February 23, 2025 • 36 mins
Dean talks everything concrete and rebaring, how close they should be placed andd what kind to use. Dean and Chris Carson talk about the different types of finishes that are available, masonry and Dean gives a recap of the things he and Chris Carlson covered.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey,
do you know this very program is also the House
Whisper podcast that you can listen to anytime, anywhere on demand.
Hundreds of episodes, all searchable by topic. It is literally
(00:23):
a home improvement reference library just for you. Today's show,
this Concrete broadcast with my very special in studio guest
Chris Carson, is going to belong and live for a
long long time on the House Whisper podcast. So if
you've missed any portion of today's show, about an hour
(00:44):
after we go off the air of the live broadcast,
it has already been converted into podcast form and it
is there waiting for you. Chris is going to tell
all his friends, oh, go check out the podcast I
was on with the House Whisper, my friend Dean's show,
and they'll all go back and they'll listen to him,
and then they're going to call him and ras him
do what everything that they do. And if you're thinking, hey,
(01:07):
that's all great, what we really need is Dean and
Tina standing in our house addressing that thing that we
have never been able to figure out. Well, you can
do that too. You can book an in home design
consult with me and the tea you just go to
house whisperer dot design. Okay, Chris, back into this conversation
(01:28):
about we were talking about crack control, I want to
switch over. I'm kind of we're ping pong and back
and forth when it comes to when it comes to
homes and an actual slab on grade house foundations. Most
of our listeners are not planning on building a new
house right now, but there are I would also say
(01:49):
that most of our listeners are not aware that since
the nineteen eighties, there are two very distinct kinds of
slabs out there that their home may be sitting on.
And if they're thinking about a remodel, if they're thinking
about a room edition, or if they're thinking about something
as simple as well, we're changing the configuration of the
(02:13):
bathroom and I'm thinking about putting the toilet on the
other side, and that's going to involve, you know, saw
cutting some concrete and moving a drain. There's something very
important for them to understand, and that is that the
way you deal with a traditional rebar slab versus a
post tension slab very very different, and it's important that
(02:34):
we know what the difference is. So why don't you,
first of all, I mean, I think everybody understands rebar,
you know, it's the traditional thing. Talk to me about
post tension slabs. Why are they so great?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And also what is their vulnerability?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Post tension is a way advanced reinforcing method that we
have now the good the post tension and it's a
cable wrapped in a heavy plastic sleeve and this cable
runs through it and it is attached to each you know,
(03:11):
each end of the form. If it's a square, it
goes both ways. And after you pour, you come and
hydraulically tension that cable up to a certain percent. It's
fresh concrete, so you won't go to its max PSI.
But what it's doing it's pulling. You know, this cable
is stretching and stretching, pulling this concrete together, eliminating the
(03:35):
possibility of separation and cracks. And then after it comes
up to so many days of the PSI getting to
where it needs to be, then they come in and
do the last post tension tightening. And that's mostly on
the newer homes I've been starting to do it on
the sports courts, in the town basketball courts, tennis courts,
(03:58):
there is a minimum of six inches thick on a
post tension slab. Huge, huge gainers in the respect that
you don't need all these control joints that we've been talking.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
About, because that that concrete has been pushed together on
itself so tight hydraulically, just that it is just solid
and so like on a sport or like a basketball court,
you don't want to but I'm dribbling, I don't want
a bunch of crack control joints under me because it's
just you know, I just want it nice and smooth.
But that's a big slab. To have no crack control.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Joints, well, they usually put one down the middle of
a tennis quarter basketball court, surety one in the middle,
But there's no way you can put score marks ten
foot on center.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It just it just messes up the point of the
thing signed the layout. Okay, So so in case you're
still kind of wondering, so instead of this uh these
rigid uh bits of rebar half inch diameter rebar being
tied together in grids all over the house before the
(05:03):
slab is poured, a post tension slab has these cables
strung through it. Uh and uh, and those cables stretch
out and and drill through the sides of the forms.
They hang out with Oh sorry, I did not mean
to bunch the more you know, buttons, But now I
know more. Yeah, now you know more? Right andrew yep.
So they hang out of the edge of the of
(05:26):
the forms, and then we pour. And then as that
concrete is setting up, then we put hydraulic equipment on
the outside and grab those cables. Essentially, but think of
it this way. Instead of rigid steel in your slab,
we we we're gonna run guitar strings through your slab. Okay,
steal guitar cable strings and uh. And after the concrete
(05:50):
is placed, we're gonna crank those knobs and we're gonna
tighten those guitar strings. We're gonna tune the guitar until
they are tight.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And under tension post post poor post meaning not a
post sticking up in the sky, but after the poor
meaning post tension. We put tension on the concrete after
the poor And so a traditional rebar slab has no
tension on it. It's just the bar is in there, and
it's helping to reinforce the brittleness of the concrete. But
(06:22):
this extra pressure and tension really helps the cement hold
itself together.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Totally totally different than rebar. Rebar. It's a myth people
think I'm going to put a bunch of rebar in
this lab to keep it from cracking. Rebar does not
keep concrete from cracking. It's going to crack. It's not
a post tension. It's not something that's hydraulically, you know,
brought up to a PSI. It's like, you know, concrete
with post tension, it's like a vice. You know, you
(06:49):
put the concrete and a vice and you tighten it.
That's the way it is forever.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So now post tension, it's realistic to say we're keeping
the concrete from cracking exactly truly, but post tension when
it comes to future work, has an achilles heel. We
need to talk about that literally, an achilles heel. I
think that's actually a really good metaphor for it. We're
going to discuss. So go nowhere. We're going to talk
(07:14):
about this on the other side of the break. If
you don't know, here's the critical thing. If you don't
know whether you've got a post tens slab or not,
you got to find out before anybody touches that concrete.
So hang with me. Yeah, did I tease you enough?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Good?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Hang tight.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
At your service. Thanks for joining us on the program.
We are talking all things concrete today with my special
in studio guest Chris Carson, and so we were talking
about before the break to a traditional slab slab on
grade for a house is done with rebar, a reinforcement
(07:59):
bar tied with I think everybody knows what rebar looks like.
And if you've ever seen a pore before it happens,
you see it's all tied together in a grid of
some sort and people wonder how close and what kind
And there's no universal answer to that, all right, It
really it's an engineering thing. The size of the rebar
(08:19):
I can tell you. Typically the size of a rebar
for a residential slab on great house is usually what
we call number four rebar, which is a half inch rebar,
and it's usually tied somewhere in the area of eighteen
to twenty four inches on center, you know, eighteen to
twenty four inch squares, and Chris is nodding his head,
so I know I'm telling you the right thing, and
that's you know. And plus then there are extra bits
(08:41):
of rebar at the bottom of the bottom of footings
and the top of footings, and what we call grade beams,
and there's just and pads for structural posts, and on
and on it goes. The other kind of slab that
has been more and more utilized started off on kind
of exclusively on the high end, and then more developers
(09:03):
started using it later on, starting in the eighties, would
be a post tension slab, which before the break we
were saying uses cables that are tightened after the fact.
