Concrete Floor

Concrete floors are ideal for high-wear situations or places where fluids may spill or heavy things might fall or be dropped.  In addition, concrete floors can handle extremely heavy loads that would crush other floor types.  For these reasons, concrete floors have been used in garages for many years.  Recently, though, concrete coatings and colors have come a long way so that concrete floors are becoming more common for other rooms in the house.  A normal concrete floor has a fairly rough finish, allowing for greater slip resistance.  Concrete can be polished, however, leaving a smooth, shiny finish.  The amount of polishing determines how smooth and how shiny the resulting surface is.

Polished concrete floors are well-suited for living areas.  They are growing in popularity due to the many advantages they have over other floor types.  A polished concrete floor reflects light so the interior space is much brighter while requiring less electric interior lighting.  Concrete floors can be colored in a variety of ways, from adding colored aggregates to the concrete mix, or adding chemicals to wet concrete, or simply by adding a colored concrete coating onto an existing concrete floor.

Concrete coatings have several advantages over simply coloring wet concrete.  For one, concrete coatings can be applied over an existing concrete surface, instead of having to be mixed on before the concrete is poured.  Second, concrete coatings can be much brighter colors than concrete alone can be, since the color isn't diluted into a concrete mix, but is instead applied over the top.  Concrete coatings can add texture and grip on top of adding a softer surface than concrete alone can.