Sanding the floor or concrete screed ensures a smooth and even surface.
To enjoy even concrete floors, they need to be well sanded. You can order it from a professional team or do it yourself. Check how concrete grinding works and what skills it requires.
Concrete grinding
Concrete grinding is performed to level surfaces, which make them not only smooth, but also shiny and easy to clean. By grinding, we get rid of loose elements of the substrate, cement laitance and open pores in the floor. The substrate prepared in this way has better adhesion. The most common ground is concrete floors and stairs, which resemble natural stone after polishing. An additional advantage of this treatment is that the concrete is resistant to abrasion, to which every surface is exposed during everyday use. Concrete grinding is carried out both in industrial and office facilities, warehouses, production plants, as well as in private homes and gardens, concrete floors and terraces. The price of grinding a concrete floor depends primarily on its type, polishing preparations and the expected degree of gloss. Costs vary greatly and the price also depends on whether additional services such as a colored and decorative spout will be provided.
Concrete grinding with the diamond technique
The most popular technique for grinding concrete is diamond polishing. This method provides precise effects, smoothes and helps to remove old and unwanted coatings. With it, you can grind not only horizontal surfaces such as floors, ceilings, but also vertical surfaces: columns, walls and complex elements: surfaces before assembly, stairs. The use of special machines and tools for grinding concrete enables the treatment of hard-to-reach places.
The first step in diamond grinding is concrete stripping. The process should be carried out until its structure is completely exposed. Then the concrete is bonded with a special impregnating agent. As a result, certain chemical changes occur that increase the hardness of the ground surface. Finally, the concrete should be smoothed and polished to close the micropores and obtain maximum gloss. It is worth knowing that each of the stages has a positive effect on the shine of the surface, allowing for very attractive visual effects. It is possible to give concrete a color or leave it in its natural color.
Home-made concrete grinding
Regardless of whether we choose manual or machine grinding of concrete, it is possible to carry out this procedure on our own. Concrete polishing is mainly used for renovation purposes in order to restore the former shine of the damaged surface. In order to prepare well for this, you should equip yourself with the appropriate tools and machines for grinding concrete, such as:
mechanical grinders and milling machines ,
Shields,
ceramic pads,
handheld angle grinders,
When choosing the right machine, you should pay attention to a few technical details. It is very important to correctly estimate the workplace, which determines the choice of the size of the grinder. Which concrete grinding disc will be the best? For small areas, single-disc devices are best suited for grinding concrete floors in a basement or garage. For larger rooms (e.g. a production hall or warehouse), multi-disc grinders will be the perfect solution. Choosing the right grinder also depends on what effect we want to achieve. When removing old layers (paint, glue, damaged concrete) and for processing, it is worth using head machines, which are characterized by high rotational speed. When it comes to work efficiency, the size and weight of the grinder have a great influence on it. Large and heavy machines will be the most effective. Grinding of the concrete screed is best performed with diamond tools with a soft metal bond. They are perfect for polishing linings and hard floors. For softer surfaces, it is better to use harder binders.
Surfaces can be polished wet or dry. Wet grinding of concrete is associated with greater work efficiency than in the case of the dry method. It is worth knowing that with this technique, tools wear out faster, and the workplace requires frequent cleaning. Regardless of the concrete grinding method chosen, the most important thing is to get started with the roughing diamond tools. Only then can devices with a finer grain be used.
