WHY DO I NEED TO SEAL MY PAVERS:
- If they are never sealed, you will lose the original finish and start to see exposed aggregate
- Not sealing the pavers makes them harder to clean, and they will have to be cleaned more often
- Sealing your pavers protects them from permanent stains such as oil, grease, wine, etc
- Our sealing process stabilizes the joint sand and helps inhibit weed growth
- Sealing your pavers takes away the “dry” faded look, and replaces it with an illustrious “Wet-Look” finish that enhances the colors
Sealing Pavers: The ICT Ure-Seal H2O Advantage
Over the years many “solutions” have been offered to deal with the potential maintenance issues that the owners of interlocking concrete pavers face. Primary among them was the introduction of solvent-based acrylic sealers, water-based sealers, and stabilized joint sands. These attempted solutions added some benefits while creating other problems of their own. Even today, for every one good product on the market there is at least a hundred terrible products.
Ure-Seal H2O is two-part water reducible high-performance urethane sealer. It will not yellow, peal, or develop whiting issues when professionally installed. It is important to remember that any sealer can fail when installing incorrectly or without proper surface prep. Ure-Seal has outstanding chemical resistance and forms a very hard protective coating.
“Our products are state-of-the-art and address existing industry concerns regarding pavers turning white, durability without toxicity, and disposal considerations associated with solvent-based sealers.”
WHY DO I NEED TO SEAL MY PAVERS:
These products were introduced primarily to comply with lower VOC limits required by several states and to reduce toxic exposure for contractors and the environment. These are traditionally single stage chemicals that tend not to be very durable and also have the risk of “blushing” (trapping water vapor) thus turning white. Some have the ability to provide joint stabilization but have been found to wear prematurely. Most water-based sealers “low volume of solids”. This is a fancy way of saying that they are mostly water. This is a negative thing when you are trying to build a protective film-forming coating that will protect your pavers for years to come. Sadly, traditional water-based sealers usually only last one year at best.
Solvent-Based Sealers
Solvent-based sealers are another option, but they are notorious for “whiting issues”. They are not breathable coatings and therefore they trap water vapor. When the water vapor gets trapped it then breaks the sealers bond causing the sealer to fail.
Unlike water-based these sealers are “high volume of solids”, which means they typically build a significant film forming a layer. This, however, turns out to be a big problem when the sealer turns cloudy and needs to be stripped. Solvent-based sealers are among the hardest and most costly to strip, and they are the most common to turn white. Another concern with solvent-based sealers is toxicity. They have a very high VOC (volatile organic compounds) rating. They contain carcinogens which are extremely harmful to humans and animals to breath. Exposure to carcinogens has been linked to causing birth defects, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer.
Solvent-based sealers typically use an acrylic resin to seal the pavers. Acrylic coatings have been around for a long time and are still very common to find being used by contractors, however, urethane technology has proven to be a better resin that bonds better and lasts longer. Next Level Soft Washing only uses breathable water based two component pure urethane sealers. While these sealers are more expensive, they are worth every penny.
Stabilized Joint Sands
Engineered joint sands such as polymeric sand were developed years ago to try and address industry concerns around weed growth and joint sand depletion. While they can be helpful in some paver install situations, they are completely unnecessary when the paver is being sealed with Ure-Seal H2O.
Additionally, and most importantly, they create an increased risk to the contractor and the owner because they can often leave a “poly-haze” on the pavers from polymers left on the paver surface or stuck in the paver pores.
At the end of the day, none of the above “solutions” provided a comprehensive resolution to all the issues facing the interlocking paving stone industry.
Paver Cleaning and Sealing: Finally a Solution!
The Ure-Seal system was developed to create a comprehensive answer to the industry’s need for a maintenance solution – without creating any additional issues. Ure-Seal sealers apply a semi-penetrating film to the surface of the pavers while simultaneously stabilizing the joint sand using compounds in the sealer to bind the sand particles. Ure-Seal is innovatively engineered to release moisture as the sealer cures, so the sealer may be applied on damp surfaces with no risk of blushing, yellowing, or trapped moisture. Since Ure-Seal H2O is water-based there are no toxicity concerns. We believe Ure-Seal H2O is the best choice currently on the market for sealing brick pavers. From beginning to end we are fully equipped to provide the absolute