Has anyone tried their hand at polishing their own concrete floors to an exposed polish?
Looking at doing it to try save us some $$$ by hiring a grinder. If anyone has any tips or image of floors they polished themselves that would be great.
DIY Polished concrete floors
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Hi sazzy,
We deal quite a bit in this industry of late and I must say out of all the trades this is one job I wouldn't try myself. There is so much involved in the process.
Depending on the type of finish you choose will depend on what you need to do. I know these guys grind down the concrete first to expose the aggregate and get a smooth finish. Then they densify it and grout it to fill all the pin holes. This strengthens the concrete and tightens it up so as not to be so porous. I know I wouldn't know when to stop this process, would you?? This process may also require buffing during stages to ensure no residual is left behind.
From there they seal.
First thing also to ask is can you buy these products direct? and the cost involved to do so? I know they are not cheap depending on the area to polish.
Sounds easy enough but buy the time you hire a grinder and the diamond plates. As well as the polishing pads for the machine. not to forget the small grinding tools to get into corners and up against stairs etc. I'd just skimp somewhere else and get a professional.
The floor finish will be the first thing people look at and you'd want it to look amazing imo.
We deal quite a bit in this industry of late and I must say out of all the trades this is one job I wouldn't try myself. There is so much involved in the process.
Depending on the type of finish you choose will depend on what you need to do. I know these guys grind down the concrete first to expose the aggregate and get a smooth finish. Then they densify it and grout it to fill all the pin holes. This strengthens the concrete and tightens it up so as not to be so porous. I know I wouldn't know when to stop this process, would you?? This process may also require buffing during stages to ensure no residual is left behind.
From there they seal.
First thing also to ask is can you buy these products direct? and the cost involved to do so? I know they are not cheap depending on the area to polish.
Sounds easy enough but buy the time you hire a grinder and the diamond plates. As well as the polishing pads for the machine. not to forget the small grinding tools to get into corners and up against stairs etc. I'd just skimp somewhere else and get a professional.
The floor finish will be the first thing people look at and you'd want it to look amazing imo.
While I am a concreter I had never tried polishing concrete until last year when my friend built a house. He paid for the materials and grinder hire and I did the job for free just for the experience. I must say it was very easy and simple just very time consuming. We threw glass aggregate into the slab when pouring and it came up really really good. The neighbor came around which happened to be in the industry for the last 20+ years and said that it looked way better than most professional jobs. Probably because I was meticulous and spent the extra time on it whereas some contractors would be wanting to get it finished as quickly as possible.
All I did was lookup the process and importantly what can go wrong on google and off I went.
things like, where to hire the machine, what finish i want, what grit diamonds to get, to hire or buy the diamond pads?, to polish to a very high grit (no maintenance shiny finish) or to do a rough polish and then use sealer to get the shine, how to grout, do i need to use a hardener after the first grind?, looking up on youtube videos of people polishing etc
We did a rough grind to get most of the process out of the way and the dust gone, then built the house and then came in and did a final grind at a higher grit before the windows went in.
You can always have a go and if its too much give up and get a professional in.
The grinding was very simple just up and down overlapping each pass. Its a very slow process so you can stop and check your progress often and it didnt feel like it was easy to make a mess of it by grinding too much away.
We went up to I think a 180 grit so not super polished. Then we grouted it which was messy but seemed to help improve the finish.
After we cleaned it we sealed with a polyeurethane (make sure its non yellowing in sunlight, unless you like that look). Here you have to make sure the concrete has cured for 30+ days and there is no moisture. Also you have to seal it reasonably quickly to keep a wet edge on the sealer. This again isnt difficult.
Because most of the cost is labour my friend saved a fortune.
The job looked great and still does a year later with no wearing of the sealer.
All I did was lookup the process and importantly what can go wrong on google and off I went.
things like, where to hire the machine, what finish i want, what grit diamonds to get, to hire or buy the diamond pads?, to polish to a very high grit (no maintenance shiny finish) or to do a rough polish and then use sealer to get the shine, how to grout, do i need to use a hardener after the first grind?, looking up on youtube videos of people polishing etc
We did a rough grind to get most of the process out of the way and the dust gone, then built the house and then came in and did a final grind at a higher grit before the windows went in.
You can always have a go and if its too much give up and get a professional in.
The grinding was very simple just up and down overlapping each pass. Its a very slow process so you can stop and check your progress often and it didnt feel like it was easy to make a mess of it by grinding too much away.
We went up to I think a 180 grit so not super polished. Then we grouted it which was messy but seemed to help improve the finish.
After we cleaned it we sealed with a polyeurethane (make sure its non yellowing in sunlight, unless you like that look). Here you have to make sure the concrete has cured for 30+ days and there is no moisture. Also you have to seal it reasonably quickly to keep a wet edge on the sealer. This again isnt difficult.
Because most of the cost is labour my friend saved a fortune.
The job looked great and still does a year later with no wearing of the sealer.
HI Rory
Do you want to see exposure is the first question i would ask you when talking about Polished floors .i have created a system using my polished concrete products that gives you a high gloss marble finish without needing to grind the floor . This process needs to be planned well in advanced as the slab intended to be polished must be panned hard and semi let go which creates the marble finish . My products are pretty much the only on the market that allow this procedure as they leave no residue when normally needs to be ground off .. I will attempt to get a image on here of before and after if i can otherwise flick me and email and i will send it to you
jason@getnewlook.com.au
Do you want to see exposure is the first question i would ask you when talking about Polished floors .i have created a system using my polished concrete products that gives you a high gloss marble finish without needing to grind the floor . This process needs to be planned well in advanced as the slab intended to be polished must be panned hard and semi let go which creates the marble finish . My products are pretty much the only on the market that allow this procedure as they leave no residue when normally needs to be ground off .. I will attempt to get a image on here of before and after if i can otherwise flick me and email and i will send it to you
jason@getnewlook.com.au
We did a polished concrete floor in a recent contract build.
It took roughly 5 days from start to finish and there was something like 13 passes in the process.
A couple of things of note, we used 32mpa concrete to try to reduce cracking.
You can get a polish mix that costs more that gives you a consistent sized stone through out. Our client was happy to go with a standard 20mm aggregate mix.
It took roughly 5 days from start to finish and there was something like 13 passes in the process.
A couple of things of note, we used 32mpa concrete to try to reduce cracking.
You can get a polish mix that costs more that gives you a consistent sized stone through out. Our client was happy to go with a standard 20mm aggregate mix.
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