Washed Concrete (Exposed Aggregate)
Stone-faced concrete — non-slip, hard-wearing and unmistakable
A washed finish — exposed aggregate, if you have seen it called that — takes the cement paste off the top of a fresh slab so the stone in the mix stands proud. What you end up with is a surface made of the aggregate itself: heavily textured, genuinely non-slip even soaking wet, and effectively immune to the surface scaling that eats at a smooth slab under road salt. It is the right finish for a pool deck, a sloped driveway, a set of steps or a walk that ices over, and it is the finish most homeowners recognise but cannot name. It is also the least forgiving one to place. A surface retarder goes on immediately after floating, and the wash-back has to happen at exactly the right hour — too early and the stone rolls out of the slab, too late and the paste has set hard over it and no amount of pressure will move it. Aggregate choice sets the whole look, from pale limestone through to river gravel, and we will bring samples before anything is ordered.