Repairs to Keep Your Polished Concrete Floors Functional and Looking Pristine

Polished concrete floors are a popular choice among residential and commercial building owners because they are highly functional and quite aesthetic. Over time, however, the appearance and overall functionality of these floors will start to deteriorate due to normal use. When this occurs, urgent repair work will be necessary to restore the floors.

If you're considering installing a polished concrete floor in your house or commercial building, here's a breakdown of some common repairs you may have to carry out at some point.

Remedying separation at control joints

When poured concrete dries, it shrinks. This leads to formation of cracks on the surface of hardened concrete. One method of limiting cracking is to strategically place control joints on the poured concrete slab. When cut properly, these joints will cause cracking to occur on a line and not in any place across the slab. Sealing or filling of a control joint should be put off to a later time so that the joint can widen properly.

Over time, however, filled joints can separate due to deterioration of filler material as well as the joint sealant. For the most part, this happens due to the simple fact that wet concrete shrinks when it dries. There are numerous ways to remedy joint separation and cracking that occur due to shrinkage of concrete. But generally, you will have to clean the joints and fill them with a suitable joint sealant such as a urethane joint sealant, polyurea joint filler or epoxy filler. 

If left unattended, joint separations can harbour moisture and water, which will accelerate wear and tear of your concrete floors.

Fixing small cracks and holes

Though control joints are quite effective at preventing cracking of concrete, small cracks and holes may still form on your polished concrete floors. To remedy these defects, you will need to clean out any loose debris from the affected areas and apply polyurethane polymer. Allow the polymer enough time to cure and then remove excess filler material with a scraping tool such as a scraper or putty knife.

Thanks to the availability of a wide selection of concrete colourants on a construction market, matching the colour of concrete fillers to that of your polished concrete shouldn't be a headache anymore. Your floors will be looking like new again once you're done performing the repair work. If you need help repairing the defects on your polished concrete floors, don't hesitate to seek help from a local concrete contractor.