The moment of truth arrived with the reveal of our concrete floor. It feels like a bit of a gamble, as I had just seen photos of a floor with the same aggregate, so patience and some courage are needed with this choice of floor.
The concrete was polished by John Carroll from Concrete Concepts. In the West of Ireland, concrete polishers are like hen’s teeth, so you need to be determined and persistent to get a contractor who’s available. There is a lot of preparation and planning to get the end result, but I’m so glad we choose this route, as it has given us such a seamless finish and adds to the sense of spaciousness and light.
We needed to have the heat on for a couple of weeks before polishing to allow any cracks emerge, none did thankfully. Next step is to start the grinding, this is a slow messy, noisy process, where layers of the concrete are ground down, the dust is then vacuumed up with a separate machine. This process took about a week to reveal the aggregate of the stone consistently across the floors.
The next stage is polishing and grouting. A grout is worked into the floor to fill all the small surface holes in the floor, this is another messy process. When the grout and surface hardener sets, the floor is then polished down until it feels as smooth as glass, hand tools are required to get into the corners and edges. After this step, the floor is sealed, this is applied with a mop and gives the floor a lovely shine, the floor will be sealed again before we move in and will add further to the shine.
The expansion joints will be fitted with aluminium strips and all the edges to the full height windows will be grouted. Concrete polishing is a labour-intensive process and this is where the bulk of the cost goes, plus the heavy-duty machinery and generator that’s required.
I’m delighted with the result and I’m already feel really precious about it and I’ll be a pain in the ass for the next while reminding the trades to look after my beautiful floor. In fairness though, it’s a very robust finish and the team have done a fantastic job.
