Utilising new or existing concrete flooring can be a very cost effective way of achieving a high quality finish. Solid timber polished floorboards will nearly always be more expensive and will cost more to maintain in the long run. Quality floor tiles will be very comparable with polished concrete but will cost more in time and effort to keep clean. Modern housing designs now rarely are built on stumps and bearers, the stability of starting from the ground with a concrete slab are hard to dismiss. A timber sub floor will generally be cheaper to construct but will not be as well insulated as concrete during harsh weather and has a useful lifespan before areas will need to be replaced. For all polished concrete applications a major variable in its costs are how much heavy grinding is needed. A light grind will be cheaper than a heavy grind.
Below is a quick guide to the costs associated with concrete flooring:
New Floors
If you haven't ordered or poured your concrete than you still have the chance to ensure that you are using strong 32mpa concrete. Not sure what that means? mpa in simple terms is the strength of concrete. Ideally you want to be using this concrete for the purposes of concrete polishing. If your floor is new and already down that is fine, get us out there to do a scratch test with our concrete hardness tester to assess the type on concrete you have got.
Your first thing that will alter your costs is how much heavy grinding you want done, obviously the more we grind the more aggregate or stones we will expose. Regular grey concrete looks quite nice with just a light grind and either a polish or a coating. This finish is the most economical as the hard work of heavy grinding is kept to a minimum. If you have opted for a coloured or decorative concrete mix then you are like to want a full or heavy grind to expose all the colour and rock that you paid for.
Existing Floors
Whether you are removing carpet, tiles, epoxy, paint or timber flooring, if there is a concrete slab under the surface, we've got a product to suit your needs. Policrete are equipped to handle to job from start to finish no matter what type of work is involved. We will need to expose some of this concrete when we come out to do a site measure to assess what product should be used. Ideally we will hope for hard, tight concrete which can be polished or coated in every option we supply. If the concrete is on the soft side we may still be able to polish with the use of lithium concrete hardening agents. If this doesn't do the trick we can use a high build clear epoxy to create a full gloss and a protective layer above the concrete surface.
For those that want a little more bling on their floor we can colour the epoxy with reflector enhancer within the epoxy resin for an unlimited combination of effects and finishes. Again here the level of grinding has a big impact on your costs, however with existing floors, damage from paint spills, removal of existing coverings or soft concrete on top may mean that you only have the one choice of a heavy grind to remove all imperfections. Existing floors have usually had a high level of wear on them and so at least a medium grind will be needed to clean things up.
