How Does Concrete Overlay Work?

Concrete overlay is the resurfacing of concrete. It is essentially a skim coat of high-quality, dense, polymer enriched, water reduced concrete mix. This engineered mix design is very thin with a lot of bonding agents in it. These bonding agents adhere this new concrete layer to the old concrete layer that is being resurfaced.

Concrete overlay is more of a cosmetic fix for concrete that is pitted, worn looking, or doesn't look as good as it used to. An overlay allows you to update the concrete surface with coloring or adding a stamp or texture. It should not be used on concrete that is deteriorated to the point of crumbling or breaking.

A concrete overlay does not have the quality of the concrete that was poured uniformly instead of just a skim coat resurfacing. There will always be the old concrete, the new concrete and a potential plane for delamination between them. Concrete overlay is so heavily modified that it should bond to almost anything, but the quality is still not quite as good as uniformly poured concrete.

Concrete overlay is a good option to update or renew the surface of concrete to make it look better. It is fairly cheap, readily available, and it can have a dramatic look with coloring, stamping or texture.

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[MarkMichalowski]

Good overview!
In the past, I've found a few things that greatly contribute to the bonding of new onto old:
1 - clean the old concrete as much as you can - pressure washer, wire brush etc
2 - "key" the surface of the old stuff as much as you can - again with a wire brush, maybe a wire brush attachment on a powered drill, or scrape with an old screwdriver or rake
3 - make sure the old concrete is good'n'saturated with water when you apply the new stuff
4 - add in a little PVA to the new mix (or put down a layer of PVA onto the old stuff and then apply the new stuff before it's fully dried).

[vitodeluca]

Great video! A lot of contractors are now recommending resurfacing concrete surfaces like porches and steps with an acrylic polymer type of coating. It’s applied with some sort of fiberglass mesh. It’s essentially the same stuff they use on architectural walls and for foundation parging. It gives a nice clean look and can be colored. However, i am really sceptical. There’s not much info on it’s durability and longevity. What are your thoughts?

[marklu]

Can I use top n bond to resurface a 1/2 inch to inch depth?. Slab is 10x5 ft