Polished concrete has a deep glossy appearance that makes it a beautiful flooring choice for churches, commercial buildings, and homes. Plain boring concrete can be transformed into luxury flooring with color pigments and polishing. Here's a quick look at how polishing concrete services work. 

Prepare The Old Floor

If you're putting in a concrete floor for the first time, the concrete has to be poured and allowed to cure. However, if you're starting with an old slab, the slab has to be prepared properly. This involves filling in cracks and expansion joints. Then, the surface of the concrete has to be ground down to get rid of old coatings and imperfections in the concrete.

It's important that all holes and cracks are filled and ground down and that the surface is smooth to ensure imperfections don't show on the finished floor. Once the concrete has been cleaned, the contractor can start with the polishing process.

Polish The Concrete

Polishing the concrete is a multi-step process that involves using finer grit disks with each step. The contractor has to determine the hardness of the concrete and then choose the polishing methods that work best.

The contractor watches how the concrete responds to polishing to know when to move on to the next step. Each polishing step uses finer grit each time in order to get a deep glossy shine. The amount of sheen is controlled by how long the concrete is polished and the grit used.

Apply Color And Additives

The contractor may apply a sealer or hardener between polishing steps that soaks down into the concrete rather than wait and apply a sealer to the surface. This gives the concrete deep protection and shields it from water. The sealer is transparent, meaning it doesn't affect the appearance of the concrete. In some cases, a sealer may be added to the surface too.

Color is also added during the polishing process. The floor can have a uniform color or have a design such as swirls. The floor might be stained for a variegated color look. The color is added during a later phase of polishing. Following up with another stage of polishing helps the color have depth and shine.

Polishing concrete services take time to complete, but the result is worth it. An old concrete floor can look like bright and shiny marble after it's been polished. Polished concrete floors are also easy to take care of since they're sealed and no longer porous. The bright and shiny nature of the flooring reflects light and can make your entire home or office look brighter and cleaner.