New Home... Which flooring???
Good day everyone. I am looking into purchasing a new home and am looking for flooring suggestions. I have loved acid stain concrete but had a very bad experience 6 years ago with my current home where we paid an installer that did such a bad job that we had to tile over. Being that this is a new home built, I have the option for them NOT to install any kind of flooring and purchase the home on the basic concrete. I have always loved Terrazzo floors since a kid so that is one option but too expensive. What other suggestions would some of you recommend?
if you love terrazzo but are turned off by the price there is a systym available by a resin company that supply something that you might be interested in here is a link
http://usa.sika.com/en/solutions_products/02/02a004/02a004sa98.html
you might have to speak to someone in there main office, but there is a terrazzo systym that these guys have that looks very impressive, it is installed as a self leveling epoxy floor but incorporated into the mix are lightweight aggregates that rise to the surface during installation, the final product looks like terrazzo but with smaller aggregate, no grinding is needed to achieve the terrazzo look, down here in australia the systym is called "sika decor" but it appears that you yanks call it something else, it is a fair bit cheaper that traditional terrazzo and still mamages to look great.
good luck
one more thing just like tru crete said if you go for something like the epoxy terrazzo make sure they know what they are doing, with something like this product it is better to get a company that has a lot of experiance in resin floors, like an industrial flooring company, or at least with someone who can show you their work in self leveling/smoothing resins via job references.
Thanks for the info. I have seen a lot of contractors offering to polish the concrete. What are the benefits of polished concrete vs acid stained concrete?
stained concrete is more often than not coated with a protective coating/s, polished concrete is not coated with any coatings such as polyurethaneor epoxy etc, polished concrete is a lot more hard wearing if done properly. if you are going for polished concrete mak sure they grout the concrete to fill in any pores, which some guys out there skip, they then densify the concrete making it extremely hard wearing compared to any coatings, then they should burnish in another sealer with a high speed burnisher, it is a good option to go for if you an afford it.
What is the product that is burnished in ?
the product that is burnished varies, there are all sorts of different types, the one ive used is a lithium based mixed with different polymers aswell, i dont know to much about them tho. goes on after the polishing and makes the floor pop a bit more and adds more protection to the concrete. Usally you burnish about 3 coats of this stuff in
Thanks for all the info. Can color be added to polished concrete?
yes you can color/stain the concrete during polishing
It is not so much about what anyone would reccomend but who would they reccomend. Acid stain is a wonderful flooring option and is tried and true. However, the wrong contractor can ruin a floor just by the way he preps it let alone the rest of the process. My reccomendation is find a contractor and qualify them. Find out what they offer and get references. Then contact those references and ask to look at their floors. If at this point you feel you have found the right contractor you should accept their reccomendation on what they think should be done and with them, work out the details of color, pattern and sealer. Things like that. And do not shop based on price. If you are working on a budget you can keep costs down by keeping the project simple. Don't try to get more for less. Pay the right price for what needs to be done the right way.
Hope this helps.