Polished concrete floors are one of the most stunning and elegant flooring options available today. With the wide range of stains and levels of polish available, older concrete floors can be recreated into beautiful, versatile floors that are also quite durable. Part of its appeal is that the minimalism of polished concrete floors works well with contemporary homes and older models alike. If you’ve got concrete floors in your home or business, count yourself lucky.
At ACT Restoration, our twin cities concrete floor resurfacing and restoration team offers a wide range of floor refinishing services. We’ve put together this guide to help you answer some of the most common polished concrete questions.
1. What if a concrete floor has bubbles and other defects?
Repairing these types of problems is part of what we do. We use our floor prep method to wet grind and polish the existing concrete floor. This will allow us to remove many types of damage that have occurred over time. Not only can we repair bubbles during this process but also chips in the concrete, cracks, and other damage to your concrete floors.
2. What causes concrete damage?
There are a number of reasons that concrete can become damaged over time. One of the most common causes of damaged concrete flooring is failure to properly install the floor. When concrete floors are installed by amateur contractors, a few common mistakes can sabotage the flooring including incorrect ratios of water and concrete. When concrete is installed with a poor water to concrete ratio, shrinkage can occur as the concrete dries too fast. This failure in the process can lead to cracking. A lack of control joints is another common contributor to concrete cracking.
However, even when concrete is installed exactly as it should be, flooring can eventually incur damage over time. Exposure to extreme temperatures can seriously damage the concrete, causing minor surface cracks that grow over time. Acidic food and chemical spills can affect the concrete surface as well, as can damage from heavy impacts. Finally, some types of spills can stain the flooring. Fortunately, all of these problems can be repaired with concrete repair services.
3. What is the wet grind method?
We use a wet grind method to repair floors and polish them. The wet grind method is a process that uses diamond abrasives and water to prepare a concrete floor. It has a number of benefits. It is an environmentally friendly option that is much more accurate than other concrete floor preparation approaches. Because the water limits dust in the air, it’s also much healthier than a dry grind method.
4. What are some of the benefits of concrete floors?
Polished concrete offers a number of benefits for homes and businesses. It is incredibly easy to keep clean and maintain, making it a perfect solution for busy households. It’s also completely waterproof, unlike hardwood floors or carpets, and polished concrete is a permanent flooring solution that won’t need to be replaced every few years like other types of flooring. Thanks to its durability, polished concrete is powerful enough to look great even when exposed to heavy traffic over time.
But the benefits of concrete flooring don’t stop there. Concrete can be designed in almost any color imaginable as well as a number of patterns. Even the level of gloss is highly customizable. Additionally, polished concrete flooring is highly reflective, adding to the illumination of a home. Finally, polished concrete is an affordable flooring solution and doesn’t require a lot of costly maintenance to keep it looking great as time goes by.
5. What types of floor polish are available?
When you install your polished concrete, you’ll get to choose from four levels of concrete floor polish reflectiveness. With level one floor polish, you’ll get a matte finish that has a low level of reflection. Level two is a low sheen flooring polish that’s slightly more reflective than matte. With level three, three polishing steps come together for a higher level of reflection. And at level four, you’ll get a stunning full finish that gleams with reflectivity.
Contact our Twin Cities Concrete Floor Restoration Specialists
Whether you’re a restaurant owner or you’re flipping a beautiful older home, if you’ve got concrete floors, we can transform them into a stunning flooring solution you’ll love. Our team of floor experts can handle any size project from residential floor refinishing to large-scale industrial floor services.
We bring our personal approach and commitment to excellence to every job we do so you’ll have a concrete floor you can be proud of for many years to come. From floor prep to the final product, we’ll keep you in the loop throughout the process. To learn more, talk to our team by calling us at 612-750-5360, or contact us to schedule your concrete restoration project.