Ho hum - time to remedy.

[MikeSharp01]

We poured our slab on Thursday but despite our best efforts we had a couple of problems and as a result our plans have changed. The polish we achieved was not good enough across the whole house and we don't want / can't have level changes between spaces, we knew the risks, so we now need a screed that can look like a polished floor and be less than 35mm thick if a topping is required or 50mm if it's a finished surface.

 

Any ideas on thin (ish) screeds / polished concrete like screeds? 

 

I guess I will have to scabble the surface to ensure any render takes which is a pain but at least we are out of the ground. 

 

 

 

 

[PeterW]

Resin floor - and I’m sure it was either @Bitpipe or @HerbJ that has it..??

[Onoff]

@IanR's thread:

 

 

[nod]

I was talking to someone in the plumbers merchants that was having a resin floor From the pictures he was showing off

it looked really smart

But came at a cost £100 per mtr all in 

[Onoff]

10 hours ago, nod said:

I was talking to someone in the plumbers merchants that was having a resin floor From the pictures he was showing off

it looked really smart

But came at a cost £100 per mtr all in 

 

Can it be DIY'd?

 

Not sure how you'd mix industrial quantities of resin though!

[PeterW]

4 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Can it be DIY'd?

 

Not a chance !!!! 

[jack]

13 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

We poured our slab on Thursday but despite our best efforts we had a couple of problems and as a result our plans have changed. The polish we achieved was not good enough across the whole house and we don't want / can't have level changes between spaces, we knew the risks, so we now need a screed that can look like a polished floor and be less than 35mm thick if a topping is required or 50mm if it's a finished surface.

 

Any ideas on thin (ish) screeds / polished concrete like screeds? 

 

I guess I will have to scabble the surface to ensure any render takes which is a pain but at least we are out of the ground.

 

We have 65mm polished concrete on top of an MBC slab. We were warned that 75mm was the minimum, and we do have three cracks that might not have been there if the slab had been a little thicker. I do think we'd have avoided them if the stress relief cuts had been done a little better, but that's just my inexpert opinion.

 

Sorry not much help, but that's the standard polishable concrete situation as it was put to us.

 

There are various epoxy-based topping products, but I don't think they look much like concrete, and I believe they're very expensive.

 

How far away is the current result from what you were hoping for?

[nod]

13 hours ago, Onoff said:

 

Can it be DIY'd?

 

Not sure how you'd mix industrial quantities of resin though!

The resin floors don’t look that difficult most are bucket mixed with a drill and poured and simply spread with a spatula or roller

A carpet fitter near were we live started doing them about five years back

His first job was on his own house 

Looks pretty nice five years on 

He used a nonslip with thousand of tiny beads 

[Mikey_1980]

We used ideal work for ours, it has been down two years and still looks great, cost fully installed was around £75m2, https://www.idealworkuk.com/

[Onoff]

7 hours ago, nod said:

The resin floors don’t look that difficult most are bucket mixed with a drill and poured and simply spread with a spatualar or roller

A carpet fitter near were we live started doing them about five years back

His first job was on his own house 

Looks pretty nice five years on 

He used a nonslip with thousand of tiny beads 

 

I assume it must be self levelling to a degree?

 

If you can DIY a resin drive it must be possible to do a resin floor imo.

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, Onoff said:

If you can DIY a resin drive it must be possible to do a resin floor imo.

You'd try and make a lunar space shuttle if someone asked you to  That resin stuff is not for the feint hearted. 

 

[Onoff]

2 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

You'd try and make a lunar space shuttle if someone asked you to  That resin stuff is not for the feint hearted. 

 

 

Resin topped coffee table to start with...

[Nickfromwales]

3 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Resin topped coffee table.................

...............with integrated rise and fall biscuit holder and whacka-plate mode?

[Onoff]

Just now, Nickfromwales said:

...............with integrated rise and fall biscuit holder and whacka-plate mode?

 

I found the wacker plate in the shed yesterday. I might get my lad to make the single to 3ph converter whilst he's off from uni. If he's not too busy gaming like when I was doing the tiles last night!

[Nickfromwales]

11 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Any ideas on thin (ish) screeds / polished concrete like screeds? 

I would check around as I have found that there are a lot more products out there than people who know about them. My screeder laid a floor for me 10mm rising to 25mm which he laid on some expensive resin type primer base. Still there today. 

11 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

so we now need a screed that can look like a polished floor and be less than 35mm thick if a topping is required or 50mm if it's a finished surface.

If you've poured ( assume to DPC ) then how do you have the means to add 35-50mm? Purely out of curiosity.

[Nickfromwales]

1 minute ago, Onoff said:

 

I found the wacker plate in the shed yesterday. I might get my lad to make the single to 3ph converter whilst he's off from uni. If he's not too busy gaming like when I was doing the tiles last night!

The Matrix has him now, save the girl !!!!

