BURNISHED
CONCRETE
burnished concrete vs. polished concrete?
A lot of customers get confused between burnished concrete and other popular finishes, like mechanically polished concrete.
While burnishing machines do look very similar to a concrete grinder, burnishing machines are not powerful enough to actually grind down the concrete surface. Instead, burnishing machines are used to heat, melt and buff a coating that’s applied to a surface. The chemical coating, melts into the small pores in the concrete surface.
A densifier can be used when burnishing concrete, which gives the surface some of the same properties as mechanical finishes, including shine, durability and toughness. But it’s easy to get it wrong, and if you muck up the installation, it won’t look nearly as good as you were expecting.
don't be fooled
It’s easy to understand why burnished concrete is becoming more and more popular with developers, builders, architects and homeowners. The versatile material is extremely durable, lasts for decades, is one of the easiest surfaces to maintain and is more cost effective than mechanically polished concrete.
But don't be fooled!
The idea of burnished floors as a cheaper alternative to polished concrete can often lead to disappointment.
The concrete slab must be perfectly poured, finished and cleaned before burnishing commences, and cutting corners at this stage will result in ugly floors.
Uneven troweling will result in an uneven floor. If the concreter leaves small dips or humps in the floor they will be highly visible in the finished floor.
Similarly the slab must be troweled as close to the edges as possible. Slabs tend to have darker centres and lighter edges when poured. If you’re burnishing a large area, you may end up with a patchy-looking floor: light in some areas and dark in others.
The key takeaway here is that to achieve a great-looking burnished floor, the concrete slab must be poured impeccably! To avoid these nasty surprises, have you considered taking advantage of our pouring services? Click here to learn more.
protecting your investment
In order to protect our clients investment, we install SkudoBoard after the polishing or burnishing process. The high compression strength of Skudoboard protects floors from dropping objects, carpentry, painting, etc.
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