Bob:
We’re here today to talk about polished concrete Little Rock floors and stained concrete floors, and probably the best place to start, because there’s a lot of confusion about it. Ryan, what exactly is a polished concrete Little Rock floor?
Ryan:
It’s a mechanically polished surface. We use heavy duty polishing machines and they’re equipped with the progressively finer grits of diamond. If you want to compare it to like a sandpaper where you start with a piece of wood with 50 grit, then work your way up to 2000 grit or finer. It’s pretty much the same thing. It’s not a sand, it’s a, a coarse diamond segment, bonded pucks in a metallic matrix. They in layman’s term, there’s little fine pieces of diamonds in a in a rather than present or resonant puck. And there’s, there’s metal diamond. There’s a whole lot of different diamonds, but 99% of what they’ll use is a resin puck with little, little fine grits of diamond in it. We work up generally in five steps, going from a course grip to a fine grit. And in between we use densifier to make the concrete harder on the surface to achieve a higher Polish and locks things out depending if you’re going to get color. Cause we also stain flooring as part of our polished concrete Little Rock as well. And is that point in the middle, you add color to your stained concrete, then you work your way up to a desired sheen, whether it be 800, 1500 or even up to over 3000 with the naked eye, you can see the difference between 1500 and 3000. It’s all just a mere shine after that. But you know, one of the main key things is identifier and the sealers we use.
Bob:
And the important part about Polish concrete to understand is that it’s both the mechanical and chemical process that is tightening the pores in your floor because when concrete is poured, as much as you can try to keep air out of it air does get trapped. And then it creates these little pores in the concrete, in each step that the polished concrete Little Rock takes in the polished concrete Little Rock process actually minimizes and reduces those pores. And then the chemical piece of it is the desifier that is used that actually kind of expands the different chemical components within the concrete. So as we Polish a higher and higher grit, that’s what makes a polished concrete Little Rock floor via a, basically a sealed, polished concrete floors that there is almost no pores. Certainly no pores that are visible to the eye, to the naked eye by the time it’s done. And that is also a thing that buys you time and make some maintenance easier and cleaning on a polished concrete Little Rock floor. And as Ryan said for stained concrete floors, we work that in as part of the process because we have to that color down in the floor before we completely seal it off where the color can’t penetrate any longer. And we have tons of great color options. What are some of the most popular ones that you’ve done on your estimates
Ryan:
By far, just because of the times, the way things are now, no color, just the natural color of concrete, whether it be the Brown you get from the sand or the gray cream Polish you get from the Portland. But we do by far after no color, we do a lot, a lot of different grades of gray. We’ll do full strength, which we call 100%. We do a 50%, which we cut at 50% with an asset tone. Then we do a 25%, which is just basically a three to one with acetone and our dyes just for a little bit lighter, but even cutting, it just depends on how the concrete is going to take it. It can get super, super dark or super light. Just depends on it. All really depends on the canvas that we’re presented with before we begin the process. After gray, we do a lot of Browns like the number one, I say, the one we do hear the most is the maple Brown color. And then we do a lot of the saddle red and saddle Brown things really gives it a real leathery effect. And then we do a lot of the goals like the Carmel in true gold and sand. And then there’s, there’s just, there’s we have just a lot of different colors.
Bob:
You know, one of the things I personally liked best about staying in polished concrete Little Rock is the fact that like you said, it kind of varies depending on what kind of canvas we’re presented with concrete floors, just have their own character just by the very nature of how concrete is mixed and poured and then how it solidifies as it gets hard over time. And what happens is the exact same color. I mean, we get a solid container of color, looks all the same. And as soon as we sprayed across that floor, it looks like we’ve applied several different shades of that color to the floor. And it just adds such great character, even things that you would consider a flaw in a floor, like maybe a stress fracture or something like that, the stain is taken different in that area. And it just adds a look to the floor that you cannot possibly duplicate if even if you want it to
Ryan:
Really nice marbling effect. What are the greatest benefits of Polish concrete that we always try to get in is the cost factor over time. It is the least expensive per square foot. It’s cheaper than carpet tile, linoleum. You may be able to get somebody to come lay tile or rolled vinyl or cheap carpet, which you can tear it out in a few years, concrete with a low maintenance it’s going to last you for the, the, the however long you’re in the building you’re in, or you own building it’s concrete is a 100 year plus surface. And as long as it’s maintained, it’s going to last you for your lifetime
Bob:
And stained and polished concrete Little Rock to another huge benefit like Ryan said. So you put in some carpet, especially, you know, you’re going to be tearing that out within a few years. Concrete is a great green option. That’s environmentally friendly when you’re building or remodeling because there’s no future tear out that has to happen. If you something happens to your floor and you want to like change the color, or you just want to, you know, get rid of the color. The polished concrete is it’s still there. We’ve only taken off microns off the top. It’s not like we’ve polished the concrete where there’s none left. There is a ton of slab left there. We can grind it down. We can expose the aggregate. We have a lot of different options in polished concrete Little Rock in none of them fill up our landfills.