Those A post tension slab, because of the nature of
its structure, doesn't need as much stuff in it. In
other words, you don't find post tension slabs at eighteen
(09:26):
inches making eighteen inches square grids with these cables. Most
of the time. It's three to four foot apart from
each other in general. That's but my experience. You can
correct me if I'm wrong about that, Chris, But it's
about three to four feet on center. But right before
the break. You know, I teased you a little bit
and said, a post tension slab for all of its
(09:49):
immense benefits. I mean we're talking essentially a crack proof
slab without any control joints in it. It has an
achilles heel, and the achille heel is very simply this.
You can work. You can remodel and work around a
post tension slab butt unlike a traditional slab, where I
(10:11):
can just go in with a concrete saw and make
cuts and cut through rebar if I need to. Because
if I cut open a pad of a concrete and
I've cut out a section of rebar, then I can
turn around and dowl in to the side of that
old cut with some epoxy, some new rebar, and remake
the pad and retie it in. But if we cut
(10:34):
a post tension cable, one of these high tension cable
that's running across, it not only affects that cut right there,
but it affects the structural stability of the slab along
the entire length of that cable. Not only it could
be a dangerous thing as well, but most importantly, ultimately,
(10:56):
putting the danger side across, you can you can mess
up an entire section of your slab.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
You can. I'd say the danger part that you were
mentioning would be the more concerning problem if you lost
a cable. You have so many cables in there. Without
one cable, you're going to be okay, this slab is
not going to fail. But it's a very dangerous thing
to not know you have a post tension slab and
to cut into it. I'm sure people have been hurt. Seriously.
(11:27):
It explodes because of all the tension in the cable.
When you cut it, it basically explodes. And you're only
talking a cable that's in a six inch piece of
concrete and it's not it's not something that you want
to get involved with. To prevent that. We x ray
slabs and lay it all out on the top of
(11:49):
the slab before you know, you have to get in
to do maybe a plumbing repair or an electrical problem,
So you need to be aware. A lot of times
they'll have a stamp in the girl that we'll say
post tension foundation. I don't always see them there, but
that's what they used to do. But there might be
signs on the side of the stem walls, the sides
(12:12):
of the walls of the foundation that show the cups
and how they're mounded, unless they're stuccoed over. But it's
good to know if you have post tension slab or not,
and you've got a problem with your house, you need
to dig into it. You better know what you.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Got exactly now. Again not to say there's really there
aren't any limits to what you can do with a
post tension slab versus the standard slab as far as
making alterations and so on. It really just comes down
to this, You've got to know where the cables are
and you don't cut them right. Apart from that, we
can go in and do In fact, we can expose
a cable, a section of cable. We can cut around
(12:47):
it very carefully. We can expose a section of cable.
We can get in there and do all sorts of
stuff and put it all back, and there are processes
for all that. But we don't cut the cables because
that can be problematic on a number of levels. So
know what you've got, And if you're just sitting there,
you know, not doing any work on your house, No,
(13:08):
you don't have to go find out what you got tomorrow,
because it doesn't matter right, and the house of the house,
you're just gonna know that you've got a house that's
never had any uplift and no cracks in the slab
and so on. And if it's a house after built
after the eighties, there's a good chance that it might
be a post tension house there. But any work in
which anybody is talking about doing anything with that concrete slab,
(13:32):
you've got to know ahead of time. And it's it's
only you know, you know, a few dollars I mean
talking about a few hundred dollars to have a location
service come out. And these guys specialize in this. The
same guys that find, you know, broken water lines under
your home and so on, can come out and X
ray and scan your slab and literally, like Chris said,
(13:53):
put down tape marking like here it is. You know,
if the bear slab, they can paint it for you,
but they can roll tape around to cross and show
you right here here, you know, within an inch or two,
here is where this cable is, and here's where that
cable is. And then you just make sure that everybody
avoids them, you know, so that so that we don't
(14:14):
end up with something disastrous on our hands, all right, Chris,
So I want to keep rolling here. I've got just
enough time to tease the next segment blameing the structural
slab aside. I want to get back into the esthetic stuff.
And we've talked about cracks, and we've talked about the
proper way. We've talked about the ideal, the situation for
(14:38):
pouring and all of that, and maybe we can touch
a little bit more on that some other weather conditions
that are problematic. But I want to talk about finishes,
your favorite finishes and your least favorite finishes. Now, why
should that matter to me? I'm a designer and I'm
just going to give my clients the finish they want.
(14:59):
But the fact the matter is some finishes perform better
than others in the long term. Some finishes promise a
lot and in my opinion, end up delivering far less
than what they promise. So I want everybody to hear
from you, from your vast experience, the kind of concrete
(15:21):
finishes that you like the most, sand finish, broom finish,
stamped concrete, exposed aggregate. What are these things, how do
they work? And in your experience, which are the ones
that really hold up to everything they promise and what
falls short. We will talk about that right on the
other side of the news.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You are home. I hope you feel home. That's my goal.
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer. We spend
every minute of this program every weekend on Saturday mornings
from six to eight and Sundays from nine to noon
talking about your home. It's design. We talk about it
(16:10):
all the way from its architecture down to the nitty
gritty of home repair, home construction, inside, outside, the whole thing.
It's all about your house and your home and taking
your ordinary house and turning it into hopefully an extraordinary home.
One of the most basic and fundamental elements, whether it's
(16:30):
in the slab itself or in the outside decorative flatwork,
is concrete. Concrete is just simply one of the most
important things that we do on planet Earth, and one
of the biggest things that we do. It's been a
great show so far. We're turning the corner around eleven
thirty here and I have in studio with me my
(16:51):
very special guest, Chris Carson. Fantastic Concrete and masonry contractor.
And we've been talking all things concrete, So Chris, now
let's get back out into the decorative side of things.
