Installing Truncated Domes: DIY? Hire a Contractor?

ADA Laws & Regulations ADA Pads & Your Business Truncated Domes Truncated Domes Depot

Construction worker installing truncated dome pads

In the past, there was no choice. If you had to install truncated domes to make your property ADA compliant, you had to hire a contractor. Preferably, a contractor with experience installing ADA tiles, or paving tiles. Because back then, the only option was “wet set” domes, also called “cast-in-place” style truncated domes.

Installing wet-set tiles means pouring fresh concrete, and, during the process of pouring that wet concrete, an expert contractor would need to embed, properly level, and secure truncated domes tiles. Expensive, dirty, time consuming work. No possibility for do-it-yourself.

But lo! Anonymous geniuses came up with a new product: surface mounted truncated domes! Now, if concrete was already in place, you did not need to demolish it, pour fresh stuff, and embed a wet-set tile. Using surface mounted tiles with adhesive and anchoring hardware, you could install fully ADA compliant tactile warning tiles on existing concrete. Simply apply adhesive, position the tile, and drill into the concrete, and insert anchoring hardware. Voila!

But still. Is that the best we could do? What about American ingenuity, innovation, and just plain stubbornness? Could not someone devise an even simpler, yet fully compliant, ADA pad, mat, tile that did not require expertise, special tools, or drilling into the surface to install anchoring hardware?

Of course someone could. And they did. Enter the modern era of the self-adhesive truncated domes mat. With this revolutionary product, if you could peel and stick a stamp to an envelope, then you could install modern self-adhesive truncated domes. (Unless you are my brother-in-law, Fred. Please don’t get me wrong. Fred is a NASA rocket scientist. But, while he has proven he can stick a postage stamp to an envelope, he has yet to get it right side up, or anywhere near the upper right corner. And that's why we include detailed, easy to follow instructions for properly mounting the products we distribute.)



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