Anthony Allen, owner of the largest winery in Maryland, knew he wanted a very special floor for his newly renovated wine-tasting and banquet rooms, located in a former dairy barn.
When Linganore Wines celebrated its 30th anniversary in August, sparkling polished concrete floors welcomed Allen’s guests. Polished concrete was used for more than 5,000 square feet of the nearly 7,800-square-foot facility. The floors are colored Indian red, with 2-foot by 2-foot panels scored on the diagonal. The banquet room also features a black dyed border, etched with relief carving. Coordinated into the winery theme, the carvings consist of decorative grapes and grape leaves, creating a perfect setting for a feast.
David Padgett, vice president of marketing and business development for Concrete Polishing Technologies and Perfect Polish, headed up the project, working with the craftsmen from Perfect Polish. They polished 3,150 square feet on the upper banquet floor and 2,000 square feet downstairs in the wine-tasting room.
“The Linganore floor, which was poured in 2005, proved to be exceptionally hard concrete even for a new floor,” Padgett says. “Since we are used to working on all types of concrete floors — from soft to hard, from perfect to damaged — this wasn’t a problem. The second level floor was the same hardness, but contained radiant heat tubing throughout the floor. This too was not a problem, proving how adaptable the concrete polishing process is. The important thing here is the contractor had better be aware of its existence before the initial grind.
The Perfect Polish team began polishing using an 80 grit diamond grind, moving up in various increments to a final polishing grit of 3,000. Then, handheld jackhammer air guns were used to carve in the grapes and leaves in the border, using Engrave-A-Crete templates. Finally, the entire job was finished off with a high-solid sealer. The CPT Perfect Polish crew took just under two weeks to complete the job.
Allen says he is thrilled with the beauty of the floors, ease of maintenance, and improvement in lighting. “With the old floor, they would sweep the floors and then vacuum them, but now all it takes is a wide dust mop and you’re done,” Allen says. “In addition, under the old system, we had to put down coatings every six to 12 months, which proved very costly due to materials and man hours as well as the down time due to drying time for the coatings. I’m pleased as punch with this new process.”
He’s also pleased with the amount of light reflected by the polished concrete, especially since electricity costs went up 74 percent in his area last summer. Prior to polishing the floors, the banquet room used 4,000 watts of electricity for lighting; now consumption for the comparable period is 80 watts. “You can actually see the lights in the ceiling being reflected up and used again, so there is no waste,” Allen says.
Concrete Polishing Technologies Inc. and its subsidiary, Perfect Polish, are based in Knoxville, Tenn. The company is an international leader in dry diamond concrete polishing.
