Moisture Mitigation: How Kaloutas Teams Prevent Concrete Floor Damage

Ground mois­ture and sub-slab mois­ture is the lead­ing cause of floor­ing dam­age, cost­ing busi­ness­es near­ly a bil­lion dol­lars to repair each year. If you don’t have that kind of mon­ey in your bud­get, it’s crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant to know the risks of mois­ture dam­age, under­stand how to iden­ti­fy and test for mois­ture intru­sion, and con­firm that you have a mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem in place that meets the demands of your indus­tri­al floor­ing and main­tains its longevity.

Most build­ings built before the year 2000 did not have mois­ture bar­ri­ers installed to pro­tect con­crete slabs.

What to Know About Mois­ture Damage

Why Mois­ture Dam­age Happens

Con­crete gives the impres­sion of being rock-sol­id and long-last­ing, but it ​“breathes” water vapor. Water is an ingre­di­ent in con­crete, this ​“mois­ture of con­ve­nience” takes a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time to evap­o­rate. Con­crete can take years to hydrate after pour­ing a new slab. 

For every inch of thick­ness, you’re look­ing at up to an addi­tion­al year of dry­ing time. Mois­ture vapor is a major cul­prit for floor­ing sys­tem dam­age with­out prop­er mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion, espe­cial­ly if there was nev­er an effec­tive mois­ture bar­ri­er in place.

Ground­wa­ter is anoth­er cause for con­cern. As water ris­es up from the ground over time, it is ​“breathed into” your con­crete, and it can be caus­ing thou­sands of dol­lars worth of damage.

What Mois­ture Dam­age Looks Like

How do you know if you have mois­ture dam­age to your floor­ing? Mois­ture vapor trans­mis­sion can show up as:

• Bub­bling: the appear­ance of bub­bles on the sur­face of the concrete

• Pin­holes: tiny holes in the con­crete surface 

• Blis­ter­ing: bumps on the con­crete surface

• Dis­col­oration: col­or of fin­ished con­crete is warped and fad­ing, or con­crete is dis­col­ored– this can hap­pen if your con­crete has stains, or if it has mold damage

• Cracks: break­ing, split­ting, sep­a­ra­tion, or delam­i­nat­ing in flooring

If you notice any of these on your con­crete floor­ing, you should take steps to address floor­ing fail­ure imme­di­ate­ly by installing a mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem for con­crete floors through­out your facility. 

Unseen Mois­ture Damage

Mois­ture dam­age can still occur even when you don’t see signs of dam­age on the sur­face. That’s because vapor is present in every con­crete floor, and vapor trans­mis­sion will fluc­tu­ate along with the tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty lev­els in your work site. You may have an exist­ing mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem in place, but if that sys­tem was improp­er­ly installed or inad­e­quate for your floor­ing, you’re still fac­ing the threat of water dam­age by excess vapor transmission.

Mois­ture Test­ing: the First Step to Mois­ture Mitigation

You can’t be sure if your mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem is ade­quate, or what type of sys­tem you need, with­out assess­ing the floor­ing con­di­tion with prop­er test­ing. Mois­ture test­ing gauges the mois­ture lev­els through­out your slab, so you can iden­ti­fy how much mois­ture is in your con­crete floor, where mois­ture is get­ting in, and what areas are most dam­aged or prone to damage.

Kaloutas can per­form mois­ture test­ing to help you make a plan for mois­ture reme­di­a­tion and mit­i­ga­tion for your con­crete floors. We’ll help you get a clear under­stand­ing of mois­ture lev­els in these key areas:

• Floor­ing

• Envi­ron­ment

• Man­u­fac­tur­ing Process

Once we know your floor­ing demands and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, we rec­om­mend a cus­tomized mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion plan for your indus­tri­al flooring. 

Mois­ture Mit­i­ga­tion Systems

Mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tems con­sist of mois­ture bar­ri­ers applied to your con­crete floor­ing sys­tems. They typ­i­cal­ly include high­ly durable epoxy coat­ing sys­tems, which cre­ate a seam­less mois­ture bar­ri­er. Epoxy primers, resins, and fin­ish­es pre­vent mois­ture from spills and drips from enter­ing your sub­strate. And they reduce the vapor from mov­ing through your con­crete floor­ing to dam­age the sur­face. Epoxy resins, ure­thane resins, and aggre­gate can be mixed for an ultra-mois­ture-resis­tant option.

Along with expert instal­la­tion, we will be sure to clean con­crete floor­ing accord­ing to the high­est indus­try stan­dard and apply the appro­pri­ate primers and epoxy sys­tems for your desired fin­ish. We help you stay on top of any floor­ing repairs, facil­i­ty clean­ing, or paint­ing projects with a proac­tive facil­i­ty main­te­nance plan that saves you time, pro­tects your invest­ment, and stream­lines com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We’ll get it all done with a no-work-stop­page guar­an­tee, so your pro­duc­tiv­i­ty nev­er stag­nates, and your bot­tom line nev­er suffers.

Don’t wait for mois­ture to ruin your floor and dis­rupt your busi­ness. Call Kaloutas today to sched­ule mois­ture test­ing or request a mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion esti­mate. We are ready to help you pro­tect your floor­ing for the long haul.