Perfect CC Midwest Inc provides Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa & Michigan with the highest quality Polished Concrete Flooring Installation. While many contractors may simply try to provide a generic polished concrete per request, we educate the buyer as what is possible due to their current flooring conditions. Not all finish types of polished concrete will be available per current concrete condition. Utilize the chart below for a better understanding of what end results for your surface may be. Click Here for an Immediate Consultation and Proposal
Correctly concrete polishing a concrete floor requires three main stages; Grinding, Honing and Polishing. The grinding stage is to remove surface obscenities such as prior topical flooring materials such as mortars from tile, glues from laminate or vct, or even old sealers and epoxies. The grinding process also exposes the desired aggregate appearance in the concrete surface- grinding deeper expose more stone, less more fine sands remain visual. Note, the natural placement of concrete will always cause uneven exposure appearances. For example, heavier stone is likely to be more immediate around joints due to curling during the concrete curing. The honing stage is the intermediate part of the concrete polishing process that uses finer diamond abrasives to remove the visual scratch pattern left from the initial heavy grinding. Honing is typically performed in three to four different sequential passes until the scratches are no longer visual from a standing point of view. Once all visual scratches are removed from the concrete floor, the concrete polishing fine diamonds can proceed. The final steps of concrete polishing are than performed, again with three to four sequential fine abrasives to create a matte to high gloss polished concrete appearance. The amount of passes will dictate the final gloss level of the surface; per request from the specifier.
While concrete polishing can be performed with fully wet or dry concrete polishing systems, there are many pro’s and con’s to each system. Perfect CC Midwest has perfected a proprietary hybrid system using both concrete polishing in the wet and dry process during our installations. Our hybrid system allows the highest refinement possible for a polished concrete floor which is the most important factor when considering longevity in the final polished concrete surface.
Whether new to the concrete polishing trade or rushing a low bid project to salvage profits, the following are unfortunate ‘shortcuts’ lackluster concrete polishing companies are making on their clients floors- without the clients’ knowledge let alone their acceptance of how it will greatly reduce the longevity of the polished concrete floor:
While quality concrete polishing contractors put every effort into mechanically grinding and diamond polishing the concrete floor, the natural characteristics of the concrete itself can often times remain even after the concrete grinding and diamond polishing takes place. Often these imperfections are known as ‘character’ and many concrete polishing purchasers are happy with the variances these discrepancies give the overall finish. How drastic some of these visual imperfections may be relies on how the actual concrete was originally poured and the actual cement material used.
Concrete slabs are poured and manipulated into place by concrete flatwork contractors. Simply put, ground work is put into creating a hard pact ground base (typically gravel) than the fluid cement material is placed on top. How much time is spent creating a flat, smooth surface will dictate the final visual appearance when a concrete polishing contractor grinds that slab. Be it 1 month post new concrete pouring, or even forty years after- imperfections in the slab may still be apparent if the depth of the visual deficiencies goes below the surface. Many times; underlying visual aspects may be below the top of the concrete, only to forty years later be exposed after grinding and polishing the concrete floor. For example; boot prints or rake marks. If the concrete pouring contractor was rushing the raking of the fluid concrete because it was an overly hot day, the concrete hardens faster- the rake marks can often times show up in the form of lines of stone (when ground to expose the stone). This is because, even though the concrete pouring contractor was able to smooth the surface of the cement, the rapid drying concrete did not have the remaining fluidity for the stones to evenly settle. There are endless visual discrepancies that can occur directly related to the when and how the concrete was poured. No matter how talented a professional concrete polishing contractor maybe, many of these discrepancies will not be able to be removed. In example, the rake marks will typically be the full depth of the 4″ concrete slab; a heavy full aggregate ground and polished concrete floor removes 1/2″ of cement while most average, non specified aggregate appearances only remove 1/8″. It should also be mentioned, in the same scenario that the concrete pour was too quickly placed or attention to grading was not put forth; the aggregate (stone within the concrete floor) will sit very unevenly. Meaning, if the concrete polishing purchaser wants no large aggregate, just a simple fine sand appearance (salt & pepper polished concrete)- even after a light grind there will be random sections that show large stones in the polished concrete. This is especially routine on cold joints, or pour stops (where sections were poured in phases) due to curling of the concrete slab during initial curing.