Polished Concrete Imitations

Hi everyone,

Polished concrete is becoming very popular and I've noticed more and more business' opening up offering concrete polishing.
I'm also getting more call outs to look at {edit} work done by others. A lot of guys out there are running around pretending to
offer polished concrete to their customers.

If your putting a coating on your concrete, its not "polished"

It has simply been grinded and sealed and a "grind and seal" is how it should be described. And it is not even close to the same product.

We are fixing an epoxy coating in Williamstown soon where the clients thought they were getting polished concrete. They also paid $90 per m2 for a terrible job.

They could have had a medium grind and full polish for that price, they're now paying $120m2 to get us to fix it and we're not looking forward to it.

ok thanks good to know in the future renovations!

The biggest problem with the polished concrete industry is that there is no trade package or qualification. At the moment we are currently writing a certificate 3 module in polished concrete which will at least start to address some of these issues. While this may take a while to filter down to the residential market, there should be a faster impact in the commercial market.

I would also personally like to see a lot more input into the industry in terms of training and standards being driven by the manufactures, but the issue is there that most of them are distributors and do not have the correct skills or knowledge themselves.

Anyway, thats my two cents worth We are in the same boat as getting calls everyday to assess someone else's work. Its not something we do ourselves as I don't believe the responsibility ****** with the contractors to sort out the mess, but rather the manufactures.

Regards,

Ben Vander Veen
President of the Floor Covering Association of Victoria