Concrete floor polishing

When performing repairs, an important step is the processing of the surface of the floor made of concrete. Before applying the topcoat, make sure that it is even. Concrete floor polishing can only be done after thorough grinding. Only a competent approach can ensure high-quality adhesion of concrete with the selected polymer coating. If you adhere to certain rules, do everything in stages, then you can do all the work yourself. We will talk about this in this article.

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What is polishing and its main purpose?

Concrete floors, high-quality polished using modern technologies, have long replaced the usual floor coverings:

• Thanks to this procedure, the floor becomes practical and effective, the cost of caring for it is significantly reduced, it does not need to be restored.
• It can be used in open street areas, suitable for any interior, tolerates aggressive chemical attack, is waterproof, copes with high loads.

Important! Most often, polished concrete floors are used in supermarkets, shops, residential premises, office buildings, hangars, warehouses, restaurants, cafes, theaters, hotels, medical institutions, educational institutions. Concrete platforms can often be found in front of buildings in courtyards, they are used in garages, cellars, in household and summer cottages.

Grinding concrete floors - a type of processing:

• It is intended for removing old coatings, leveling the concrete base, gypsum screeds before reinforcing impregnations, applying protective varnishes, pouring polymer coatings and decorative thin-layer paints.
• Thanks to polishing, it is possible to remove any impurities, put in order deformed areas on which chips, cracks, ripples, irregularities, sagging or nicks have formed.
• After this treatment, the top layer acquires a fresh look, its adhesion level increases.
• This procedure is also applied when polishing or applying a coating that requires perfect condition of the substrate.
• Do-it-yourself sanding of the concrete floor is used to exclude the possibility of moisture absorption by it. Water at freezing temperatures can crystallize and significantly increase in volume, which destructively affects the material, and this is incredibly dangerous, especially for the first floors.

Important! Carry out grinding only after the final pour hardening of the concrete floor.

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Varieties of grinding concrete foundations

Grinding of such a floor can be carried out in a dry and wet way - it all depends on the cost of the procedure, since the equipment is used the same in both cases. The main thing is that the tools cope with stone and concrete surfaces:

• Wet grinding is used when working with mosaic floors or marble chips. In this case, the use of abrasive segments to achieve a perfect floor surface is a prerequisite.
• Nevertheless, it is better to use dry grinding for concrete floors - it takes more time than in the previous version. When it is performed, a huge amount of dust rises into the air, but still, it is better than wet cement slurry that completely obscures the eyes. The master does not interfere with seeing everything that he does and immediately correct the mistakes made. Industrial vacuum cleaners are used to remove dust.

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What tools and equipment are needed for grinding?

In any hardware store you can buy all the tools for grinding. On sale you can find special cars and ordinary home appliances.

Professional Sanders

Naturally, professional equipment is of better quality, because it is equipped with a planetary gear system, that is, a disk with fixed auxiliary wheels, diamond nozzles are fixed on it. By rotating the wheels in the opposite direction, the concrete floor becomes perfectly smooth and even.

Professional machines allow you to adjust the grinding speed, water supply, collect sludge and dust when performing wet work.

Important! The heavier the grinding machine, the better the job. The price of such devices is quite high, but they are worth it.

Bulgarian

You can also use a regular grinder. Of course, it will take a lot of time to work, but if the concrete floor is polished at home, then this is quite enough.

Important! The grinder is especially indispensable in hard-to-reach places, where often large cars simply do not pass. To grind concrete with a grinder, you will need a diamond bowl or an abrasive disk. It is necessary to work with such a tool very carefully, because the circle can come off and hurt a lot.

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What materials are needed for grinding?

Too rush in this matter is also not worth it, because in order to achieve a good result, it is necessary to choose the right material, coating and fillers.

Important! Concrete can stretch up to three centimeters, it may have fossae and tubercles, but it is important that the difference in differences does not exceed five millimeters.

To correctly select the material for the concrete screed, you should take into account the main purpose of the room, which affects the cost of grinding:

• For production shops, garages, small storage rooms and street areas, material with markings from M150 to M300 is quite suitable. He is reliable, has good qualities. To equip the most durable floor, it is recommended to use a composition with a marking above M300.
• The best option for filling the concrete screed for grinding is crushed stone of a fine fraction, extracted from metamorphic and igneous rocks.

