The world's foremost resource on decorative concrete
The first step to creating and processing a scratch-free polished concrete floor is to start by cleaning the floor you’re about to grind, hone and polish. Make sure the grinder is clean. This includes the bottom of the machine, the skirt and the diamonds. Inspect the surfaces of the diamonds […]
Proper diamond tools for polishing concrete is essential to getting it right. Choose the starting diamond grit and tooling segment configuration based on what’s best to achieve the job’s appearance objective. If there wasn’t one given, go with the random aggregate configuration. Objective # 1 Random aggregate (doesn’t matter what […]
Before using an auto-scrubber to clean a polished concrete floor, make sure everything that will touch the surface is clean. This includes tires, brushes, pads, squeegees, your shoes and an empty dirty water tank. Completely fill the clean water tank, noting how many gallons it holds. Add your choice of […]
During the past year as I was firing up my independent consultant firm once again, I found myself wondering what would be “the” thing to make the biggest contribution for my clients, now that polishing concrete is well on its way? Let me explain. There are now actual polished concrete […]
As polished concrete becomes more mainstream for floors, it continues to gain momentum across the board. In fact, industry statistics show that it is now 15-20% of the total flooring installed each year. For decades, most architects, general contractors and facility owners tended to lump floor covering/flooring and polished concrete […]
In April 2015 the Concrete Polishing Association of America (CPAA) adopted a new position on the measurement of slip resistance of bonded-abrasive polished concrete floors.
When starting the first cut on a concrete slab, everyone wants to know how it will look when finished. Professionals know each concrete slab is different. The sheer numbers of variables mean no two pours or slabs will look the same.
All things in polished concrete relate to physics and chemistry. With that in mind, let’s look at how moisture interacts with concrete and polishing chemicals, with an additional focus on efflorescence.
At a recent meeting of the CPAA, the board of directors and active committee members met to help lead, develop and guide our future. The hottest topic was the presentation on standards for polished concrete. To our surprise evidence was indicating tgat properly polished concrete is one of the safest flooring choices available to the consumer.
The time will come when a general contractor, architect or another flooring contractor will ask you to bid on polishing floors in a new construction project.
