Planning a new polished concrete floor for your commercial or industrial building? You’ve made a wise choice. Your new floor will be durable, reflective, and easy to maintain. Concrete is much harder to damage than, say, vinyl composition tile (VCT). It can be polished to a high sheen that can reduce the amount of artificial lighting required in the facility. However, a lot of preparation has to happen before you can enjoy all of these benefits.
Here are five things you need to know about new polished concrete floor surface preparation:
The old flooring currently covering the concrete slab needs to be removed first.
Tearing up tile, carpet other flooring materials is a hard job that’s made easier with a ride-on tile scraper. These cool machines look a lot like little Zambonis, and they make pulling up old flooring almost entirely a hands-off job.
Speaking of adhesive, it simply can’t be removed by hand.
That’s where wet grinding comes in handy. Carpet and tile adhesive removal should only be performed by a professional, especially if the flooring dates back to the early 80’s or before. The types of adhesives used then often contained asbestos, so removing those materials needs to be done using extreme caution.
If the concrete floor is painted, shotblasting is the preferred way to strip off the old paint.
A shotblasting machine is carefully pushed across the entire bare slab, while it repeatedly bounces steel balls against the floor. This constant pounding forces the paint to detach from the concrete. Paint strippers create toxic fumes that can pose a danger to anyone in the building; this is why shotblasting is the preferred method of paint removal.
At this point, grinding the concrete to a hone is performed.
This surface grinding will even out the surface and prepare it to receive the densifier. The wet or dry grinding methods are both commonly used, but the wet method eliminates dust, resulting in a safer working environment for everyone in the building.
Densifier is applied to the concrete to create a harder, more durable surface.
Lithium densifiers penetrate the deepest of all densifier products, creating the densest surface possible. This step is sometimes also called sealing the concrete.
And now you’re ready to start polishing! Are you exhausted just thinking about all that prep work? There is a lot of time and effort involved with preparing a concrete floor for polishing. But with many years of experience in the concrete business, Titus Restoration knows how to get the job done right and fast. Our crews have renovated industrial and commercial concrete floors all over the country. To ask Titus about your new polished concrete floor project, call us at 888-569-3914.