Polished Concrete

Summary

Polished Concrete - Concrete is polished using diamond impregnated blades to create a decorative and hard wearing finish.

Technical Information

A polished concrete floor can provide an attractive look, typically in a ‘salt & pepper’ style finish or by fully exposing the aggregate in the concrete to create a finish similar to a terrazzo tile. It is possible to provide a low, mid or high gloss finish to the concrete and the use of densifiers or sealers can aid in providing a fully sealed concrete finish.

The process involves grinding and polishing the floor using a suitable concrete grinding machine fitted with grinding heads. The floor is ground through ‘stages’ starting with a low grit number (e.g. 50, 60 or 100) diamond blade which are aggressive and designed to open up the concrete surface. Progress is made through using higher grit number (e.g. 400, 800 or 3000) to polish the concrete. Each stage polishes out the grinding pattern left by the previous stage until the desired level of smoothness and shine has been reached.

Polishing concrete is a sustainable way to upgrade and maintain concrete floors particularly where a decorative and low maintenance finish is desired.