Brief 

Jayson Barnhart from Exposed Design Group offers tips on maintaining polished concrete floors in retail settings such as grocery stores. “It’s always a good idea to spend some time with the end-user/owner to ensure that they understand what equipment to use and what chemicals or cleaning agents to NOT use when cleaning their floor,” Barnhart writes.

 

Insight

With enough people walking through retail stores, especially in a grocery setting, the polished concrete floor will eventually need attention – more than the standard maintenance it had been receiving (hopefully).

Whether a new construction or not, sooner or later the owner or designer will decide between installing old traditional tile, epoxy, or a durable and economical concrete floor. In my experience, generally speaking, the overall cost of a polished concrete floor is a fraction of the cost of tile or epoxy over the life of the building.

Should you win the bid and the project swings your way, here are a few key matters to address.

Initially, you need to consider if the concrete floor is going to be newly placed concrete or if it’s an existing slab. If it’s going to be a newly placed slab and you are given the opportunity to provide input for the mix design and finish, it would be beneficial to suggest the following. These criteria will generally give you a good start towards providing the customer with a great-looking densified and polished floor.

  • Avoid air-entrained concrete if possible.
  • Minimize fly ash and other fillers (ideally less than 20%).
  • Concrete with PSI strength between 3,500 and 5,000 is optimal.
  • When finishing, the flatter the better and preferably not burned in.

Often, the concrete floor has already been placed or you’re working with a 2nd generation concrete floor, and you’re left to deal with the concrete as-is. In that case, observation and preparation become the key.

Once you have determined the age and condition of the concrete floor that you’ll be working with, it’s important to know what the customer or client’s expectations are. If there’s a specification, you generally have a good understanding of what is desired. If there is no specification, it’s a good idea to ask a few key questions

 

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