Important! If you plan on polishing the floor in the future, use marble chips or crushed granite to create an original surface.

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Preliminary work

Do-it-yourself sanding of the concrete floor should begin with a preliminary step. When doing the preparatory work, pay maximum attention to the following points:

1. If the old concrete already has some kind of coating, try to determine how difficult it will be to eliminate it. After its removal, furrows, even deep scratches, may appear. They are eliminated, as a rule, through prolonged grinding, which often leads to an increase in financial costs.
2. Be sure to check the plane is even. This can be done using a three-meter ruler. If you suddenly find holes, bumps or potholes, you will have to add the amount of diamonds.
3. Carefully inspect the cracks and look at the expansion and shrink seams. If available, it will be necessary to carry out work related to their sealing, and grinding the most problematic places.
4. To understand how strong the concrete screed and the underlying layer are, tap the floor carefully around the entire perimeter. If at some point you find a lack of strength, then only complete shifting of the floor will help.
5. A very important point is to check the voltage. Building regulations prohibit the presence of gaps between coatings and baseboards, joints on concrete.
6. The rigidity of the floor is determined by treating a small area with a grinder.

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Self-grinding concrete floor

This type of work requires special care, caution, and accuracy. Grinding a concrete floor with your own hands is carried out in several stages, and it is necessary to pay maximum attention to each of them. Now more about each step.

Floor preparation

Before grinding, you need to make sure that there is no reinforcing metal mesh or reinforcement on the top layer that adversely affects the performance of the work and can damage the planetary mechanism. If metal is found, then you can remove it using a grinder manually:

• The first step is to eliminate all irregularities and destroy the old coating using bead-blasting or milling.
• Then all kinds of defects are eliminated in the form of cracks, potholes, and shrink joints. As a rule, an epoxy mastic is used for this, perfectly filling irregularities. It is applied in such a way that the sander passes freely through the flaws without clinging.

Grinding

A couple of weeks after the screed dries, grinding is done. This time is enough for the coating to become durable and ready for further use.

Important! Concrete in its composition contains granite, gravel, limestone, marble. If you start working with a dry coating, then the equipment can tear crushed stone with diamond sections. You can not manually grind unprepared floor.

Follow these steps:

1. Cover the floor with a special mixture that will make it stronger by reacting with calcium hydroxide. After this treatment, the concrete will be covered with a mineral-binder, completely hiding the pores, it will become absolutely resistant to moisture.
2. Then take a 400 grit diamond blade, sand the concrete layer.
3. In fact, the processing is completed, but in order to achieve a glossy shine and perfect evenness, you can polish the floor with a disk with a grain size of 1500-3000.

After such mechanical work, you can safely install the baseboard, conduct surface treatment.

Important! Use a polyurethane varnish to give a glossy finish. You can apply varnish with a brush or roller after the final cleaning of the floor from dust. Varnishing is carried out in two to three layers.

Elimination of potholes

With prolonged use of the coating, various deformations can form on it. As a rule, they arise due to non-compliance with the technique of laying the floor, because an incorrectly laid floor a priori can not be durable. If you see a crack or pothole, you must immediately repair it.

To eliminate a pothole:

1. Cut the damaged floor to a depth of twenty millimeters with a diamond blade.
2. Then it is pulled out manually or using a puncher.
3. Clean the resulting cavity from dust, then treat with a primer and fill it with a special compound using a spatula.
4. Then align this area with a staff or rule.
5. After hardening the mixture, sand it, remove all irregularities.

If a crack is detected:

• Extend it in depth by ten centimeters using a diamond disk.
• Next, the site is completely free from dust, a primer is applied, and you can fill it with a repair mixture.

Important! In this case, it is better to use quartz sand as a filler.

• After the layer sags, lay another layer. After it hardens, grinding is performed.

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Stock footage

Polishing the concrete floor helps to get rid of minor defects, smooth out irregularities and open pores. If you know how much this service costs, then it is better, of course, to do all the work yourself. The main thing is to comply with all requirements to ensure a high level of wear resistance and the flooring looked perfect.