Concrete sealing
Concrete Sealing, Collingwood & Blue Mountains
Driveways, walkways, patios and pool decks. Penetrating sealer, not a film — because a film on an exterior slab here fails in two winters.
Sealing is the outdoor half of what we do, and it is not a thinner version of a garage coating. The enemy is the same — chloride and freeze-thaw — but the answer is the opposite one.
Why a film-forming product fails outside here
An exterior slab in South Georgian Bay takes moisture from below all year: there is no vapour barrier under a driveway, the water table rises in spring, and the ground stays wet under snow cover for months. A film-forming sealer traps that moisture at the interface. Then the freeze-thaw cycles — and this region gets a great many of them, because we sit right on the lake-effect line where the temperature crosses zero repeatedly rather than staying below it — work that trapped water directly under the film until it lifts.
What you get is a sealer that looked excellent for one season, went cloudy in the second, and is peeling in sheets by the third. Almost every failed driveway sealer we are asked to strip is a film that should never have been a film.
What we use instead
A penetrating silane or siloxane sealer soaks into the capillaries and lines them rather than bridging the surface. Water beads and chloride is repelled, the slab still breathes upward, and there is nothing to delaminate because there is no film. It does not change the appearance much, which disappoints some people and is exactly why it lasts.
| Surface | What we recommend | Re-seal interval |
|---|---|---|
| Driveway, walkway | Penetrating silane/siloxane | 3–5 years |
| Exposed aggregate | Penetrating, matte | 3–4 years |
| Stamped or coloured | Decorative acrylic — the one film we will apply | 1–2 years, and it will amber |
| Pool deck | Penetrating, with slip additive where required | 2–4 years |
| Garage interior | Not this — see coating | n/a |
Concrete sealing and driveway sealing in Collingwood
The timing rules here are about water, not about cold, and that surprises people. Euclid's Baracade Silane 100 C — a penetrating silane of the type we use on a driveway — only prohibits application below −6°C and on a frost-filled surface. Temperature is almost never what stops us. What stops us is moisture: the sheet wants the surface dry for at least 24 hours after rain, and it wants four rain-free hours afterwards while the silane reacts. Beside Georgian Bay that is the scarce commodity, not warmth.
So we work this roughly May to mid-September, and the reason is the run of dry days rather than the thermometer. On new concrete the same sheet asks only 7 days of cure and says longer is better; we hold to 28 days, because a slab still giving off water gives the silane less to bond into and you have bought a shorter service life for the same money.
When sealing is the wrong answer
- A slab that is already spalling. Sealing locks chloride into the damage rather than keeping it out — that needs repair and resurfacing first, or replacement.
- A slab with active efflorescence, which is telling you moisture is moving through it faster than any sealer will stop.
- A driveway you intend to replace within two years. Spend the money on the replacement.
- Anything already carrying a failed film. That is a strip-and-start-again job, and the stripping is most of the cost.
Talk to a Collingwood floor coating contractor
Tell us the size of the bay, roughly when the slab was poured, and whether the building is heated. That is usually enough for a realistic range over the phone — and enough for us to say if you are in the small group of floors where the honest answer is to fix the water before spending anything on a coating.