Easy to maintain, safer for employees, and highly durable, polished concrete floors fit well in a high production environment. Resistant to denting, cracking, and chipping, polished concrete floors increase the floor’s lifespan, durability, safety and cost effectiveness. The high luster of these floors magnify the existing lighting increasing safety and decreasing electricity costs.
Polished concrete is often used in manufacturing and industrial environments due to its durability and adaptability to climate fluctuations, traffic levels and resistance to wear and tear over time. The smooth, flat surface reduces wear and tear on the vehicles and equipment moving around within the facility, and provides a safe surface for a high volume of workers or customers. Easy to clean and maintain, the professional appearance of polished concrete adds to employee productivity and professional image.
Industrial Applications’ crews can take a concrete substrate in bad shape from the day to day wear and tear inevitable in an industrial environment, and do necessary repairs to get it ready for polishing. Seams and joints between slabs are cut and cleaned, and then filled with joint filler to create a smooth transition between slabs. If joints are in cracked and compromised, we can fully rebuild those joints. We will remove blemishes and imperfections by grinding down the top layer of concrete. We use chemicals to harden the concrete surface which makes it durable and stain resistant.
Beautiful and strong, polished concrete reduces your installation costs because there is no need to purchase a floor covering for over your concrete substrate. When other floor coatings fail and need to be repaired or replaced, polished concrete is a long-lasting solution and is not as vulnerable to damage as other materials and doesn’t need to be pulled up and replaced after a time. Polished concrete also typically meets or exceeds OSHA recommendations of a static coefficient friction of 0.5.
Polished concrete is not only gorgeous but also incredibly strong and highly resistant to heavy foot traffic, chips, cracks, and equipment traffic expected in an industrial plant. Your floor must withstand a lot of daily use and abuse. Polished concrete is resistant to spills, chemicals, water, and oil and won’t transfer water and moisture. Due to the density of the polished concrete, spills will not seep into the floor and cause cracks. While densifiers toughen the concrete, they still allow the concrete to breathe, eliminating issues that arise from other flooring materials that seal off concrete, like tile.
The higher grit tooling used, the higher the reflectivity – all based on the sheen level you want your floor to have. Polished concrete resists marks of tires, and staining from oil and chemicals.
As the person responsible for your facility upkeep, you want an option that looks good and is easy to maintain. Instead of spending countless hours trying to keep your floor in good condition by waxing and buffing, polished concrete requires very little maintenance – at least 30% less than VCT tile. All you have to do to keep the floor looking great is to sweep and damp mop as needed. Because the protective surface works as a barrier against spills, cleanup is kept simple. Polished concrete will not harbor dust, dirt and allergens.
Concrete does not have high thermal conductivity, which means it will take quite a long time to heat up and to cool down, creating an insulating effect and helping to balance temperature fluctuations. Using your existing slab and not adding a flooring that would need to be removed or replaced in the future is a sustainable solution, because it not only decreases material use, but also the need for replacement – helping both the environment and your building maintenance costs. Polished concrete can also be sealed with low VOC (volatile organic compounds) to further decrease any environmental impact. With a polished concrete floor, there is also increased light reflectivity, projecting a professional image and saving on lighting costs. Polished concrete will add more light to the area without the cost of adding fixtures by reflecting light from windows and current lights.
During installation, dry, dust-controlled equipment filters and vacuums filter out 99.9% of all airborne dust. With no adhesives or coatings applied, and use of existing building substrate, it is very helpful in LEED projects.
