Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Michael Stewart
Welcome to another episode of the TKO concrete Podcast. I’m Mike Stewart, your host, we have Zack here today who is the concrete flooring expert for TKO. And he’s going to be talking about thin overlays. What what is a thin overlay, Zach.
Zach Allman
So a lot of people these days have been calling us they’ve gotten beat up concrete and to, to replace and repair concrete is typically so expensive, you pay more to bust it out, because it’s a lot of labor, it’s hard to get somebody who wants to take it at a dump site. So a lot of people nowadays, they’ll have us come out, especially in neighborhoods, neighborhood driveways, and things like that you can’t get permits, and it’s you wait forever on homeowners association. So what we do is we do a thin overlay on top of these driveways, patios, any type of concrete, really. And if you have a broom finish driveway or a walkway, it’s it’s a really good money saving technique. It’s a bag mix material that we can pour out onto the concrete itself after we wash it. And then you can trial it out and give it a broom finish. It gives it that nice textured sidewalk look and feel. It fills in all the big cracks all the holes, things like that gives you one nice color across the entire driveway, or patio or walkway if you have it. And and it’s just a good way to clean it up without having to completely rip it out and replace it.
Michael Stewart
Oh, so essentially, it’s just like a thin topping of concrete. Right? So it’s an aid. Exactly,
Zach Allman
exactly. And a lot of people nowadays, you know, they don’t necessarily want just that topping look, they don’t, they don’t like the gray concrete look, if they’re going to have us come out and they want us to, you know, do the whole deal. So what we can also do is we can do these thin overlays. And then on top of those, we can finish them with an epoxy floor, a flake floor, you know, acetone dye, whatever you’d like, and kind of spruce it up a little bit.
Michael Stewart
Okay, so I assume do you have to get a permit to do this overlay? Or is that something that doesn’t require permission
Zach Allman
overlays, you never have to get a permit for you can always do those immediately. Sometimes certain neighborhoods will require an HOA approval. But the only thing that you’re doing is you’re basically bringing your concrete back to life, just as it looked when it was poured originally, it’s not like you’re gonna have different shapes and swirls inside of the driveway. So long as you pour it right back, you usually don’t have to get any permission from anybody.
Michael Stewart
Well, that makes it easier faster and assume it’s less expensive, because you’re not, you’re not removing the original driveway or patio or whatever it is you’re repairing with the overlay under it the the old the old structure is still there. It’s just covered with the new overlay of content, or what would you call it, I guess the is the mixture of the
Zach Allman
so we call them thinset overlays. Basically, it’s a little misleading because they’re not they’re not actual thin set material that’s more of a concrete material. But they’re they’re thin material that you trial out almost like you would be doing thinset for for a tile job. But instead this is a thick concrete, it only goes down at about an eighth of an inch, and it lasts forever. It’s super tough, you can drive a car on top of it within a day, it’s just really helpful to bring it back to life. And like I said, save you from having to pay for somebody with heavy machinery making a ton of noise dealing with codes and everything else. Instead, couple guys come out, wash whatever area you need, give it about a day to dry, and then they come back and do this material and you’re able to walk on it by the end of the day, why drive on it the next day.
Michael Stewart
So if there are potholes, or cracks or whatever it fills all of that.
Zach Allman
Typically, we’ll fill those with a quick set in concrete mix. And then we’ll do that thin overlay over that you’ll never see it and just makes it nice flush comfortable and brand new. Wow.
Michael Stewart
So assuming somebody wants this, you have the ability to show them examples. When you make an appointment to discuss their needs. Is that true?
Zach Allman
I like to keep a lot of photos on us or on our phones of of work that we’ve done of previous overlays, epoxy floors, whatever it may be, you know, actual course, I always keep a lot of those photos on my phone. So if customers kind of have a tough time, thinking of what it might look like I can give them a few examples and kind of give them a little bit of peace of mind. But really, if you have a sidewalk in front of your house here in a neighborhood or any really public sidewalk, you can make it look just like that same broom finish technique just a little bit grayer is the only difference.
Michael Stewart
All right. So if somebody would want to call you to set up an appointment to look into This, what number would you want them to call and give them give them your name and number and how you can get in touch with.
Zach Allman
I’d want them to call my cell phone. My cell phone number is 615-289-5717 My name is Zack Ullman and I’m one of the sales guys here over at TKO. I’m also one of the one of the worker bees. I’m a little bit of everything over here. So I might sell it to you and you might see me in your driveway putting it down the next day, you never know. So if you don’t give me if you want to give me a call, it’s 615-289-5717. Or you can text me with what you got in mind. I come out and do free estimate on every single type of job that we’re doing. So I’d be happy to talk to you and give you a couple answers.
Michael Stewart
Or there you go. Folks, if you’re thinking about repairing your driveway, and you want to save some money and make it look like it’s brand new, think about a thin air thin overlay from TKO concrete, concrete until next time, we’ll be educating you to let you know more of what you can do to beautify your business or your home.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai