The Ave Maria University Project

Featuring ChemTone Acid Stain and DecoShine Polyaspartic Polyurea Sealer by Deco Sup Inc.

As far as challenging projects go, how about building a brand new college campus with it's own town in the middle of the Florida swampland? The Ave Maria University project (avemaria.com) was started a short 4 years ago, moved at lightning speed and classes at this brand new campus started on August 2007. The project design called for floors to match their Frank Lloyd Wright inspired architecture and acid stain was of course a natural choice. Many manufacturing companies coveted this high profile job and most everyone did samples and presented their systems to the project architects, designers and the owner himself. Several acid stain manufacturing companies were called to do samples and explain the benefits and pluses of their acid stain application.

Decosup Inc. presented a system composed of ChemTone Acid Stain and DecoShine sealer (a Polyaspartic Polyurea) for protection. We did a test area (3000 square feet) on one of the campus's cafeterias to show how this system would be far superior to others in terms of looks, durability, chemical resistance, and traffic wear. The Ave Maria decision makers examined the floors, tested it, and their evaluation results proved that this system would be far better than any other alternative. Decosup products were used to do the entire 70,000 + square feet of flooring.

Specs: In order to ensure the durability of the floor and the success of the installation we recommended that the floors be diamond ground using 50 to 70 grit metal bond. The grinding would provide a better surface to stain, and a better surface for the sealer to bond to.

Two contracting companies participated on the installation; Concrete Floor solutions did all the grinding and floor preparation and Cutting Edge Concrete did the staining and sealing. The partnership within these three companies worked real well for all and greatly contributed to the success of the project.

Contractors:

Floor Preparation and Grinding:
Concrete Floor Solutions concretefloorsolutions.com

Staining and Sealing:
Cutting Edge Concrete: concretescuttingedge.com