How to Plan Your First Concrete Floor Polish
With concrete floors in place for your home or work place, planning your first concrete floor polish might sound difficult, time consuming and just outright out of reach. There are a couple of advancements in technology and planning which would make it a whole lot easier at this point in time.
Geoff Holtmeulen has gone through a short article about how you could polish your own concrete floor DIY style. Don’t take on such a job if you haven’t done your due diligence though. If unsure of anything, you are better leaving it to the professionals.
“Polished concrete floors are very ‘in’ and you’ll find this fabulously functional material in a surprisingly wide range of places from shops, offices and warehouses to public spaces and private homes.
The good news is, you can achieve this smooth, glossy look for yourself AND you don’t have to outsource the job to tradesmen either! With a range of easy-to-operate concrete polishing equipment for rent, you can be the master of your own project on either old or new concrete floors.”
While doing it yourself could prove useful in some situations, you might find yourself in a hurry on achieving such concrete floor polishing results with the help of a professional team.
Here is a quick guide on floor polish planning by Bill Palmer.
“One way to get a polished concrete floor is to have the low-bid concrete contractor place a floor and then take bids from concrete polishing contractors and again take the low bid and hope for the best. Another way is to assemble a team of general contractor, concrete contractor, and polishing contractor that has experience and works together well, and pay them fairly for quality work. Clearly the latter approach will lead to a better polished concrete floor although far too many floors have been placed with the first approach.
When Whole Foods decided to build a new store in Birmingham, Mich., they knew they wanted a floor as nearly perfect as possible and hired contractors accordingly. “We had the right team members, it was a well-put-together project,” says Brad Baker, vice president, construction operations for C.E. Gleeson Constructors, the general contractor on the job. “The best thing about this project was the communication and coordination among the concrete contractor, the polishing contractor, and the other trades.”
“The key, all parties agreed, is getting everyone together early and working out the details in a way that put the ultimate goal first: a successful and beautiful polished concrete floor. “Having an owner who knows what he wants is important,” says Paul Albanelli. “The owner came to the preconstruction meeting with a list of items to consider and we talked through them.”
“On a floor this big, five polishing steps takes some time and other construction work needed to proceed. Parker says that they did the polishing work on a quarter of the floor at a time so other trades could be working on the remainder. “Once we finished a quarter, Gleeson put down RamBoard so that protected the polishing.”
With a step by step guide provided by Bill Palmer, it might be a bit easier to jump into the planning phase of your first concrete floor polish, however here is a recent article by Jim Cuviello which gives us a finishing phase guide that reinforces further points of Bill.
“The success of a polished concrete surface doesn’t rest solely with the concrete processing steps. Careful planning of the project from mix design through final protection will help a contractor achieve a successful end.
Processed concrete, whether honed to 800 grit or polished to 3,000 grit, is a growing area of decorative concrete. Over the last decade or so, the concrete processing industry has experienced a learning curve, but finally architects, designers and engineers are giving concrete processing the green light on an increasing number of projects. This is an exciting opportunity for concrete polishing contractors and manufacturers of equipment and supplies to prove what they have been saying for a long time – there is no other flooring option currently available that is as durable, has as low a maintenance and life-cycle cost, and can be renewed on site as easily as concrete. Every day I see more and more plans that specify polished concrete over VCT, carpet, epoxy and other flooring materials.”
In this growing arena where even the simplest polishing ideas could turn complex, a great tip from experts would be a great safe haven for long term planning. Happy Concrete Polishing!
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