Ryan:
Yup. And it’s a high reflective surface. That’s hard to scratch and it’s actually classified as a non-slip floor. The one of the other benefits is say, you’ve got a business there and you can’t afford to have the look of marble or have the look of GRA granted or the look of terrazzo, concretes, and other alternative where we can give it the look of marble. We can give it the look of terrazzo with exposed aggregate, or just with the staining. It’s just a, it’s a super, super high polished floor. This just great for heavy foot traffic. And it eliminates the need for messy waxes and codings that just cost time and labor. It’s, it’s your, it’s a one and done deal
Bob:
For businesses. It’s kind of a no brainer. All you have to do is look at your big box retailers and evaluate their flooring. When you walk into one of the big box retailers, you are going to see that it’s polished concrete Little Rock flooring, and that’s because it’s so cheap to maintain. Not only is it really cost competitive on the installation side of it, but over time, concrete, polished, concrete, outperforms, any other kind of floor covering in terms of what it costs to maintain over time. So a VCT for example, might be extremely cheap to put in, but if someone puts a stained concrete floor in their office or business, you know, that’s a one-time investment basically where all you’re having to do after that is clean the floor or possibly have us come back in. We do offer maintenance services to make sure that, you know, your floor isn’t getting scratched, or we take care of those small problems before they become major issues. Or there’s sometimes etching from spilled Cokes or coffee can cause some issues, but all of those are fixable and we can come in and repair those as part of our annual maintenance plan
Ryan:
And concrete. Just some key points with it to remember is it’s a low maintenance. It’s a well low maintenance cost too. There’s a quick installation. It’s non porous. It’s got increased their ability than any other floors. It’s aesthetically pleasing. It’s also a safety and slip resistant. It’s energy efficient and creates ambient light by the reflectivity. And it’s extremely green.
Bob:
Yep. So it’s a great option in remodeling or in new construction. And we use it almost exclusively. If you look in a warehouse setting the concrete, because it’s so easy to clean, so cheap to maintain that you don’t have the spills and stains and issues that you have with so many other types of flooring. And in comparison wise, Ryan, like say if you had a, a vinyl, like they’ve got what is a good, like rough figure for an installation cost on like some vinyl sheet around $3 a square foot, and about what do we typically able to do polished concrete Little Rock floor in
Ryan:
Between three and $5 a square foot.
Bob:
And then the great part is like we said, especially if you’re talking about a residential home, residential homes are other than cleaning it. I mean, there’s almost no maintenance that has to be done unless you’re doing like a lot, a lot of hosting of parties and stuff in businesses, there’s maintenance, but really what are we looking at? And maintenance wise, if you, if I’ve got like an office building and I put Polish concrete in and we come in and take care of it every year,
Ryan:
Polished concrete Little Rock average is around 20 cents a square foot. So your total expense over 20 years is 11, $11 and 60 cents a square foot over 20 years.
Bob:
Yeah. Which is, if you wanted to talk about that, the vinyl, you know, like your VCT and stuff over time, that’s a third of the total cost versus a VCT
Ryan:
VCT has an average cost of an average of a dollar, a square foot, yearly maintenance for waxing and cleaning. And then it’s only good for about 10 years before it starts to really look bad. Then the replacement costs doubles. Cause then you’d have to pay for ripping up the old vinyl. So you’re no longer at $3 a square foot you’re at $5 a square foot. It was $2 a square foot to remove it. And if $3 more to put it back there.
Bob:
Okay. So polished, concrete and stained concrete are great, inexpensive, durable options for you in your flooring.