Anyone polished a concrete floor?

[davidd]

The house we are about to move into has concrete floors, the plan is to put proper covering (probably stone ) when we have finished moving walls about however that is not going to be for 6 months at least. In the meantime we'd like to clean the existing floor and shove rugs down. I thought I could hire a floor grinder and clean it up to a decent shine and wondered if anyone had any experience/tips etc..

Cheers

D

[blueg33]

I have seen polished concrete and it looks great. We considered it for some up market houses we built but bottled it in the end and went for conventional sandstone floors.

But sorry I cant help any more than that

[freecar]

To add to the above I have also seen polished concrete but I was under the impression that it was something to be done just after the concrete has set up. Not something you can do to old concrete I thought.

[Aviz]

freecar said:

To add to the above I have also seen polished concrete but I was under the impression that it was something to be done just after the concrete has set up. Not something you can do to old concrete I thought.

This.

[dickymint]

Did an MOT bay last year that had to have an unusually low tollerance for flatness and level. We finished it off with a hired grinder/pollisher. Lovely finish and simple. Go for it I say

[davidd]

I've read that it should be fine on older stuff, we are not looking for a perfect finish.

D

[dickymint]

Just a thought. Are you sure it's concrete or screed?

[davidd]

Fair point, how do I tell the difference?

[dickymint]

davidd said:

Fair point, how do I tell the difference?

Screed is sand and cement. Concrete will have gravel or chippings in it. It's the larger aggregate that gives pollished concrete a more interesting finish.

I would take a hammer and bolster to it to find out.

[oOTomOo]

dickymint said:

I would take a hammer and bolster to it to find out.

Just make the hole somewhere that a rug is going..

[hairyben]

A builder I know has just bought a house and intends to experiment with some polished concrete on floors/worktops- he can be a quite fastidious chap so I'm interested to see what he produces. It's a lot of work but you can get some fantastic results.