The way the concrete was poured is one of the main reasons why older concrete floors are hard to polish. Modern concrete is leveled with power trowels, which are big tools that you can ride on. The width of these machines can be eight feet or more, and they can quickly level out big areas of concrete.
For older concrete pours, it’s more possible that the surface was leveled by hand, which can leave different depths of concrete.
Also, current building methods make sure that concrete material has enough time to cure. Older concrete was often put down using less advanced methods, which resulted in lower quality concrete.
Polishing Concrete In High Rise Buildings
Modern high-rise buildings use trucks to bring concrete to the site, where it is pumped from the ground to the floors and filled. This lets the concrete pour very quickly and evenly.
Concrete used to be dumped from trucks into buckets and then lifted to the floor by a crane in older high-rise buildings. Because of this method, there would be a lot of difference between places on the same floor.
New Concrete Floors Can Be Soft
Existing floors can be very soft for a number of reasons, such as the type of concrete used and how much water it has been exposed to. Reactive silicate densifiers must be used to help harden the surface of the concrete.
Usually after the first round of grinding with diamond abrasives. This way of preparing the surface can make the concrete much better, but it can still be hard to polish soft concrete that is already there.
Considerations for Polishing Old Concrete
Concrete Porosity
Overly open concrete blocks may be of low quality or have broken down over time. Although these blocks can be polished, getting a nice polished concrete finish might cost more.
Concrete Damage
When other types of flooring have been put down on top of concrete, the damage from those flooring installations will almost always be visible. Glue marks, nail or tack strip holes and grout line ghosting are all examples of cosmetic damage. As an example, tack strip holes can be fixed, but ghosting damage usually can’t be.
Other Reductions
Aggregates that can forever change the color of old or industrial concrete surfaces are common. They include food marks, red wine, oils and other fluids from cars, and many other contaminants.
Although these slabs can be polished, many of these stains will still be visible on the final floor because they can’t be removed during the concrete polishing process.
For home installations, polished concrete is our first choice. However, if your old concrete is badly worn or damaged, a stained concrete floor might be a better choice. When floors are only slightly damaged, stained concrete can help hide flaws that would be obvious if the concrete were cleaned.
When All Else Fails — Install a Concrete Overlay
If you have an old concrete floor, you can pour a thin layer of special concrete on top of it. Resurfacing with a concrete overlay is the best way to hide spots and cracks in a concrete floor as long as the floor is built well. With this method, we can smooth concrete to give the customer’s floor the exact color, texture, and finish they want.
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