As I said before the break, from a design perspective,
we have a lot of options for finishes of concrete,
(17:13):
and as a designer, there are so many options that
it might be tempting if I wasn't anchored in the
builder side of me, to just say yes to anything
that a client is looking for. But there are finishes
that I've encountered over the years that I like definitely
(17:35):
better and worse when it comes to concrete. And I'm
interested from your perspective if there are finishes that you
like for better or worse. And it's not that Chris's
taste or my taste should determine your taste, but you
should listen to some experts who have some serious experience
with it in terms of maybe that finish is not
(17:58):
going to follow through with everything that it's promising. So
I would love to hear from you, what, by the way,
what so, what is your favorite concrete finish? I think
most people have seen all of them, whether they realize
it or not. Probably not, but most people have encountered
all the finishes. They just may not know what it
(18:18):
is that they're looking at. But what's your favorite finish for?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Right? We have so many options now. The thing that
you need to look at it also is the longevity
of the looks, whether or not it's going to fade,
and what's going to happen in the future with this
type of finish you've created. There's finishes now, an exposed
agg again and finish, a sand finish that those involve
(18:43):
a chemical that we put on and wash off the
next morning and expose Maybe a sand finish would be
exposing the very top layer of the concrete into a
porous sand finish, and then you can go deeper into
that into the aggregant. That is a look very popular
is the stamp. Stamp colored finishes. Those to me and
(19:06):
after doing this all those years, I come back and
look at them underneath the patio cover. They look beautiful.
With the colors put out in the sun. They're faded.
People want to know what can I do? This looks terrible.
It's all watched out For that reason alone, right there,
I would tend to stay away from the stamp and
(19:27):
the coloring. Sometimes it works on a house, or sometimes
you have it and you have to match it. But
to come back and put a sealer on it and recolor,
you're going to be married to that and it's going
to be a constant thing, moving furniture, pressure watching, ceiling coloring.
Where a sand finish and other types of finishes don't
require anything you come back in ten years. They look
(19:49):
just like that, you know, other than your just standard
broom finishes. But people want options with their house. They
want something that looks good. They want to put in
a new backyard, a new back patio, definitely put in
a kicked up finish. There's so many alternatives, but you
want something that you aren't going to come back in
five or eight years and go goud. It's all getting
(20:10):
bleached out, but it looks great under the cover. Right,
I didn't finished, is my answer to your question.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
All right, so I knew you were gonna rag on
stamped concrete because here is the thing I think my
experience has been in working with most homeowners that I
think right now, most of our listeners would prior to
this conversation, at this moment right here, would assume that
(20:37):
a stamped concrete finishes the pinnacle of concrete finishes, and
what y'all are not aware of is within the industry itself,
it is the finish that makes most of us roll
our eyes the most because of everything that Chris just
talked about. Well, so let me talk from a design perspective.
(21:00):
From a design perspective, stamped concrete is usually not my
first go to, never my first go to at all,
for a couple of reasons. One, it is an attempt
to emulate another material, and as a designer, I would
rather just use the other material. In other words, a
(21:21):
stamped concrete is trying to look like a cobble, or
it's trying to look like a flagstone, or it's trying
to look like some kind of a natural stone finish.
So we have the stamps, and we have the mats,
and we press in and we emboss the top of
the concrete, and then if we really want to go
to the nth degree, there are powders and color additives
(21:45):
that are put on the surface that affect the surface
color to try and get that stony two or three
tone finish, and believe me, it can be done beautifully.
I've seen Chris's stuff look beautiful. But the point is
every one of those additional elements can react differently to time,
(22:06):
to UV, light from the sun, uneven, fading and blotching
and all, I mean, just all sorts of stuff. So
it really the big secret is within the industry, it's
the least desired finish within the industry.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
And now also with pavers, they seem to be quite
popular for many reasons. Just talking about the color with pavers,
it's so dense. Pavers don't have the qualities of concrete.
They don't fade as much in pavers. The colors, You're
going to get a lot more time out of your
(22:42):
pavers with the color almost no problem. I haven't seen
pavers completely fail with their colors make a stamp concrete.
And also the pavers another benefit. Hey, if you've got
a tree root that grows underneath your driveway sad lab
and it's all lifted, you pull the papers up, you
put them back down, you take the roots out. You
never know anything that happens pavers. You know what, within
(23:04):
the last ten fifteen years, you're starting to see a
lot more people doing pavers. They've been around for a while,
but now they're starting to make more sense. With trees,
which you're in getting bigger trees are our number one
caused tree roots probably most concrete crackings.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So absolutely a no brainer. If you're thinking about a
concrete driveway that is supposed to emulate cobble, then just
do it in pavers. Because you talk about papers been
around for a long time. Pavers are as old as
paving gets because essentially a modern day concrete paver is
the modern version of cobblestone. I mean, and what are
(23:39):
the advantages? As Chris said, these are individual units. Now
we're back to that definition of masonry. These are individual
units that are going into a driveway or a patio,
and if anything ever needed to be dealt with underneath,
we can literally unzip those units, set them aside, get underneath,
do whatever needs to be done, cut that tree root,
(24:00):
move that sewer line, and then literally put them back
into place again. And there's no cracking in a paver
or driveway because as the settling or whatever minute things happen,
they just it's absorbed in all of those joints. And
so that's another reason why stamped concrete is just not
(24:20):
necessary on this level. So it may come as a
shock to everybody to find out that we're not big
fans of stamp concrete. But hopefully it's it's an educational
one because down the line the problems with fading and
modeling and all of the above. Now you said you
like a sand finish, I love a sand finish. I
(24:42):
also love exposed aggregate. I want to explain that process
a little bit clearer for everybody so that they understand that.
I think we're just going to have enough time to
do that before we are out today. So hold tight
if you want to hear how and why these are
far more reliable and I think more beautiful finishes. Number one,
(25:03):
you already know that I've showed my hand because I
think if we use concrete, let's just not hide it.
Let's use concrete, and let's use concrete in its most
beautiful forms. Otherwise, if we want a flagstone driveway, let's
buy some flagstone right and just make a flagstone driveway.
It'll hold up much better than a stamped version of
(25:24):
flagstone long term. But if we're the other advantage of
a beautifully finished concrete driveway is they're not that expensive
to achieve. No, I mean we're talking of sand or
an aggregate exposed aggregate finish. It's just a couple extra steps.
We're going to be done that day at the same time. Yeah, so, yeah,
(25:44):
you have some chemic goals. You have some release or
whatever it's going to be to retard that concrete so
we can wash it to get the effect that we want,
but not that much effort to make concrete look different.
It's all going to be done, you Port seven. It's
all gonna be done at twelve one o'clock. I don't
care what what we're gonna do. You're gonna have You're
(26:05):
gonna have your concrete at the end of the day,
and we're gonna be out of your hair all right.
When we come back, we're gonna explain how that particular
set of finishes work. Uh uh, and we're gonna wrap
it up.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI A M six forty.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Here we are final segment of the show. But don't
go anywhere because I am taking this content all the
way to the very end because there's so much, you know,
and we have just scratched the surface on the subject
of concrete today. We didn't even get into masonry per se.
Uh and we're gonna have to come back Chris and
do that another day with me. Is that okay with you?
(26:47):
All Right? Everybody's loving you on the show. We're getting
we're getting calls and emails and it's just been great.
