Polished, not coated
There are two very different things sold as polished concrete.
One is a coating: a glossy topcoat rolled over the slab. It looks close on day one and it wears through in the traffic lanes, because the shine is a film sitting on top.
The other is a real mechanical polish. The slab is ground through a sequence of progressively finer diamond grits, a chemical densifier is applied that reacts with the concrete and hardens it from within, and then it is polished to the sheen you want. The shine is the slab itself. There is no film to wear through, and the traffic lanes do not go dull.
We do the second one.
Exposure: what the floor will look like
You are choosing how much of the slab to open up, and it is decided by how aggressively we grind at the start.
Cream finish stays at the surface. It reads smooth and fairly uniform, with only small aggregate showing. It is the most forgiving of a slab with an inconsistent pour.
Salt and pepper takes off the top layer and exposes the fine sand. This is the most common choice and the most predictable.
Aggregate exposure grinds deeper and brings up the large stone. It looks terrazzo-like and it is dramatic, but it depends entirely on how the slab was poured. If the aggregate is not evenly distributed you will see that, and no amount of polishing fixes it.
Your slab decides what is possible
Polished concrete is a finishing process applied to concrete that already exists, so the pour you have sets the ceiling on the result.
Patches, old adhesive, tire stains that soaked in years ago, and cracks are all part of the finished floor. Some of that reads as character and some of it reads as damage, and which is which is a judgment call.
Before we quote, we grind a small test patch in an out-of-the-way spot so you can see what is under there. We will not quote a finish from a photo of someone else’s slab.
Sealing and maintenance
A densified polished floor still wants a penetrating guard against oil and stains, particularly in a kitchen or a shop. It is not a topical coating, so it does not change the look. Maintenance is dust mopping and occasional damp mopping with a neutral cleaner. No wax, no strip and recoat.
Where we install
Polished concrete from Logan to Nephi, and statewide for commercial floors. See commercial flooring.