Choosing the right flooring option for your home or business is a major commitment of time and money. Polished concrete is becoming more and more popular in both the commercial and residential setting because of its great cost effectiveness and ease of maintenance. Some of our customers wonder if there are certain types of concrete floors that can’t be polished. There are some issues that could prevent the floor from being polished. For example, if the floor is overly wavy, it needs just excessive patching that wouldn’t be acceptable aesthetically to the customer, or a slab is extremely porous. Those all make for poor candidates for polished concrete. It can still be done, but the end product won’t be as high end as a concrete slab that is structurally sound in very level surface or new as polished concrete floors in many different settings. Over the years, Surface Renew of Little Rock has done manufacturing environments where it’s very important for ease of cleaning up and for slip resistance as well a cost-effective flooring.
We’ve also done it in distribution centers for many of the same reasons. In distribution centers, heavy equipment typically is traveling over the slab and Polished concrete floors are by far the most sturdy, reliable flooring option. Stores have also been increasingly moving towards polished concrete. When you walk through a Walmart or a Kroger, you’ll notice that both these major companies have gone to diamond polished concrete floors as their flooring choice in their stores. And again, the reason for this is just extremely low maintenance, easy to clean and it’s by far the lowest cost option over the life cycle of a floor.
We’ve also had customers in related industries that have chosen polished concrete for their showrooms. And again, it’s because they want something that looks sharp. It’s very reflective. It helps with the ambient lighting, and it can make their product look more appealing when potential customers come into their showroom. Homes are becoming increasingly popular as well, especially in basements and “man caves.” People want something that’s unique and shows character and polished concrete is both of those things in the home. I mentioned some of the advantages earlier of our flooring process. Of course, the biggest one is the fact that it’s a very low maintenance floor finish. For most people it merely means dry sweeping up dust, debris, pet hair, and anything that gets brought in from the outside on the shoes and maybe occasionally cleaning with a wet mop. As I mentioned, it’s also by far the lowest cost option over the entire lifecycle of a floor of any other flooring product. VCT is one product that can be cheaper to put down initially, but the ongoing maintenance for waxing and replacing broken tiles and cleaning the floor is much greater for a VCT or an LVT flooring option.
Polished concrete is also LEED the friendly. So, it’s good for the environment because there is no removal. There, no debris removal. The floor that is poured for the foundation becomes the finished floor for the building. So, no landfills are piled with carpet and broken tiles and a pieces of rolled flooring. A great thing for people that have to keep their stores operating seven days a week is the fact that there’s also no solvent-based sealers used in our diamond polishing process. So, no odors and down time! In the manufacturing and distribution setting where heavy equipment can be moving over to the floor, the floor can give off dusting or an efflorescence, which is just makes basically the dust moving up through the floor, and then it releases those fine dust particles into the air and those spread out through the building and make it very difficult to keep clean. I know from my time working in distribution what a challenge it can be to keep work areas clean and safe. I was in a distribution center one time that was just under a million square feet and it had been built in approximately 1982. So efflorescence and dusting was a major problem for us. We had seven days a week of heavy equipment running through the distribution center hauling pallets and product to all different areas, to the shipping wing, to other areas where sortation went on and all this movement through the center just created this huge amount of dust that we were never able to get under control. Every year we would literally shut down at inventory time and try to clean some of the dust out of the building. And it was just never possible. And it’s not possibly because it was continually coming up through the floor. A lot of distribution centers are moving towards going with polished concrete because it can keep the center so much cleaner and also safer environment for their workers and the equipment that travels over the floor. So polished concrete flooring is a great option for both the home and business in as a very versatile floor. That’s easy to maintain and looks terrific.
Sometimes businesses and homeowners want a special look to set them apart from the competition (or a pesky neighbor.) Do we have some great options for you!! We can add color to your floor, logo’s, initials, and more! An entry way to your business is striking with a great, clean logo permanently stained into the floor. It tells customers you are serious about your reputation and gets the business relationship off on the right foot! There are numerous colors available, and your logo can be custom stained into the floor.
For high traffic businesses or those operating heavy machinery, we will recommend a maintenance plan and/or train your staff on how to keep your polished concrete floor looking amazing for years!
If you’d like more information about our services, please feel free to call us at (501) 920-9326. We offer a free on-site consultation detailing what is the best approach to maximize the benefits of our flooring option while keeping your costs within budget.