Polished Concrete Floor Process

Polished concrete floors have been the runaway interior design success story of the past two decades. So what’s the secret of their success?

There’s no definitive answer to that question, but the DirectStone team thinks it comes down to two key factors:

Polished concrete looks stunning in old or new, residential or commercial properties. And it can be customised to fit your individual design aesthetic.
This strong and durable flooring offers a long-term, eco-friendly flooring solution. Once it’s installed, a simple maintenance schedule means you can rely on it looking good for decades.

What’s the Polished Concrete Floor Process?

Many of our clients are familiar with the industrial concrete they grew up with – normally installed on garage, or warehouse floors. It’s a bit of an imaginative leap to go from that, to the elegance of the floors our specialists create. We always find that it helps to describe the process we go through to create the finished product. So here’s how we turn industrial concrete into beautiful flooring.

Step One – Grinding the Concrete

At DirectStone we use HTC Superfloor™ machines to create our polished concrete floors. They are fitted with diamond impregnated discs which do the job of both grinding and polishing the surface. Different sizes of diamond particles are used throughout the process. We start with coarser pads, and then move to finer ones for the polished finish.

The surface of the concrete floor, known as the surface paste, in order to reveal the aggregate below. This is the material used to make the concrete. When it’s exposed it creates a unique patterning which can be coloured and polished according to the required finish. An alternative option is to leave the surface paste in place. Polishing will bring out the natural colouration of the material.

Step Two – Preparing the Concrete for Polishing

Despite the natural strength of concrete, it’s an extremely porous material. This means that it will stain easily, unless treated at this early stage. DirectStone flooring specialists apply a sealant which enhances the strength of the floor and creates a stain-free surface. If there are any cracks in the floor, these are filled at this stage.

The sealant applied to a concrete floor will wear with time. This means that polished flooring requires professional maintenance every few years to remove the old sealant and replace it with a new coating.

Step Three – Polishing Your Concrete Flooring

We offer a range of different finishes for polished concrete flooring:

Bronze. The surface paste is retained and highly polished.
Silver. The surface paste is ground back to reveal the aggregate but is not highly polished.
Gold. The surface paste is ground back (though not as deeply as with Platinum), and the floor is polished to a gloss finish.
Platinum. This finish requires the deepest grinding process. The revealed patterning is then polished to a stunning high gloss.

DirectStone specialists will assess your concrete flooring and provide guidance on the finish that would work best. If we’re unable to achieve a particular finish – the Bronze finish, for example, requires an extremely flat surface – we’ll always suggest an alternative.

DirectStone for Beautiful Polished Concrete

We provide polished concrete to residential extensions and new builds, commercial spaces and offices, showrooms and galleries. DirectStone works throughout the UK mainly in London, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Wondering how concrete floors are turned into polished concrete floors? DirectStone goes through the polished concrete floor process step by step. Speak to one of our flooring specialists on 01525 2086392