Polished / Hardened Concrete Floors
Polished concrete slabs are becoming a popular green building alternative for the traditional epoxy coated concrete floors used in warehouses and manufacturing plants. It’s become so popular that many people are using polished, stained concrete as a finished floor in new homes.
I recently wrote about diamond polishing concrete floors on my other site and realized it’s a perfect topic for Green Construction. Polishing concrete involves grinding, polishing and chemically hardening the concrete surface to create a beautiful durable finished flooring option.
A densifying solution is added to the concrete to help create a much harder suface. This is achieved by applying some type of sodium silicate to the surface of the concrete. The sodium silicate reacts with the calcium hydroxide found in the concrete matrix. This in turns creates calcium silicate hydrate in the concrete matrix which produces the hardened concrete surface.
This is combined with diamond polishing up to 1500 to 3000 grit which creates a very shiny reflective slip resistant surface. The end result is a concrete floor that requires no additional sealers or coatings in order to protect the surface from staining and dusting.
Why Is Polished Concrete Green?
Polished concrete is certainly a green construction method that makes so much sense. First of all we’re eliminating some type of floor coating and/or flooring material. Secondly, the concrete is already being used as structure so why not use it to serve the purpose of a finished floor surface. Also, there will be no VOC’s emissions from a polished concrete floor compared to a floor treated with some type of epoxy coating.
What I think is great, is that they look as good as the epoxy.