Concrete floors poured

The DaroTopp guys poured our concrete floors today! (I've used more exclamation marks this week than I have in my whole life!)

DaroTopp is a product that is relatively new to North America. It is a semi-lightweight synthetic concrete -- up to 18 per cent lighter than regular concrete, says the brochure. The synthetic binder in DaroTopp is manufactured as a by-product of brown coal plants; cleaning the plant smoke uses about 75 per cent less energy than is used to produce regular concrete. The binding agent is mixed with local aggregates, so there are no emissions associated with trucking in sand from far away. It contains no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and there is no off-gassing during the installation. Using DaroTopp is worth green points under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.

One of the key features for us is DaroTopp's excellent conductivity. Its thermal transfer properties will make our radiant floor heating system more efficient, heating the slab faster and more evenly. We'll appreciate this during our long, cold winters. It also offers fire protection (it's rated as a non-combustible material), which gives me a bit of peace of mind. Finally, it's more flexible than regular concrete, which we hope will make it easier on the knees, and it's supposed to provide good sound insulation, too.

We can't walk on the floors for about 48 hours, but it will be set by the end of the weekend. The colour you're seeing in the photos will darken significantly when it is finished. A different company is coming in to grind the floors down and coat them with two coats of urethane and one coat of epoxy. The final result should be a medium-toned brown with little sand flecks in it. We will put in a few area rugs here and there, but for the most part, this will be our finished floor throughout the house.