So uh, we kind of spent the last segment pooh
poohing stamped concrete. Uh you know, not that it doesn't
have its place in a certain place, but you and
I both would you know, as builders and as a designers,
(27:08):
we would rather go in different directions with concrete. I'd
rather let concrete be concrete and let it be amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
It's kind of like back when we used to foe
our walls in our living room, right, Yeah, that was
in That was huge. Yeah. I used to do it too.
I mean, I mean how many years ago was that?
Fifteen twenty years? It stated, Maybe it's kind of like
stamp concrete in a way.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah. I think I just think materials if I think
you can take a material and from a design perspective,
take it as many places as it can go itself,
and you discover all new realms to it instead of
just the assumption, well concrete is just gray and boring.
(27:50):
But hey, guess what we learned to do. We learned
to stamp it and turn it in and make it
look like something yeah yeah, but not right. And so anyway,
on the side object of this, there are a series
of finishes that you and I both love. A sand finish,
an exposed aggregate finish, and a process called seeding. And
I'm just gonna set it up here and then you
(28:11):
can get in and correct me or make the specifics.
But essentially what we're talking about is both a sand
finish and exposed aggregate finish and seeding is we are.
What we're doing is we're pouring a regular poor floating
a regular poor It looks, you know, at the end
of the day, it pretty much looks like we've just
(28:32):
left behind a flat, old, you know, boring, normal concrete job.
But right at the end because of something we've put
into the concrete, either the size of specialized aggregate stones
or a sand in bedmont in the top or seeding.
(28:53):
What you're gonna explain a second. We spray a chemical
over the top of that curing concre and it comes
in many names, and there are a lot of different
ones out there, but we just spray kind of Hudson
spray or out of chemical over walk away, walk away.
Usually come back unless weather conditions are making us do otherwise.
(29:15):
Usually come back the next morning and pressure wash that
material off. And what that chemical does in one way
or another, it's a retardant in terms of it keeps
that top little layer of the cement from curing. Okay, well,
everything else is curing and hardening up, that one is
staying vulnerable. And under the pressure of a pressure washer,
(29:38):
we blast away that very top layer of concrete and
expose the hidden treasure underneath, which is this embedded finish
of either sand, which is a beautiful smooth finish, or
the aggregate like the pea gravel aggregate that's in the
mix of the concrete itself, or what you've seeded into
(29:59):
the concrete the day before, which takes it to a
whole different level. And talk about what seeding is.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, we can keep going with this thing. Seating is
a process where there's material shops now that just sell
different types of rock or granite or glass or pearl
or abalone shells. We take this stuff and we actually,
like bird seed, we spread it onto the concrete at
(30:24):
the right time after it's in our finishing process. Effort
starts to get a little bit tight, and we just
throw this on like bird seed, all through the whole top,
almost solid, and then we floated in, get that cement
over it and get it attached to the aggregant that
we've installed, so it's going to here, and then we
(30:46):
apply a chemical and the next morning we wash it
and it's all all the aggregant is left, but the
cement is washed out.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Now, if you live in eastern Ventura County, and I'm
going to describe this sort of makes sense to everybody.
If you live in southern California, you know that years ago,
I was twenty eighteen, I want to say, was the
Borderline mass shooting at the Borderline Club out here in
Thousand Oaks. Afterwards, our local park in Naho Creek North
(31:20):
commissioned a memorial for all of those who were lost
who lost their lives in the Borderline shooting. Chris is
the one who actually put that memorial together, designed and
put that memorial together. There are large granite boulders, one
for each of the individuals who lost their lives at
(31:40):
the Borderline, and then out in the field there are
pavers of people who have signed the backs, and you know,
it's a very very intimate, very very meaningful thing in
between the pavers and the boulders. The boulders are skirted
with cement with concrete, and Chris didn't want just another
color element entering into it. He wanted something to blend.
(32:03):
And so we have these large like you know, granite
like you know, river boulders, and so Chris seeded that
band of cement with granite flex down it went, poured
the concrete, put on the chemical release agent. Left next
morning pressure washed it off, and now those granite boulders
(32:27):
are surrounded by these aprons of looks like more granite,
more granite. It's like a seamless match between the granite
boulder and the granite concrete until we get to the
actual dedication pavers. It is beautiful, it is gorgeous, and
it's concrete. Yeah, and it's the kind of stuff that
can be done with concrete these days. I think it's
(32:49):
just a stunning example of exactly So that's a good
example of seating. Right. So you're pouring out the concrete
per us, and right as you're starting to float in
the finish, when it's time to you know, and then
you're gonna be sprinkling like Bert, you know, just casting
out all of this stuff. And it's not superficial. You're
embedding it down. You're kind of trowling it down in
(33:13):
for floating is what we call. But we're embedding it
in the concrete. And then that chemical release agent is
going to allow us the next morning to re expose it.
And it doesn't come off and it doesn't wear. It's granted, yes,
that's not gonna color fade over time. That's not a
die or a powder or anything. It's more stone on
(33:34):
the cement. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
And by the way, that was just an absolutely beautiful job.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Chris, thank you.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
All right, everybody, here we are at the end of
another three hours. Man, does it blow by?
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
I will have Chris back on, and yes, the next
time I have him on, and we'll do it. Not
long from now. We'll be talking specifically about masonry. We're
gonna talk about brickwork and all of that kind of stuff. Okay,
just all of that fun stuff as well. But here
we are at the end of another program. I only
have just a brief wish for you today, not a
(34:11):
long closing thought because I wanted all of our material
to get out so that we made it through. It's
very simply this. You know, we talked about letting a
material be what it is. There is something honest about
really good design in that sense. Yeah, I love playing
tricks on people. I will fake something when we need
(34:34):
to fake it. And my general rule is the further
something is away from your critical perspective, the more you're
allowed to fake it, because nobody can get right up
close to it and discover that it's not real. But
that's not how life works. That's not how people work.
You know, we live right next to each other, and
(34:56):
for our closest friendships and our biggest relations ships and
the ones that we depend upon, like the concrete under
our homes that hold our lives up. You know, what
it needs to be real and real does not mean boring.
But the best thing that we can do, you and
I in our lives is to find the most beautiful
(35:19):
form of us that we can find the most beautiful
versions of us. And you know, instead of trying to
fake it, make the most out of what you are.
I like making the most out of concrete and leaving
it concrete, and I want you to make the most
out of what you are and you will shine in
the exact same way, in your own, unique and beautiful way.
(35:43):
And I think that resolution is the beginning of you
building yourself a beautiful life. Everybody, Enjoy the rest of
this Sunday, Enjoy the week ahead, and we'll be here
next weekend. And guess what's coming up next weekend. We'll
be talking about the best of the International Builders Show,
(36:03):
which is taking place this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Huge show, so much to talk about. Both shows next weekend.
Dedicated to all the little nuggets that I find along
the way. You're not going to want to miss it
in Until then, enjoy the day. We'll see you next week.
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
(36:25):
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey,
do you know this very program is also the House
Whisper podcast that you can listen to anytime, anywhere on demand.
Hundreds of episodes, all searchable by topic. It is literally
(00:23):
a home improvement reference library just for you. Today's show,
this Concrete broadcast with my very special in studio guest
Chris Carson, is going to belong and live for a
long long time on the House Whisper podcast. So if
you've missed any portion of today's show, about an hour
(00:44):
after we go off the air of the live broadcast,
it has already been converted into podcast form and it
is there waiting for you. Chris is going to tell
all his friends, oh, go check out the podcast I
was on with the House Whisper, my friend Dean's show,
and they'll all go back and they'll listen to him,
and then they're going to call him and ras him
do what everything that they do. And if you're thinking, hey,
(01:07):
that's all great, what we really need is Dean and
Tina standing in our house addressing that thing that we
have never been able to figure out. Well, you can
do that too. You can book an in home design
consult with me and the tea you just go to
house whisperer dot design. Okay, Chris, back into this conversation
(01:28):
about we were talking about crack control, I want to
switch over. I'm kind of we're ping pong and back
and forth when it comes to when it comes to
homes and an actual slab on grade house foundations. Most
of our listeners are not planning on building a new
house right now, but there are I would also say
(01:49):
that most of our listeners are not aware that since
the nineteen eighties, there are two very distinct kinds of
slabs out there that their home may be sitting on.
And if they're thinking about a remodel, if they're thinking
about a room edition, or if they're thinking about something
as simple as well, we're changing the configuration of the
(02:13):
bathroom and I'm thinking about putting the toilet on the
other side, and that's going to involve, you know, saw
cutting some concrete and moving a drain. There's something very
important for them to understand, and that is that the
way you deal with a traditional rebar slab versus a
post tension slab very very different, and it's important that
(02:34):
we know what the difference is. So why don't you,
first of all, I mean, I think everybody understands rebar,
you know, it's the traditional thing. Talk to me about
post tension slabs. Why are they so great?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And also what is their vulnerability?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Post tension is a way advanced reinforcing method that we
have now the good the post tension and it's a
cable wrapped in a heavy plastic sleeve and this cable
runs through it and it is attached to each you know,
(03:11):
each end of the form. If it's a square, it
goes both ways. And after you pour, you come and
hydraulically tension that cable up to a certain percent. It's
fresh concrete, so you won't go to its max PSI.
But what it's doing it's pulling. You know, this cable
is stretching and stretching, pulling this concrete together, eliminating the
(03:35):
possibility of separation and cracks. And then after it comes
up to so many days of the PSI getting to
where it needs to be, then they come in and
do the last post tension tightening. And that's mostly on
the newer homes I've been starting to do it on
the sports courts, in the town basketball courts, tennis courts,
(03:58):
there is a minimum of six inches thick on a
post tension slab. Huge, huge gainers in the respect that
you don't need all these control joints that we've been talking.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
About, because that that concrete has been pushed together on
itself so tight hydraulically, just that it is just solid
and so like on a sport or like a basketball court,
you don't want to but I'm dribbling, I don't want
a bunch of crack control joints under me because it's
just you know, I just want it nice and smooth.
But that's a big slab. To have no crack control.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Joints, well, they usually put one down the middle of
a tennis quarter basketball court, surety one in the middle,
But there's no way you can put score marks ten
foot on center.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It just it just messes up the point of the
thing signed the layout. Okay, So so in case you're
still kind of wondering, so instead of this uh these
rigid uh bits of rebar half inch diameter rebar being
tied together in grids all over the house before the
(05:03):
slab is poured, a post tension slab has these cables
strung through it. Uh and uh, and those cables stretch
out and and drill through the sides of the forms.
They hang out with Oh sorry, I did not mean
to bunch the more you know, buttons, But now I
know more. Yeah, now you know more? Right andrew yep.
So they hang out of the edge of the of
(05:26):
the forms, and then we pour. And then as that
concrete is setting up, then we put hydraulic equipment on
the outside and grab those cables. Essentially, but think of
it this way. Instead of rigid steel in your slab,
we we we're gonna run guitar strings through your slab. Okay,
steal guitar cable strings and uh. And after the concrete
(05:50):
is placed, we're gonna crank those knobs and we're gonna
tighten those guitar strings. We're gonna tune the guitar until
they are tight.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And under tension post post poor post meaning not a
post sticking up in the sky, but after the poor
meaning post tension. We put tension on the concrete after
the poor And so a traditional rebar slab has no
tension on it. It's just the bar is in there, and
it's helping to reinforce the brittleness of the concrete. But
(06:22):
this extra pressure and tension really helps the cement hold
itself together.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Totally totally different than rebar. Rebar. It's a myth people
think I'm going to put a bunch of rebar in
this lab to keep it from cracking. Rebar does not
keep concrete from cracking. It's going to crack. It's not
a post tension. It's not something that's hydraulically, you know,
brought up to a PSI. It's like, you know, concrete
with post tension, it's like a vice. You know, you
(06:49):
put the concrete and a vice and you tighten it.
That's the way it is forever.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So now post tension, it's realistic to say we're keeping
the concrete from cracking exactly truly, but post tension when
it comes to future work, has an achilles heel. We
need to talk about that literally, an achilles heel. I
think that's actually a really good metaphor for it. We're
going to discuss. So go nowhere. We're going to talk
(07:14):
about this on the other side of the break. If
you don't know, here's the critical thing. If you don't
know whether you've got a post tens slab or not,
you got to find out before anybody touches that concrete.
So hang with me. Yeah, did I tease you enough?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Good?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Hang tight.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
At your service. Thanks for joining us on the program.
We are talking all things concrete today with my special
in studio guest Chris Carson, and so we were talking
about before the break to a traditional slab slab on
grade for a house is done with rebar, a reinforcement
(07:59):
bar tied with I think everybody knows what rebar looks like.
And if you've ever seen a pore before it happens,
you see it's all tied together in a grid of
some sort and people wonder how close and what kind
And there's no universal answer to that, all right, It
really it's an engineering thing. The size of the rebar
(08:19):
I can tell you. Typically the size of a rebar
for a residential slab on great house is usually what
we call number four rebar, which is a half inch rebar,
and it's usually tied somewhere in the area of eighteen
to twenty four inches on center, you know, eighteen to
twenty four inch squares, and Chris is nodding his head,
so I know I'm telling you the right thing, and
that's you know. And plus then there are extra bits
(08:41):
of rebar at the bottom of the bottom of footings
and the top of footings, and what we call grade beams,
and there's just and pads for structural posts, and on
and on it goes. The other kind of slab that
has been more and more utilized started off on kind
of exclusively on the high end, and then more developers
(09:03):
started using it later on, starting in the eighties, would
be a post tension slab, which before the break we
were saying uses cables that are tightened after the fact.
