Concrete floors have the huge advantage of being relatively cheap, quick to lay, mechanically resistance and long lasting. These properties make its application hugely successful in the field of industrial and infrastructural applications, where mechanical performance is certainly more important than aesthetic appearance. However, for some time now, concrete floors have also been appearing increasingly in residential and commercial environments. In this market segment, the "washed gravel" technique is definitely one of the most interesting building techniques, given it enables the creation of mechanically performing floors that are hard and easily to lay, but also give the "sense" of a path covered in gravel or a natural road.

The "washed gravel" technique is based on a fundamental passage: the application of a set retarder (PRERIT) on the fresh and just screeded concrete surface, which in a couple of hours can in fact deactivate the hardening process of the first 2-3 millimetres of the cement mix surface. Then, using a pressurised water jet, you can remove this "soft" surface layer, highlighting the aggregate composing the concrete. The advantages of this technique, other than the obvious considerable aesthetic impact on the end piece, even suitable in contexts with landscape/environmental value, lies in the fact no particular equipment is necessary and implementation of the technique only differs slightly from that used on normal screeds.

The resulting aesthetic definition, thanks to this technique, can be further personalised according to personal needs and taste, for example by varying the shape, colour and particle size of the aggregates composing the cement matrix (you can for example use gravel with round stones, in a single colour or a variety of colours). You can even colour the cement mix, by adding specific oxides during the mixing phase, to achieve a coloured sub-base where you can insert the exposed stones on the surface.

To complete the cycle, Azichem also proposes a series of products to make the flooring even better: by adding crack-proof, multi-filament polypropylene fibres (READYMESH PM-180) directly in the cement mix, the application of an evaporation-proof hardener at the end of the works (QL NANO LITHIUM), with a lithium silicate base which seasons the concrete and gives greater impermeability and hardness to the final surface, and an elastomeric sealant (EG 91) to seal the contraction and construction joints of the cast, necessary as in any other concrete floor.