Question For TAB

[billt]

I most likely won't park on it for a good month. Why push it? I've lived without it for 20 years. So another month isn't going to kill me.

[TAB]

I tell people 2 weeks min.  Month is better

[MikeBjerum]

In the funeral business, the burial vaults are strength rated based on mix and standard seven day cure.  However, they are tested at much stronger, because even though they are installed at seven days, the day after the pour they are coated and sealed with an asphalt product, and prior to installation they are painted.  This coating and sealing, combined with full earth burial between seven and 14 days slows the cure and increases the actual strength.

Up here in snow country our biggest concern with fresh concrete is chloride.  Road deicers (salt and calcium chloride) harm the product.  It is best to protect fresh concrete from these items for a 12 month minimum.  When we built the funeral home we poured the drive apron and entry way in September.  Even though the concrete was sealed at pour and again with another agent 30 days later, the drive apron was heavily spalled within a couple weeks of the first heavy snow from the salt mix the city threw on the roads.  Even though we tried to avoid all deicers on the entry platform and back garage platform, the tracked and dripped deicers created slight spalling.  I avoided it in the garage.  I attribute that to that floor being poured in early summer, and that the garage was heated and I washed the vehicles in there.

[TAB]

The reason why calcium chloride is a problem, it interrupts the silicon dioxide calcium carbonate reaction that actually produces concrete. Basically what happens is it binds to the calcium from the chloride instead of the carbonate

[Rastus]

I tell people 2 weeks min.  Month is better

That's what we always promulgated when we poured driveways when I was a kid. 

[Sponsor]

[billt]

Can anyone recommend a good concrete sealer that will protect from automotive oil drippings soaking into and staining the concrete? If I'm going to do it, I would just as soon do it after it cures, and before I start using it. That way I can eliminate the cleaning, pressure washing, etc.

[TAB]

Is there a moisture  barrier underneath It? If not, no sealer will hold up.

[billt]

Is there a moisture  barrier underneath It?

If you mean like plastic sheeting or woven material, no. Just a layer of gravel. That's all they use out here.

[TAB]

No sealer is going too stick then. Depending on the air entrapment  it may let water right thru.  You said it was 3500 psi,  which is a standard rating in strength, but does not say much about the mix itself.   One would assume it's 1/2 stone, and 6% air entrapment which is the industry  standard for a drive way.   

[Big Frank]

If you mean like plastic sheeting or woven material, no. Just a layer of gravel. That's all they use out here.

When I had my driveway extended we put down a lot of sand and no gravel. I wonder which is better?