Those A post tension slab, because of the nature of
its structure, doesn't need as much stuff in it. In
other words, you don't find post tension slabs at eighteen
(09:26):
inches making eighteen inches square grids with these cables. Most
of the time. It's three to four foot apart from
each other in general. That's but my experience. You can
correct me if I'm wrong about that, Chris, But it's
about three to four feet on center. But right before
the break. You know, I teased you a little bit
and said, a post tension slab for all of its
(09:49):
immense benefits. I mean we're talking essentially a crack proof
slab without any control joints in it. It has an
achilles heel, and the achille heel is very simply this.
You can work. You can remodel and work around a
post tension slab butt unlike a traditional slab, where I
(10:11):
can just go in with a concrete saw and make
cuts and cut through rebar if I need to. Because
if I cut open a pad of a concrete and
I've cut out a section of rebar, then I can
turn around and dowl in to the side of that
old cut with some epoxy, some new rebar, and remake
the pad and retie it in. But if we cut
(10:34):
a post tension cable, one of these high tension cable
that's running across, it not only affects that cut right there,
but it affects the structural stability of the slab along
the entire length of that cable. Not only it could
be a dangerous thing as well, but most importantly, ultimately,
(10:56):
putting the danger side across, you can you can mess
up an entire section of your slab.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
You can. I'd say the danger part that you were
mentioning would be the more concerning problem if you lost
a cable. You have so many cables in there. Without
one cable, you're going to be okay, this slab is
not going to fail. But it's a very dangerous thing
to not know you have a post tension slab and
to cut into it. I'm sure people have been hurt. Seriously.
(11:27):
It explodes because of all the tension in the cable.
When you cut it, it basically explodes. And you're only
talking a cable that's in a six inch piece of
concrete and it's not it's not something that you want
to get involved with. To prevent that. We x ray
slabs and lay it all out on the top of
(11:49):
the slab before you know, you have to get in
to do maybe a plumbing repair or an electrical problem,
So you need to be aware. A lot of times
they'll have a stamp in the girl that we'll say
post tension foundation. I don't always see them there, but
that's what they used to do. But there might be
signs on the side of the stem walls, the sides
(12:12):
of the walls of the foundation that show the cups
and how they're mounded, unless they're stuccoed over. But it's
good to know if you have post tension slab or not,
and you've got a problem with your house, you need
to dig into it. You better know what you.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Got exactly now. Again not to say there's really there
aren't any limits to what you can do with a
post tension slab versus the standard slab as far as
making alterations and so on. It really just comes down
to this, You've got to know where the cables are
and you don't cut them right. Apart from that, we
can go in and do In fact, we can expose
a cable, a section of cable. We can cut around
(12:47):
it very carefully. We can expose a section of cable.
We can get in there and do all sorts of
stuff and put it all back, and there are processes
for all that. But we don't cut the cables because
that can be problematic on a number of levels. So
know what you've got, And if you're just sitting there,
you know, not doing any work on your house, No,
(13:08):
you don't have to go find out what you got tomorrow,
because it doesn't matter right, and the house of the house,
you're just gonna know that you've got a house that's
never had any uplift and no cracks in the slab
and so on. And if it's a house after built
after the eighties, there's a good chance that it might
be a post tension house there. But any work in
which anybody is talking about doing anything with that concrete slab,
(13:32):
you've got to know ahead of time. And it's it's
only you know, you know, a few dollars I mean
talking about a few hundred dollars to have a location
service come out. And these guys specialize in this. The
same guys that find, you know, broken water lines under
your home and so on, can come out and X
ray and scan your slab and literally, like Chris said,
(13:53):
put down tape marking like here it is. You know,
if the bear slab, they can paint it for you,
but they can roll tape around to cross and show
you right here here, you know, within an inch or two,
here is where this cable is, and here's where that
cable is. And then you just make sure that everybody
avoids them, you know, so that so that we don't
(14:14):
end up with something disastrous on our hands, all right, Chris,
So I want to keep rolling here. I've got just
enough time to tease the next segment blameing the structural
slab aside. I want to get back into the esthetic stuff.
And we've talked about cracks, and we've talked about the
proper way. We've talked about the ideal, the situation for
(14:38):
pouring and all of that, and maybe we can touch
a little bit more on that some other weather conditions
that are problematic. But I want to talk about finishes,
your favorite finishes and your least favorite finishes. Now, why
should that matter to me? I'm a designer and I'm
just going to give my clients the finish they want.
(14:59):
But the fact the matter is some finishes perform better
than others in the long term. Some finishes promise a
lot and in my opinion, end up delivering far less
than what they promise. So I want everybody to hear
from you, from your vast experience, the kind of concrete
(15:21):
finishes that you like the most, sand finish, broom finish,
stamped concrete, exposed aggregate. What are these things, how do
they work? And in your experience, which are the ones
that really hold up to everything they promise and what
falls short. We will talk about that right on the
other side of the news.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You are home. I hope you feel home. That's my goal.
Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer. We spend
every minute of this program every weekend on Saturday mornings
from six to eight and Sundays from nine to noon
talking about your home. It's design. We talk about it
(16:10):
all the way from its architecture down to the nitty
gritty of home repair, home construction, inside, outside, the whole thing.
It's all about your house and your home and taking
your ordinary house and turning it into hopefully an extraordinary home.
One of the most basic and fundamental elements, whether it's
(16:30):
in the slab itself or in the outside decorative flatwork,
is concrete. Concrete is just simply one of the most
important things that we do on planet Earth, and one
of the biggest things that we do. It's been a
great show so far. We're turning the corner around eleven
thirty here and I have in studio with me my
(16:51):
very special guest, Chris Carson. Fantastic Concrete and masonry contractor.
And we've been talking all things concrete, So Chris, now
let's get back out into the decorative side of things.
As I said before the break, from a design perspective,
we have a lot of options for finishes of concrete,
(17:13):
and as a designer, there are so many options that
it might be tempting if I wasn't anchored in the
builder side of me, to just say yes to anything
that a client is looking for. But there are finishes
that I've encountered over the years that I like definitely
(17:35):
better and worse when it comes to concrete. And I'm
interested from your perspective if there are finishes that you
like for better or worse. And it's not that Chris's
taste or my taste should determine your taste, but you
should listen to some experts who have some serious experience
with it in terms of maybe that finish is not
(17:58):
going to follow through with everything that it's promising. So
I would love to hear from you, what, by the way,
what so, what is your favorite concrete finish? I think
most people have seen all of them, whether they realize
it or not. Probably not, but most people have encountered
all the finishes. They just may not know what it
(18:18):
is that they're looking at. But what's your favorite finish for?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Right? We have so many options now. The thing that
you need to look at it also is the longevity
of the looks, whether or not it's going to fade,
and what's going to happen in the future with this
type of finish you've created. There's finishes now, an exposed
agg again and finish, a sand finish that those involve
(18:43):
a chemical that we put on and wash off the
next morning and expose Maybe a sand finish would be
exposing the very top layer of the concrete into a
porous sand finish, and then you can go deeper into
that into the aggregant. That is a look very popular
is the stamp. Stamp colored finishes. Those to me and
(19:06):
after doing this all those years, I come back and
look at them underneath the patio cover. They look beautiful.
