The step that protects everything else. Sealing keeps water, salt and UV out of your concrete.
Sealing is cheap insurance for expensive concrete. It keeps water from soaking in and freezing, blocks road salt, and protects color and stamped finishes from Colorado's strong UV.
We seal new and existing driveways, patios, pool decks and stamped concrete with the right product for each surface.
Denver runs through dozens of freeze-thaw cycles each winter. Water that soaks into unsealed concrete expands as it freezes and breaks the surface apart over time. A good sealer keeps that water out.
Every two to three years for most exterior flatwork. Toward two years for stamped and decorative surfaces, south and west facing exposures, and anything that takes direct road salt like a driveway apron or a front walk. Toward three for shaded, low-traffic surfaces.
Look that up nationally and you will find longer intervals, often four to five years. Those numbers are written for the average American climate. Denver is not it, for three specific reasons.
About a hundred freeze-thaw cycles a year. Denver has one of the highest counts in the country, because our winters swing above and below freezing constantly instead of staying cold. Every cycle, water sitting in the surface pores freezes and expands by roughly nine percent. A hundred times a winter, that force works the top layer apart. A sealer keeps the water out of the pores in the first place, which is the entire mechanism.
Magnesium chloride. The state and the metro cities run mag chloride rather than rock salt because it works at lower temperatures. It comes home on your tires, drips onto your driveway, and does two things: it attacks the cement paste chemically, and it lowers the freezing point of water sitting in the concrete, which means more freeze-thaw events right at the surface where the damage happens.
UV at 5,280 feet. Sunlight is measurably more intense at this elevation. That breaks sealers down faster, and fades surface colour on decorative work faster too. The sealer itself has a shorter service life here than the same product would have in Ohio.
Penetrating sealers soak in and react inside the concrete. No visible film, no change in appearance, no added slipperiness, and nothing sitting on top to peel. They protect very well against water and salt. They will not give you a wet look. Best for driveways, sidewalks and plain broom-finish patios.
Film-forming sealers, meaning acrylics and urethanes, sit on the surface as a thin layer. They enrich colour, add satin or gloss, and give a decorative surface the look you paid for. They can be slippery when wet unless a slip-resistant additive goes in, and they wear, so they need reapplying on schedule. Best for stamped concrete, stained and coloured surfaces, and exposed aggregate.
On stamped work, film-forming is nearly always right. On a driveway, penetrating usually is. We will tell you which we would put on your slab and why.
Sealing a slab that already has problems locks the problems in.
Late spring through early fall gives the best conditions: dry, moderate, and a stretch of good weather to cure in.
The single best window is early fall. You get the sealer on before winter, which is when the freeze-thaw and salt damage actually happens, and September conditions are usually ideal. Sealing in April protects you through summer and then asks the sealer to face winter already a season old.
If it has been more than three years, do it whenever you can rather than waiting for a perfect window.
We'll measure, talk through your options and hand you a fixed written price. No pressure, no hidden charges.
Driveways and high-traffic paths: once a year, ideally in fall. Stamped and decorative concrete: every 2 to 3 years.
For most residential concrete we use quality water-based, UV-stable sealers that protect without a heavy plastic look and are easy to maintain.
Get a free on-site quote this week. Honest pricing, no pressure, work backed by a warranty.
