Concrete is polished with sanding pads and grinders until it is glossy and smooth. The flooring industry is experiencing demand for polished concrete right now from showrooms to retail facilities to private homes. If kept dry and clean, a polished concrete floor is no more slippery than regular concrete. In fact, it is less slippery than linoleum or polished marble.

Almost any concrete floor can be polished but if it is new, you should wait a month before polishing it. Existing floors might need some cleaning before being polished. A contractor with experience can advise you on what would give your floor the best result.

If the existing surface needs to be solidified and densified, the contractor might apply penetrating hardeners to the concrete. This usually happens after stage one of the grinding process. The hardeners can be used on existing or new floors and react chemically with the concrete to result in a hard crystalline structure. In addition, the hardeners offer extra protection from staining and water penetration and prevent the concrete dusting.

Concrete floors can be dry polished or wet polished. Most are polished with a combination of the two processes. Wet polishing uses water to minimize the dust produced and to cool the diamond abrasives down. Water acts as a lubricant and reduces friction so the polishing abrasives will last longer. Resin bonded disks melt at high temperatures so the wet process can lengthen their life. Wet polishing can produce a lot of mess and slurry. Having to clean this up can make the polishing process longer. With dry polishing, the machines used have inbuilt dust containment systems. The initial grinding, when concrete is being removed using metal-bonded adhesives, is usually done with dry polishing. Wet polishing is normally introduced when the surface is markedly smoother and finer resin-bonded adhesives are used instead. There are now resin-bonded disks available, meaning that the whole process can be done dry.

A polished concrete floor requires dusting occasionally and the luster will last for years. If it does get dull, it can be buffed to restore its high shine.

If you want a high luster, economical floor, which resembles polished stone, polished concrete could be the perfect solution.