The short answer is that it’s the best way to turn a floor that looks like it was poured for a garage into a floor that looks like it was designed for a palace. Imagine turning a plain concrete surface into a floor that gleams like marble!
You have probably seen polished concrete floors in commercial settings such as restaurants, shopping malls or car dealerships. All the reasons that businesses choose polished concrete are reasons to consider having such floors for yourself. They are durable, extremely low maintenance, economical, won’t harbor allergens, and above all, they’re remarkably attractive!
Concrete polishing is a bit like sanding wood. A heavy-duty polishing machine is used, except instead of sandpaper, disks of grit grind down the concrete surface. Successively finer sizes of grit in diamond grinding disks are used until the floor shines like polished stone. The polishing machines have built-in vacuums that collect the most of the dust that is produced.
Concrete is made of cement, water, and aggregates such as sand and small stones. Polishing your concrete flooring will expose the aggregates and give the floor a unique character. Except for highly porous or damaged concrete, nearly any existing concrete floor can be polished. If a concrete floor is newly poured with the intention of polishing it, special aggregates such as glass, seashells, nuts, bolts or even computer chips can be seeded into the upper surface. When this is polished, flecks glass, shell or metal are exposed. Concrete polishing is often done in conjunction with staining, so a wide palate of coloring is also available.
Polishing will improve the quality of the concrete because before the final polishing is done, a penetrating chemical hardener is applied. This chemically alters the concrete and leaves a surface that is so dense that no pricey sealers or waxes are needed. You can literally drive a forklift over it! In fact, many warehouse owners choose to have their stockroom floors polished just for that purpose.
One surprising fact about polished concrete is that despite a mirror finish, it is still more slip resistant than standard tile floors. Another advantage is that, unlike concrete sealed with epoxy, polished concrete can breathe. This reduces the potential for problems with efflorescence.
It still may crack over time, but there are simple solutions for fixing problems like that.
For a man—or woman—who believes that his home is his castle, concrete polishing transforms the most dungeon-like floors into the look of polished stone.