With the colors put out in the sun. They're faded.
People want to know what can I do? This looks terrible.
It's all watched out For that reason alone, right there,
I would tend to stay away from the stamp and
(19:27):
the coloring. Sometimes it works on a house, or sometimes
you have it and you have to match it. But
to come back and put a sealer on it and recolor,
you're going to be married to that and it's going
to be a constant thing, moving furniture, pressure watching, ceiling coloring.
Where a sand finish and other types of finishes don't
require anything you come back in ten years. They look
(19:49):
just like that, you know, other than your just standard
broom finishes. But people want options with their house. They
want something that looks good. They want to put in
a new backyard, a new back patio, definitely put in
a kicked up finish. There's so many alternatives, but you
want something that you aren't going to come back in
five or eight years and go goud. It's all getting
(20:10):
bleached out, but it looks great under the cover. Right,
I didn't finished, is my answer to your question.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
All right, so I knew you were gonna rag on
stamped concrete because here is the thing I think my
experience has been in working with most homeowners that I
think right now, most of our listeners would prior to
this conversation, at this moment right here, would assume that
(20:37):
a stamped concrete finishes the pinnacle of concrete finishes, and
what y'all are not aware of is within the industry itself,
it is the finish that makes most of us roll
our eyes the most because of everything that Chris just
talked about. Well, so let me talk from a design perspective.
(21:00):
From a design perspective, stamped concrete is usually not my
first go to, never my first go to at all,
for a couple of reasons. One, it is an attempt
to emulate another material, and as a designer, I would
rather just use the other material. In other words, a
(21:21):
stamped concrete is trying to look like a cobble, or
it's trying to look like a flagstone, or it's trying
to look like some kind of a natural stone finish.
So we have the stamps, and we have the mats,
and we press in and we emboss the top of
the concrete, and then if we really want to go
to the nth degree, there are powders and color additives
(21:45):
that are put on the surface that affect the surface
color to try and get that stony two or three
tone finish, and believe me, it can be done beautifully.
I've seen Chris's stuff look beautiful. But the point is
every one of those additional elements can react differently to time,
(22:06):
to UV, light from the sun, uneven, fading and blotching
and all, I mean, just all sorts of stuff. So
it really the big secret is within the industry, it's
the least desired finish within the industry.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
And now also with pavers, they seem to be quite
popular for many reasons. Just talking about the color with pavers,
it's so dense. Pavers don't have the qualities of concrete.
They don't fade as much in pavers. The colors, You're
going to get a lot more time out of your
(22:42):
pavers with the color almost no problem. I haven't seen
pavers completely fail with their colors make a stamp concrete.
And also the pavers another benefit. Hey, if you've got
a tree root that grows underneath your driveway sad lab
and it's all lifted, you pull the papers up, you
put them back down, you take the roots out. You
never know anything that happens pavers. You know what, within
(23:04):
the last ten fifteen years, you're starting to see a
lot more people doing pavers. They've been around for a while,
but now they're starting to make more sense. With trees,
which you're in getting bigger trees are our number one
caused tree roots probably most concrete crackings.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So absolutely a no brainer. If you're thinking about a
concrete driveway that is supposed to emulate cobble, then just
do it in pavers. Because you talk about papers been
around for a long time. Pavers are as old as
paving gets because essentially a modern day concrete paver is
the modern version of cobblestone. I mean, and what are
(23:39):
the advantages? As Chris said, these are individual units. Now
we're back to that definition of masonry. These are individual
units that are going into a driveway or a patio,
and if anything ever needed to be dealt with underneath,
we can literally unzip those units, set them aside, get underneath,
do whatever needs to be done, cut that tree root,
(24:00):
move that sewer line, and then literally put them back
into place again. And there's no cracking in a paver
or driveway because as the settling or whatever minute things happen,
they just it's absorbed in all of those joints. And
so that's another reason why stamped concrete is just not
(24:20):
necessary on this level. So it may come as a
shock to everybody to find out that we're not big
fans of stamp concrete. But hopefully it's it's an educational
one because down the line the problems with fading and
modeling and all of the above. Now you said you
like a sand finish, I love a sand finish. I
(24:42):
also love exposed aggregate. I want to explain that process
a little bit clearer for everybody so that they understand that.
I think we're just going to have enough time to
do that before we are out today. So hold tight
if you want to hear how and why these are
far more reliable and I think more beautiful finishes. Number one,
(25:03):
you already know that I've showed my hand because I
think if we use concrete, let's just not hide it.
Let's use concrete, and let's use concrete in its most
beautiful forms. Otherwise, if we want a flagstone driveway, let's
buy some flagstone right and just make a flagstone driveway.
It'll hold up much better than a stamped version of
(25:24):
flagstone long term. But if we're the other advantage of
a beautifully finished concrete driveway is they're not that expensive
to achieve. No, I mean we're talking of sand or
an aggregate exposed aggregate finish. It's just a couple extra steps.
We're going to be done that day at the same time. Yeah, so, yeah,
(25:44):
you have some chemic goals. You have some release or
whatever it's going to be to retard that concrete so
we can wash it to get the effect that we want,
but not that much effort to make concrete look different.
It's all going to be done, you Port seven. It's
all gonna be done at twelve one o'clock. I don't
care what what we're gonna do. You're gonna have You're
(26:05):
gonna have your concrete at the end of the day,
and we're gonna be out of your hair all right.
When we come back, we're gonna explain how that particular
set of finishes work. Uh uh, and we're gonna wrap
it up.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI A M six forty.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Here we are final segment of the show. But don't
go anywhere because I am taking this content all the
way to the very end because there's so much, you know,
and we have just scratched the surface on the subject
of concrete today. We didn't even get into masonry per se.
Uh and we're gonna have to come back Chris and
do that another day with me. Is that okay with you?
(26:47):
All Right? Everybody's loving you on the show. We're getting
we're getting calls and emails and it's just been great.
So uh, we kind of spent the last segment pooh
poohing stamped concrete. Uh you know, not that it doesn't
have its place in a certain place, but you and
I both would you know, as builders and as a designers,
(27:08):
we would rather go in different directions with concrete. I'd
rather let concrete be concrete and let it be amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
It's kind of like back when we used to foe
our walls in our living room, right, Yeah, that was
in That was huge. Yeah. I used to do it too.