[Cambs]

Here's a couple of This Old House videos showing how to epoxy a garage floor.....  The first one says 20 mins working time and the second one says a couple of hours. Note the spiked shoes on the first video that allows them to walk across it.  May not be good enough for a house floor finish though.

 

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/how-to/how-to-apply-epoxy-coating-to-garage-floor

 

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/how-to/how-to-upgrade-garage-floor-epoxy-coat

[Carrerahill]

12 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

We poured our slab on Thursday but despite our best efforts we had a couple of problems and as a result our plans have changed. The polish we achieved was not good enough across the whole house and we don't want / can't have level changes between spaces, we knew the risks, so we now need a screed that can look like a polished floor and be less than 35mm thick if a topping is required or 50mm if it's a finished surface.

 

Any ideas on thin (ish) screeds / polished concrete like screeds? 

 

I guess I will have to scabble the surface to ensure any render takes which is a pain but at least we are out of the ground. 

 

 

 

 

Can't you have the floor diamond polished?

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, Carrerahill said:

Can't you have the floor diamond

That is an option but the power floating did remove the fat in places so we will have to go down a good way. I am not sure how far you can go down with diamond polishing. I think my plan at the moment is to scabble it down to an even surface, IE remove the powet float finish, and then see where we are. Jackie is not keen on the terrazzo look and I think that is where we would need to go with it. 

[HerbJ]

14 hours ago, PeterW said:

Resin floor - and I’m sure it was either @Bitpipe or

 

i have a resin coated garage floor that was applied by a specialist contractor,who normally installs showrooms, warehouses, coldstores etc. I found a contractor who was willing to do my 37m2 garage after he done a 1000m2+++ TESLA showroom. I paid him cash and it was very good, for a garage.  I just had to wait a few weeks for them to be in my area and they finished it over two days, with less than 3 hours on each day. They spent a lot of time grinding and cleaning the surface  and filling small holes.imperfections, before applying the resin.  The  garage floor was an MBC installed insulated raft and didn't need too much work.

 

I've also applied  my own resin floor for a double garage at my previous house. It's not difficult but best results come from surface preparation and practice

 

@Bitpipe has a resin floor for his entire ground floor. and I think he's very happy with it.  I am sure he will be able to provide details

[jack]

19 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

That is an option but the power floating did remove the fat in places so we will have to go down a good way. I am not sure how far you can go down with diamond polishing. I think my plan at the moment is to scabble it down to an even surface, IE remove the powet float finish, and then see where we are. Jackie is not keen on the terrazzo look and I think that is where we would need to go with it. 

 

You can take quite a bit off with diamonds, starting with a coarse grind and working your way finer once you reach the required depth.

 

We have a "light" grind on our polished concrete floor, which barely shows pieces of aggregate. It isn't perfectly even - the aggregate shows up a little more in some areas than in others - but we really like the effect. It certainly doesn't have a terrazzo look about it (my wife was categorically against too much aggregate being on show).

 

Can you experiment with gently grinding/polishing a bit of the slab that'll be out of sight and see what you come up with? It may be that you can get away with some sections (maybe per room?) with a bit of aggregate on display and other rooms with no aggregate showing.

 

I'd personally be hesitant to scrabble back the entire surface as a first step.

[MikeSharp01]

3 hours ago, jack said:

We have a "light" grind on our polished concrete floor, which barely shows pieces of aggregate. It isn't perfectly even - the aggregate shows up a little more in some areas than in others - but we really like the effect

Any chance of a pic @jack to show Jackie and see what she thinks.

 

Mike 

[jack]

The following photos are all from the same area in the house earlier today (took them but didn't have time to post). It's actually really hard to capture the real-life effect of the concrete!

 

Relatively speckled area:

 

 

Less speckled (+ crazy dog):

 

 

Transition between speckled and less speckled area:

 

Another view:

[lizzie]

When I lived in East Africa we all had polished concrete floors as that was pretty much the only way to floor a house with the limited materials available. The locals just did it, levelled with pieces of wood, no sophisticated tools available and I never remember there being so much science to it. 

Edited August 7, 2018 by lizzie

[divorcingjack]

I think it looks great though! Very interesting. Ours is power floated too and we have quite a number of small holes and rough areas, We are planning on filling them in with a either a coloured resin or metal to make a feature of them. Mind you, our whole house has a very rough/industrial aesthetic to it, so it might not be your thing. 

 

I also hate terrazzo, far too shiny. I don't do shiny things as they tend to need polishing, which I also don't do! I will see if I can find a pic of the kind of thing I mean. 

 

Fascinating, apparently there is a whole japanese art dedicated to repairing broken pottery using a similar technique. Gorgeous. 

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/val-jon-farris/from-broken-to-beautiful-_b_5903994.html

 

Edited August 7, 2018 by divorcingjack
add pic