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Polished concrete is a process of progressive mechanical grinding, honing, densifying and polishing a concrete surface. This is done to achieve an aesthetically pleasing, highly durable, light-reflective finish.
The sixth annual Decorative Concrete Awards were announced recently by sponsor L. M. Scofield Co. The contest honors contractors and designers who use Scofield decorative concrete materials.
This year, for the first time, the contest was divided into six categories.
Surface preparation is the crucial beginning stage of any concrete polishing process. It is especially important in old office buildings, warehouses or department stores where tile or carpeting once covered the flooring, leaving behind residue that must be removed before applying an overlay or polishing. Photo courtesy of Stoops Freightliner
This is very similar to the story told in the old children’s tale, “The Tortoise and the Hare.” If you remember, the slow-footed tortoise won a race against the faster hare by keeping a slow, steady pace while his faster counterpart sprinted, tired and lost concentration.
As we come out of the winter, I always deal with multiple polishing projects where the concrete was placed during cold temperatures. Although there are ACI standards for cold-weather placements, I still experience quite a few slabs that have issues related to cold weather.
A gloss meter measures how light is scattered, but an angle, ambient lighting, or even a high-gloss coating can impact the number. A DOI meter addresses this problem by “seeing” through a coating to determine the consistency of the surface underneath, but it cannot measure the porosity of the floor.
The owner of Dallas’s Dave and Buster’s sports bar wanted the look of a contemporary football field for the floor. After the floor was polished to an 800 grit, Chris Post of Elite Concrete Solutions delivered that and more.
Make line cuts with a Dremel rotary tool Using a Dremel hand-held rotary tool for freehand line cuts in decorative concrete greatly decreases the time it takes and increases the accuracy of the cut. It is a small rotary tool with high rpm, and it’s relatively easy on the budget. […]
The maintenance for polished concrete is simple. Basically, you sweep it regularly, scrub it on a schedule with appropriate cleaners and burnish it a few times a year. This sounds simple, right? In some cases, this works out perfectly. In others, not so much.
We asked everyone the same set of questions. It wasn’t easy to approach this, given our friends’ varied experiences and applications. Perhaps the first challenge to looking ahead this way is defining the industry in general.
Between the money you dole out each week on wages, payroll taxes, insurance and worker’s comp, you spend more on employees than all your other assets combined. Even though this is a fact, most contractors have a hard time recognizing employees as assets. Why is this and how can you remedy that situation?