I mean, I mean how many years ago was that?
Fifteen twenty years? It stated, Maybe it's kind of like
stamp concrete in a way.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah. I think I just think materials if I think
you can take a material and from a design perspective,
take it as many places as it can go itself,
and you discover all new realms to it instead of
just the assumption, well concrete is just gray and boring.
(27:50):
But hey, guess what we learned to do. We learned
to stamp it and turn it in and make it
look like something yeah yeah, but not right. And so anyway,
on the side object of this, there are a series
of finishes that you and I both love. A sand finish,
an exposed aggregate finish, and a process called seeding. And
I'm just gonna set it up here and then you
(28:11):
can get in and correct me or make the specifics.
But essentially what we're talking about is both a sand
finish and exposed aggregate finish and seeding is we are.
What we're doing is we're pouring a regular poor floating
a regular poor It looks, you know, at the end
of the day, it pretty much looks like we've just
(28:32):
left behind a flat, old, you know, boring, normal concrete job.
But right at the end because of something we've put
into the concrete, either the size of specialized aggregate stones
or a sand in bedmont in the top or seeding.
(28:53):
What you're gonna explain a second. We spray a chemical
over the top of that curing concre and it comes
in many names, and there are a lot of different
ones out there, but we just spray kind of Hudson
spray or out of chemical over walk away, walk away.
Usually come back unless weather conditions are making us do otherwise.
(29:15):
Usually come back the next morning and pressure wash that
material off. And what that chemical does in one way
or another, it's a retardant in terms of it keeps
that top little layer of the cement from curing. Okay, well,
everything else is curing and hardening up, that one is
staying vulnerable. And under the pressure of a pressure washer,
(29:38):
we blast away that very top layer of concrete and
expose the hidden treasure underneath, which is this embedded finish
of either sand, which is a beautiful smooth finish, or
the aggregate like the pea gravel aggregate that's in the
mix of the concrete itself, or what you've seeded into
(29:59):
the concrete the day before, which takes it to a
whole different level. And talk about what seeding is.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, we can keep going with this thing. Seating is
a process where there's material shops now that just sell
different types of rock or granite or glass or pearl
or abalone shells. We take this stuff and we actually,
like bird seed, we spread it onto the concrete at
(30:24):
the right time after it's in our finishing process. Effort
starts to get a little bit tight, and we just
throw this on like bird seed, all through the whole top,
almost solid, and then we floated in, get that cement
over it and get it attached to the aggregant that
we've installed, so it's going to here, and then we
(30:46):
apply a chemical and the next morning we wash it
and it's all all the aggregant is left, but the
cement is washed out.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Now, if you live in eastern Ventura County, and I'm
going to describe this sort of makes sense to everybody.
If you live in southern California, you know that years ago,
I was twenty eighteen, I want to say, was the
Borderline mass shooting at the Borderline Club out here in
Thousand Oaks. Afterwards, our local park in Naho Creek North
(31:20):
commissioned a memorial for all of those who were lost
who lost their lives in the Borderline shooting. Chris is
the one who actually put that memorial together, designed and
put that memorial together. There are large granite boulders, one
for each of the individuals who lost their lives at
(31:40):
the Borderline, and then out in the field there are
pavers of people who have signed the backs, and you know,
it's a very very intimate, very very meaningful thing in
between the pavers and the boulders. The boulders are skirted
with cement with concrete, and Chris didn't want just another
color element entering into it. He wanted something to blend.
(32:03):
And so we have these large like you know, granite
like you know, river boulders, and so Chris seeded that
band of cement with granite flex down it went, poured
the concrete, put on the chemical release agent. Left next
morning pressure washed it off, and now those granite boulders
(32:27):
are surrounded by these aprons of looks like more granite,
more granite. It's like a seamless match between the granite
boulder and the granite concrete until we get to the
actual dedication pavers. It is beautiful, it is gorgeous, and
it's concrete. Yeah, and it's the kind of stuff that
can be done with concrete these days. I think it's
(32:49):
just a stunning example of exactly So that's a good
example of seating. Right. So you're pouring out the concrete
per us, and right as you're starting to float in
the finish, when it's time to you know, and then
you're gonna be sprinkling like Bert, you know, just casting
out all of this stuff. And it's not superficial. You're
embedding it down. You're kind of trowling it down in
(33:13):
for floating is what we call. But we're embedding it
in the concrete. And then that chemical release agent is
going to allow us the next morning to re expose it.
And it doesn't come off and it doesn't wear. It's granted, yes,
that's not gonna color fade over time. That's not a
die or a powder or anything. It's more stone on
(33:34):
the cement. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
And by the way, that was just an absolutely beautiful job.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Chris, thank you.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
All right, everybody, here we are at the end of
another three hours. Man, does it blow by?
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
I will have Chris back on, and yes, the next
time I have him on, and we'll do it. Not
long from now. We'll be talking specifically about masonry. We're
gonna talk about brickwork and all of that kind of stuff. Okay,
just all of that fun stuff as well. But here
we are at the end of another program. I only
have just a brief wish for you today, not a
(34:11):
long closing thought because I wanted all of our material
to get out so that we made it through. It's
very simply this. You know, we talked about letting a
material be what it is. There is something honest about
really good design in that sense. Yeah, I love playing
tricks on people. I will fake something when we need
(34:34):
to fake it. And my general rule is the further
something is away from your critical perspective, the more you're
allowed to fake it, because nobody can get right up
close to it and discover that it's not real. But
that's not how life works. That's not how people work.
You know, we live right next to each other, and
(34:56):
for our closest friendships and our biggest relations ships and
the ones that we depend upon, like the concrete under
our homes that hold our lives up. You know, what
it needs to be real and real does not mean boring.
But the best thing that we can do, you and
I in our lives is to find the most beautiful
(35:19):
form of us that we can find the most beautiful
versions of us. And you know, instead of trying to
fake it, make the most out of what you are.
I like making the most out of concrete and leaving
it concrete, and I want you to make the most
out of what you are and you will shine in
the exact same way, in your own, unique and beautiful way.
(35:43):
And I think that resolution is the beginning of you
building yourself a beautiful life. Everybody, Enjoy the rest of
this Sunday, Enjoy the week ahead, and we'll be here
next weekend. And guess what's coming up next weekend. We'll
be talking about the best of the International Builders Show,
(36:03):
which is taking place this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Huge show, so much to talk about. Both shows next weekend.
Dedicated to all the little nuggets that I find along
the way. You're not going to want to miss it
in Until then, enjoy the day. We'll see you next week.
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
(36:25):
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Home with Dean Sharp News
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