a concrete sealer is a silicate sealer. Silicate sealers are part of the class of penetrating sealers, coming in sodium or lithium forms. The particles of silicate in the sealer will penetrate past the surface pores of the concrete into the material. Once here, they will react with various minerals already present within the concrete to chemically produce more calcium silicate hydrate (CSH). The production of CSH will block the pores and cracks through which radon and similar gases can travel, helping ensure your home remains adequately protected.
Our Take: The radon reducing sealers that can be used are Sila-Tek 3500 and EnduroSeal.
The SealMaster Concrete Sealer is an acrylic surface sealer that is meant for decorative concrete and other, more delicate concrete slabs. As an acrylic sealer, it will not penetrate within the concrete slab, as will a penetrating sealer. This makes it less long-lasting, but also more appropriate for specific projects. You could not, for instance, use a penetrating sealer on a driveway or pool deck made of pavers – instead, you would need to use an acrylic sealer like the SealMaster Concrete Sealer.
The SealMaster sealer is a water-based product that is a 100% acrylic solution pre-mixed with water. It promises to dry clear and protect concrete from penetration through the surface of water, debris, and dirt. However, an acrylic sealer cannot truly offer guaranteed protection from surface penetration. Where a penetrating sealer will chemically react to lock out those intruders, an acrylic sealer is more like a raincoat: the water will bead and roll off at first, but the water will seep into the concrete with too much prolonged exposure.
The SealMaster Concrete Sealer is an adequate and average product offering protection for your more delicate concrete products. It is not as chemically harmful as other products, and it offers an average coverage of 200 to 300 square feet per gallon (depending, of course, on your particular project).
When purchasing concrete sealers, the market can be somewhat cloudy. It is not apparent enough to just understand what you need to look for, nor is it clear enough to just purchase concrete sealer without any research. The best way to go about the process is to perform a substantial amount of research before buying a product. You want to make sure you know what exactly you want to accomplish with your particular project, as well as what steps you need to take to complete it. Once you have this solidly in mind, you should go online and research the best concrete sealers for your particular project.
Once you have found the best type of sealer (i.e. penetrating, surface, silicate, acrylic), you want to start researching manufacturers. Manufacturers of concrete sealer are different from the distributors of concrete sealer. In this field, manufacturers typically do not distribute their own concrete sealer. Some of the weaker varieties will do so to save money, but the higher quality manufacturers don’t tend to concern themselves with directly selling their products.
Thus, you have a most manufacturers simply producing the concrete sealer products to be distributed by a distributor. Distributors can be large retail entities like Home Depot, or they can be smaller online services. These online services are a much better choice if you want to find a truly high quality concrete sealing product. Concrete sealers vary so much in usage and type that the big retail chains cannot stock all of the necessary varieties. They simply keep a couple of brands of weaker material on hand to sell to the unknowledgeable consumer. However, their online retail has some more choice, making their websites a better bet. Despite this, you should still consider purchasing from a third-party retailer online that can offer you some of the stronger and more specific concrete sealing offerings.
In sum, the manufacturers of concrete sealer research and develop their concrete sealers, making sure they are optimally primed to work to their full potential. Then, once the products have been developed and tested, they are produced in large volume before being sent out to various distributors. These distributors sell the manufactured product for a small fee, leading to a symbiotic relationship where all participants, including the consumer, are happy.
Shopping for concrete sealer is one of the most difficult tasks to undergo. The big-box chains like Home Depot and Lowe’s do not really offer a wide selection of products, which can make it difficult to find the right product for your particular project. The same goes for local hardware stores, though they often carry random products from local companies that you wouldn’t be able to find in a large retail store. The problem with purchasing products in stores is that the offerings are typically far more limited. Concrete sealers are best chosen with the particular project in mind, as there are a number of different sealing options available.
The smart consumer will shop for concrete sealer online, though this presents its own sort of problems. There are a number of unscrupulous businesses out there that will offer a severely diluted product or products that can hardly pass as concrete sealers. However, these companies are fairly easy to spot for the savvy customer. One of the biggest tip-offs is if the company is an unrecognized name. The same goes for its website – if the website is choppy, old, and inoperable, the company probably does not have the money to spend on a proper website, meaning it likely does not offer a strong product.
Similarly, what claims does the company make? Many companies, even reputable ones, offer concrete sealers that are shipping in their diluted form. This means that these companies pre-mix their concentrated concrete sealer with water to their own ratios before send it out to you, the consumer. While this is not always a bad thing, especially if the company is well established and well-reviewed, a much better option is to purchase concrete sealer in its concentrated form. This allows you to purchase the concrete sealer and mix it yourself, making sure that you aren’t being cheated out of any expensive sealer.
Of course, while you will want to save money, it is a good idea to be prepared to spend a decent amount on a quality concrete sealer. Sure, you could purchase an inexpensive sealer, but you would simply have to reapply sooner than would a more expensive offering. The sealer will likely not even work as advertised, leaving you with concrete at-risk for various ailments. In the concrete sealing business, it is better to spend a little extra money on a product that you know will work, rather than skimping and regretting it later.
Finally, when purchasing a concrete sealer, always be sure to research the manufacturer’s product. The manufacturer’s will include materials like MSDS sheets and technical data sheets on their websites with their products, as required by law. These materials will give you some insight into the product you are considering: What is the ratio of the mixture? Does the product feature some abnormal safety precautions? What is the VOC content? There is plenty of information in these materials to help augment your knowledge and understanding of a quality product.
Our Take: Our go to concrete sealers include brands Scofield, Prosoco, and Kretetek.
The Formula One lithium silicate concrete densifier manufactured by Scofield is a penetrating concrete sealer that will also densify your concrete. The densification is actually the fundamental purpose of the product, as that process will also lock out water and increase the longevity of your concrete.
The Fomula One Lithium Silicate Concrete Densifier works by transporting small particles of silicate suspended in a lithium carrier past the surface pores natural to concrete. Once inside the concrete, the silicate particles will react chemically with free alkalis and other minerals present within the concrete. The reactions will produce calcium silicate hydrate, or CSH, which will help block up pores and hairline cracks within the concrete, leading to a denser, stronger product.
The Scofield product is a high solids solution that is shipped in its concentrated form. This is a great quality for any concrete sealer, as the consumer needs only to mix the product with water according to the directions in order to have the strongest solution they need. It saves the consumer money and time, all while helping provide the best level of protection. The Scofield offering is of a high quality, as their product is marketed as not producing efflorescence while potentially contributing to LEED points for your company due to their VOC-free product. If you need a lithium silicate densifier, the Scofield product is one of the better choices.