Guides

A quick guide to polished concrete floors

Presently, concrete is a popular material in all facets of architectural and interior design. The days when covering the concrete base of a home with an “acceptable” flooring material were customary are long gone. Polished concrete floors are elegant and sophisticated and are frequently chosen as the best flooring option for a home with a contemporary design. Due to its increased capacity to resist slipping and staining, concrete polishing is preferred by the majority of property owners when upgrading flooring. Among its other advantages is that it aids in the removal of efflorescence dust.

You have two options for polishing concrete: the dry approach and the wet method. The main distinction between these two approaches is that when wet polishing the floor, water is used to cool down the diamond abrasives that were used to sand the floor and eradicate dust. On the other hand, water is not required for the dry polishing technique. The floor polisher you’ll be utilising in this instance will instead be attached to a dust containment system that will hoover up all the dust created throughout this procedure.

A step-by-step guide for polishing concrete floors

1.   Gather the right tools

Depending on the surface you wish to work on, various tools are required for concrete polishing. It is advised that you evaluate the concrete’s hardness beforehand to make sure you use the correct tool. Here are some of the basic tools you’ll require: polishers, grinders, industrial floor vacuums, densifiers, stains, and diamond-bonded tools for grinding and polishing.

2.   Filling the holes and sealing the cracks

Check for cracks and holes in the concrete when cleaning the surface. Fill up any holes, then grind them to a flat surface if necessary. Make sure to use quality concrete sealers and coatings for floors for an excellent look and durability.

3.   Concrete grinding

If any adhesives were used on the concrete to fix things like carpets, grinding grit diamond-bonded metals will be necessary to help. After that, grind very hard concrete with very soft diamonds.

4.   Clearing scratches

When you’re done grinding, use grit resin pads to remove any scratches that the metal abrasives you used might have left behind.

5.   Application of densifier and stains

Following the use of high-range resin pads, you can apply densifiers and stains. The purpose of this densifier addition is to harden the concrete.  During grinding and honing, the concrete layer is removed, making the surface weaker and more prone to damage. If you are using concrete stain, you should ideally add the stains first, let them dry, and then add the concrete densifier. In order to make the concrete even harder, you can then apply another application of the densifier.

6.   Surface polishing

For polishing the surface, you can use very high-range grid resin pads to achieve a higher gloss level. To achieve a medium gloss finish, use a medium range of (800-) grit resin pads.

7.   Final touches

This step is not mandatory. But if you want the gloss to shine more, it’s essential. To give the concrete the most shine possible, use your polishing pads on a burnisher in this phase.

Concrete that has been polished appears more attractive. However, obtaining the shiny, mirror-like surface is no easy task. Using inferior materials, particularly for the finishing phase, increases the chance of even the concrete being harmed. It would be best to employ a reputable contractor to assist you with the process if there is a section that isn’t entirely clear to you.