4 Major Factors Your Concrete Flooring Expert Must Consider

By: Maria James

Installing concrete polishing is a challenging task. You must consider many things before beginning the installation process — from the hardness of the materials and repairing cracks to factors such as floor cleaning. Today’s blog post will cover critical considerations your concrete polishing expert in Geelong must make before installing a new floor. 

1. Hardness

Finding out how hard the polished concrete is will be your priority. It is the most crucial consideration when choosing the grit and bond of tooling.

According to the Concrete Grinding Experts in Geelong, utilizing a scratch test kit based on the Mohs scale of relative mineral hardness is the most economical technique to determine the concrete’s hardness. This kit is easily accessible online and is usually not too pricey. It comprises four double-ended, colored picks with eight Mohs scale-representative points made of various materials (2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9).

It operates by scratching the surface of the concrete with numerous picks of variable hardness. Concrete, for instance, has a hardness of 5.5 if a number 6 pick scratches it, but a number 5 pick does not.

You may quickly estimate the concrete’s Mohs hardness with this scratch test, allowing you to select the most effective and reasonably priced tools for the project. In general, you want to pick a bond that is the opposite of soft and hard. If polishing smooth concrete, you want to utilise more challenging bonds. By doing this, you can be confident that there won’t be any unnecessary wear that accelerates the wear out of your tooling.

2. Repair Cracks

The professionals of Concrete Grinding in Geelong say concrete must be repaired before polishing to make the surface seem as perfect as possible. Several restoration methods may be employed for the various types of damage. It will help to achieve as near a match to the surrounding concrete as possible, even if attaining an identical, faultless patch isn’t guaranteed.

  • Your best option for minor or shallow chips, divots, and spalls is cement-based patching mixes.
  • Use skim-coat material, which covers concrete floors for minor damage.
  • Use anchoring, hydraulic cement, or a self-levelling overlay for damage at least 1/4 inch (about 6.35 mm) in depth or covers a broader area.
  • Static cracks only harm the concrete’s surface. This kind of crack often doesn’t cause much trouble and only needs a little attention. Many individuals will leave them as a decorative accent. However, you may use a coloured urethane skim coat to cover them if you want to.
  • Polishing and moving cracks should be addressed since they might become more problematic. To get to the source of the fracture, you’ll need a diamond blade with a V-groove. The next step is to use a shop vac to clear up the crack and use compressed air to remove any remaining dust. Before Concrete Polishing in Geelong, apply the proper “grind and fill” repair compound or a semi-rigid polyurea to fill.

3. Repair Joints

Repairing joints is an essential step you must consider, whether it is concrete polishing or concrete grinding in Geelong. Your expert must fix one of the three basic types of joints you’ll encounter. These joints are for construction, isolation, and contraction.

  • Contraction joints, called control joints, are inserted into the wet concrete to prevent random cracking brought on by expansion and contraction.
  • Isolation Joints separate the concrete slab from other objects such as a wall, drainpipe, column, etc. Before the concrete gets poured, these joints are created.
  • Construction joints get placed between each slab pour. The slab is often run in its entirety at a time. As screed rails and construction joints, bulkheads constructed of wood, steel, plastic, or precast concrete are frequently used.

The joints should thoroughly be cleaned before being filled with polyurea or semi-rigid epoxy. In addition to ensuring an aesthetically acceptable finish, fixing broken joints will make it less likely that the joint edges may chip or spill in the future.

4. Floor Cleaning

Before polishing older concrete, you’ll need to clean the surface. If the concrete has oil stains, you should remove them first since they prevent the densifier, pigments, and dyes from permeating and creating colour differences.

There are a few techniques for getting rid of oil stains. A few degreasers and detergents on the market can be  used to get rid of light or minor oil stains. Several mixtures of dry absorbent clay effectively remove more difficult oil and dirt stains from concrete for heavier stains.

It’s also essential to ensure that any adhesives from previous flooring have been completely removed from the concrete before polishing. It will guarantee a consistent result. Depending on the amount of residual material, you can use a floor scraper or grinder to remove the debris if it still needs to be done for you.

Overall,

Polishing a concrete surface can be daunting, especially if you know what needs to get considered beforehand! Make sure you hire an experienced concrete grinding professional in Geelong who understands all these factors we mentioned here so they can give you an accurate estimate of what it will cost both monetarily and time-wise — to get your project done right! Doing so will help ensure that once installation begins, there aren’t any surprises along the way!

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