Stamped Concrete Patios and Driveways in Thunder Bay, ON

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It can be, and the cause is usually the sealer rather than the pattern. A film-forming sealer over a textured surface can still be slick when wet, which is why anti-slip additive gets mixed into the sealer or broadcast into it while wet. Additives improve the surface without making it non-slip. For a walkway or anywhere that ices up, we would talk you through where stamped concrete is and is not the right call.

More than a broom finish, and the difference is mostly the labour of colouring, stamping, detailing, and sealing a surface that cannot be paused halfway. Area, shape complexity, pattern choice, borders, and access all move it. Send us photos and a rough size and we will give you a number. Two questions worth asking every contractor you get a quote from: what air content are you ordering, and what does resealing cost me down the road.

The pour and stamp is a single intense day, and most jobs run two to four days on site all in. What is different from plain concrete is that we come back: the release agent is washed off a day or two later, and the sealer goes on after that once the surface has dried and the temperature cooperates. So the job finishes in stages rather than all at once, and we will tell you the dates.

Yes, the same as any concrete, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling. What matters is where. Control joints still have to be cut to a quarter of the slab depth, because the stamped pattern is not deep enough to work as a joint no matter how much it looks like one. On linear patterns like slate or brick we lay the joints into the pattern lines so they disappear. On random stone patterns that is not possible and the joint will be visible.

It depends almost entirely on the mix and the sealer, not on the pattern. Exterior concrete here has to be air-entrained to handle freezing salt water, and the honest complication in decorative work is that some colour methods perform better in concrete with less air. We will tell you exactly what we are ordering for your job. We do not make comparative durability claims against plain broom finish, because no independent study exists and every comparison you will read online was written by somebody selling one of the two.

Every one to two years depending on exposure, sometimes two to three. This is a real ongoing cost and it is worth budgeting for before you commit, because a stamped surface that stops being resealed dulls, gets more porous, and stains more easily. Sealer also cannot be applied below 10 C, so resealing is a spring or summer job here, not something you can catch up on in October.

Usually yes, though published figures vary enough that you should get real quotes for both rather than trusting a range online. The more useful difference is structural. Pavers are factory-made units tested to their own product standard, and a settled paver can be lifted and reset. Stamped concrete is one continuous slab, so it will not shift unevenly, and it also cannot be repaired in one small spot without the patch showing.

Sweep it, and wash it with water and a soft brush. Go easy with a pressure washer, because too much pressure can lift colour hardener off the surface. No de-icer of any kind the first winter, sand for traction instead. After that, never use anything magnesium based or ammonium based on stamped concrete, at any age, because those attack the surface chemically. Plain rock salt sparingly is the least harmful option, and it stops working below about minus nine anyway.

Sometimes. If the colour was integral it runs all the way through and what you are usually seeing is a failed sealer rather than lost colour, which is a much better problem to have. If it was a surface colour hardener that has worn, the options are recolouring or an overlay, and overlays in this climate carry their own risk once moisture gets underneath them. Send us photos and we will tell you which situation you are in.