Integral-oxide & colored concrete · Calico Basin · pigment specialists since 1999
The color goes all the way through.
Oxide Row batches iron-oxide pigment into every cubic yard — dosed between one and three percent by cement weight, never dusted on top — then stamps with liquid-matched release agents and seals on a calendar we keep. Scratch any slab below and find more of the same color.
Services
Four crafts, one pigment rack
01
Integral color, batched deep
Iron-oxide pigment metered at the plant between one and three percent of cement weight — terracotta at two, the deep basalt-charcoal at three — so the color lives through the full depth of the slab. A chip, a scratch or a decade of wear finds more of the same color underneath; that is the entire argument for paying for oxide.
02
Stamped & antiqued
Color hardener broadcast at the surface for wear, mats pressed through a powder release agent tinted one shade darker than the field, so the pattern’s grain carries the antique. Washed at day three, sealed matte or wet-look at twenty-eight — the release color is in the grain, not on it.
03
Driveways & estate aprons
Five inches of 4,000-psi air-entrained concrete on proof-rolled aggregate, joints sawed within twelve hours on the 2× grid — ten feet on a five-inch slab. The pigment rides along at cost plus the batching fee, which is smaller than most people hope and written down before you sign.
04
Reseal & color wash
The triennial visit on our calendar: a 30%-solids acrylic renew, a color-refresh wash where the sun has been hardest, and a joint inspection with the ledger from your pour — batch ticket, pigment lot and all — open on the tailgate.
Recent pours
The color book
Six pours from around the Basin, every one in integral color — terracotta drives, adobe walks, one charcoal courtyard that photographs like basalt. The batch ticket and pigment lot for each are filed in the office; ask and we will read you the numbers.
How it goes
Sample, batch, pour, seal
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Visit one
The sample squares
Three two-foot samples poured in your shortlisted pigments and set on your ground — judged at noon and at dusk, wetted, before a single yard is batched. The batch ticket is written against the one you pick, and you keep a copy.
Pour morning
Batched in the truck
Oxide metered at the plant by cement weight, 4,000 psi air-entrained, one continuous placement. Color hardener dusted at the surface on stamped work; the truck drums are checked between loads so the field never shifts shade mid-slab.
Hour +4
Release & joints
Powder release one shade darker than the field, mats down while the surface takes a thumbprint, then control joints sawed within twelve hours to a quarter of the slab’s depth on the approved grid.
Day 28
Seal & ledger
Washed and sealed 30%-solids acrylic at full cure; the pour ledger — batch ticket, pigment lot, joint map — is signed into your name with the seven-year warranty and the first reseal date already written on it.
They poured three sample squares and left them in the yard for a week. The terracotta we nearly chose read like a mistake at dusk and the adobe read like the ground — the week cost nothing and saved a decade.
A delivery driver dragged a pallet across the drive the first winter and I called them in a state. The scratch is the same color as the slab, which is what integral means — they buffed the seal and you cannot find the spot.
The ledger is the thing: batch ticket, pigment lot, joint map, all in a folder with my name on it. When we sell, that folder goes with the deed — and the surveyor called it the first one he had seen in twenty years.
Pigment, sun, salt
Asked at every color visit
Will oxide fade?
Iron-oxide pigment is chemistry, not paint: it oxidizes perhaps a shade in the first year and then holds for decades. What fades is a sealer that was never renewed — which is why the triennial seal visit is on our calendar, not left to your memory.
Why dose by cement weight?
Because pigment colors the paste, and the paste is a fixed fraction of the mix. One percent reads as a wash, two as a body color, three as the deep charcoals — dosed any other way the shade drifts load to load, and a two-tone driveway is forever.
Can you match the stucco or the roofline?
Usually within a shade. Bring the mason’s or roofer’s color number to the visit; we pour the sample squares against it, in your light, wetted — and we will tell you honestly when concrete cannot reach a color rather than sell you a near miss.
Does colored concrete cost the winter?
No — but de-icing salt the first winter is forbidden on any slab, colored or not, sealed or not. Sand or calcium-magnesium acetate from day one; the seal and the pigment will take thirty seasons if the first one is kind.
What if one truck is not enough?
The pour plan is sequenced so the field never separates: consecutive loads from one plant, drums inspected between them, and a wet-break line at a joint if the ready-mix supply ever stalls — a planned joint, never an accidental cold one.
Color pours need the plant’s oxide rack booked with the truck — booking the batch is why the calendar runs five weeks ahead in season. Sample squares, however, can be poured any week of the year.
Seven years on the pigment and the finish
If an integrally colored surface fades unevenly, a stamped face delaminates or a joint spalls inside seven years, we repair it — materials, labor and the second seal. The ledger tells us exactly what was batched, which is why the promise can be this plain.
oxides@oxiderow.example · Calico Basin · sample squares year-round
Start with three sample squares.
Send the color you are chasing — stucco number, roofline, a photo of the ground — and we pour the samples before anyone speaks a number. The batch ticket follows the shade you pick.