The concept of floor polishing is to produce a decorative and durable polished concrete floor. How it works is no different than any other polishing or finishing process, just the equipment and medium used is different. It is sort of like finishing wood. The initial sanding is done with course sand paper to get the initial material off quickly. Then progressively finer grit on the sandpaper is used to get a fine smooth finish. With concrete polishing the equipment is sized to do large floor areas and has diamond grit on specially designed heads that keep working the surface down to the desired finish and look.

Low maintenance concrete floor

The interest in this process is due to it’s durability and ease of maintenance. A no wax floor avoids the ongoing maintenance of the wax coating to keep it looking good. With a polished floor mopping replaces the waxing

Durability and shine

To help solidify and provide a long lasting maintenance free floor during the polishing a hardening agent is added to work it into the concrete surface. Some supplies call this an “internal impregnating sealer”, with a name like that it explains what it does. This helps to harden the floor so it will stand up well to foot and forklift traffic. For clean up standard mopping or floor-cleaning equipment is used. This hardening material helps with the shine and helps prevent concrete dusting and water penetration.

The equipment has specially built heads that hold the polishing medium and moves these discs in a reciprocating motion. As the correct amount of material is removed then the heads are changed to a finer disc the same way you would in the wood shop making furniture. This sequential removal of material is what gives the control over the final “look”. Working with the customer they can select the general look as the project progress.