Decorative concrete ideas on walls

With the emergence of advance technology, the color, texture and patterns can now be added to concrete to make it decorative and stylish product.

Given below, some useful tips on how to utilize aesthetic concrete in designs.

1. Stamped concrete: Emulating nature and reiterating the appearance of natural materials like wood grain textures or rock patterns, or even brick outlines and other creative designs, stamped concrete offers huge scopes for making decorative concrete surfaces. Now, advance technology makes it possible to provide decorative art effects on both walls and other vertical surfaces, both interior and exterior.

2. Lightly etched concrete: Now, lightly etched concrete surfaces are also becoming popular. These types of surfaces do not contain any joints and produce seamless surfaces. Usually, it is formed with sandblasting or acid wash. To develop a light surface with approx thickness of 0.25 mm, extra-light surface retarders are utilized. This dry-shake powder can is integrated with fresh cast-in-place concrete and new-generation stencils rather than stamps. Different types of designs are formed with diverse colors.

3. Shaped (precast) concrete: With shaped concrete, it is possible to develop attractive vertical surfaces. With the application of formwork or moulds to cast concrete panels, various types of shapes or designs can be produced which one can visualize with concrete from gently flowing structures, curves, edges and more.

4. Colored concrete: By applying an extensive range of color pigments, both ready-mix concrete and dry-cast products are colored to diverse intensities, shades and brightness. One can only select to color the surface or to indicate integral coloring, which permeates the concrete throughout in order that the color won’t wear away with the existence of abrasion.

It should be kept in mind that the same cement from the same plant should be employed to provide a persistent color because portland cement can change from light to dark grey. The color of pigmented concrete can also be changed with the cement content, aggregate color and texture, as well as the total water content.

In order to color or decorate existing concrete as well as repair faded colors, the concrete dyes, stains are used or it can be done with an overlay of pigmented concrete.

5. Metallic coatings: Metallic coatings are also used to produce unique dazzling textures and effects. They are suitable for industrial interiors where two surfaces do not appear exactly same. Metallic epoxy coatings are normally utilized with a coating knife and softened over the vertical surface or smeared with the help of creative blending methods. It is possible to apply in excess of one metallic color, with or without an accent background color, and can even create textured surfaces.

To get more detail, go through the following video tutorial www.buildinganddecor.co.za



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published By
Rajib Dey
www.constructioncost.co
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Types and properties of bricks

Bricks is produced from well clay molding, that is dried and then burnt. The size of the brick varies from 90 mm × 90 mm × 90 mm and 190 mm × 90 mm × 40 mm. With mortar joints, the size of brick varies from 200 mm × 100 mm × 100 mm and 200 mm × 100 mm × 50 mm.

Types of Bricks: Bricks are categorized as -

(i) Building bricks, (ii) Paving bricks, (iii) Fire bricks, (iv) Special bricks.

Properties of Bricks: The standard quality bricks should contain the following properties -

(i) Colour: The color should have been identical and clear.

(ii) Shape: Shape of the bricks should have been sharp and genuine rectangular angles.

(iii) Size: There should be standard dimensions for bricks with adherence to codes.

(iv) Texture: A standard brick should contain a fine, solid and consistent texture. They should be free from fissures, cavities, loose grit and unburned lime.

(v) Virtue: If the brick is hit with another brick, there should be a metal sound.

(vi) Hardness: If scratches are made with finger on a brick, there should not be any mark on the brick.

(vii) Strength: The breaking strength of brick should not be under 3.5 N / mm2. A field test is conducted to check the strength by dropping the brick from a height of 0.9 m to 1.0 mm on a hard surface. If the brick has good strength, the stone should not be broken into pieces.

(viii) Water absorption: Once the brick is drowned in water for 24 hours, the water absorption rate should not exceed 20 percent by weight. For class I bricks, this limit remains 15 percent.

(ix) Efficiency: There should not be any white patches in bricks when they are drenched in water for 24 hours and then allowed to dry in the shade. White stains may appear because of the existence of sulfate of calcium, magnesium and potassium. They retain masonry in wet and humid conditions.

(x) Thermal conductivity: Bricks should contain low thermal conductivity, so the buildings developed with bricks should have cold temperature in summer and warm temperature in winter.

(xi) Sound insulation: Bigger bricks have poor sound insulators whereas light and hollow bricks have superior sound insulation.

(xii) (xii) Fire resistance: Normally, the fire resistance capacity of brick is good. Actually, bricks are utilized to trap steel columns to safeguard them from fire.

Read more

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published By
Rajib Dey
www.constructioncost.co
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~