Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:41 am
Apologies for another question on sealants…
We had a light, sawn Indian sandstone patio laid a little over three years ago. It’s around 100 square metres and has fairly narrow joints (rough average 6mm) – it looks like many of the ‘contemporary’ patios in the brochures.
After a couple of years of cycling through it going deep green, jetwashing, using chlorine etc., last summer we decided to bite the bullet and get it sealed. I had a good look through these forums (thanks for all your very helpful posts!) and decided we ought to do it properly, so I had Dry Treat Stainproof applied by a Dry Treat-accredited contractor.
The Dry-Treat has generally been good on the stone. However, one problem I (and the contractor) hadn't been prepared for was that the Dry-Treat hasn't had much effect on the porosity of the joints.
Unfortunately the joints were done with one of the one-part polymerics (Sika Pavefix I believe.) Although the joints were treated with plenty of the Dry-Treat, other than in one or two places they’re still extremely porous – I guess that even once cured, the structure of the polymeric just isn’t dense enough for Dry-Treat to work with. In places the joints have also shrunk slightly and come away from the sides of the stones, which I understand is fairly normal.
When it rains, the joints become completely saturated and can take days to dry out fully. They look pretty ugly while wet/drying; the constant dampness means that they quickly go green/black; I’m concerned that if we have a heavy winter they’ll just fall apart; and last but not least, in a few places the stone is still going deep green around the edges of the joints as dampness seeps through despite the Dry-Treat.
Obviously the correct response would be to grind the joints out and re-do with something better, and I certainly hope to get someone in to do that in a year or two, but it’s not really possible right now.
The reason for this post is that I’m considering going over the joints with a topical sealant to waterproof them.
Although not ideal, this should at least be relatively quick, I can do it myself, and it shouldn’t cost the earth… I have a couple of sealant samples from Resiblock to test out when the weather improves. I'll try painting the sealant over the joints with a brush, making sure the coat goes up to the edge of the stone (possibly easier said than done.)
My question is… does this sound like a good idea? Is it pure idiocy?
Any thoughts or experiences would be very gratefully received.
Thanks!
We had a light, sawn Indian sandstone patio laid a little over three years ago. It’s around 100 square metres and has fairly narrow joints (rough average 6mm) – it looks like many of the ‘contemporary’ patios in the brochures.
After a couple of years of cycling through it going deep green, jetwashing, using chlorine etc., last summer we decided to bite the bullet and get it sealed. I had a good look through these forums (thanks for all your very helpful posts!) and decided we ought to do it properly, so I had Dry Treat Stainproof applied by a Dry Treat-accredited contractor.
The Dry-Treat has generally been good on the stone. However, one problem I (and the contractor) hadn't been prepared for was that the Dry-Treat hasn't had much effect on the porosity of the joints.
Unfortunately the joints were done with one of the one-part polymerics (Sika Pavefix I believe.) Although the joints were treated with plenty of the Dry-Treat, other than in one or two places they’re still extremely porous – I guess that even once cured, the structure of the polymeric just isn’t dense enough for Dry-Treat to work with. In places the joints have also shrunk slightly and come away from the sides of the stones, which I understand is fairly normal.
When it rains, the joints become completely saturated and can take days to dry out fully. They look pretty ugly while wet/drying; the constant dampness means that they quickly go green/black; I’m concerned that if we have a heavy winter they’ll just fall apart; and last but not least, in a few places the stone is still going deep green around the edges of the joints as dampness seeps through despite the Dry-Treat.
Obviously the correct response would be to grind the joints out and re-do with something better, and I certainly hope to get someone in to do that in a year or two, but it’s not really possible right now.
The reason for this post is that I’m considering going over the joints with a topical sealant to waterproof them.
Although not ideal, this should at least be relatively quick, I can do it myself, and it shouldn’t cost the earth… I have a couple of sealant samples from Resiblock to test out when the weather improves. I'll try painting the sealant over the joints with a brush, making sure the coat goes up to the edge of the stone (possibly easier said than done.)
My question is… does this sound like a good idea? Is it pure idiocy?
Any thoughts or experiences would be very gratefully received.
Thanks!