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Has anyone had an old cement/concrete floor here in the region polished? If so, were you pleased with the results? Would you recommend the contractor who did the work? We are converting a garage and want to keep a fairly industrial look and keep costs down too. The floor is not perfectly level (although it looks it) and has some grease marks and a few cracks in it but it is generally sound. Any tips would be gratefully received?

An alternative would be a self levelling epoxy floor paint.

Russell

Or "mortier auto-nivelant". A lot less dust everywhere than having it ground off.

I have a one litre pot of 2-part epoxy resin paint to try. It's in a similar colour to the existing floor. However, there seems to be quite a bit of prep before you can paint it on (degreasing and acid etching). Our macon has already put the plasterboard walls in (although there is a slight gap at floor level) and any prep that requires sloshing around lots of water is not going to work sadly, which is why I thought polishing the existing floor - which is quite attractive and dates back to the time the house was built at the end of the 19th century - was a good alternative.

To achieve a polished concrete floor , you would need to start from scratch .
You could possibly go over with a self levelling screed witch could be layed 6mm-15mm thick but this would have to be the type with fibres .
But your Macon should know this ?
To polish a floor as you have described you would need a floor grinder and a lot of time and patience., but then you describe the floor has cracks so that's not a good start

Liz wrote:I have a one litre pot of 2-part epoxy resin paint to try. It's in a similar colour to the existing floor. However, there seems to be quite a bit of prep before you can paint it on (degreasing and acid etching). Our macon has already put the plasterboard walls in (although there is a slight gap at floor level) and any prep that requires sloshing around lots of water is not going to work sadly, which is why I thought polishing the existing floor - which is quite attractive and dates back to the time the house was built at the end of the 19th century - was a good alternative.

It's neither here nor there, really, but I'd be very surprised if a remotely modern-looking concrete floor (Portland cement, plus sand, plus aggregate) is anything like as old as 120-odd years. It was a cutting-edge material in those days, not something they were slapping down in the boondocks. Which doesn't make it the less worth preserving, if that suits your tastes and budget.

It may not be original but it looks it and has certainly got the patina of age which is why wd don't really want to cover it up. The Romans used it in the Pantheon after all! It has been laid with great care throughout the cellar and garage, with tiny indentations for texture and channels made in a pattern to make it look like individual stone slabs. And the main staircase in the house and also the fire hearth, which we thought at first were dirty grey marble or stone seem to be a sort of polished cement too, which is what gave me the idea in the first place.

Liz wrote:It may not be original but it looks it and has certainly got the patina of age which is why wd don't really want to cover it up. The Romans used it in the Pantheon after all! It has been laid with great care throughout the cellar and garage, with tiny indentations for texture and channels made in a pattern to make it look like individual stone slabs. And the main staircase in the house and also the fire hearth, which we thought at first were dirty grey marble or stone seem to be a sort of polished cement too, which is what gave me the idea in the first place.

The Pantheon was certainly made with concrete, but not using OPC. And it is (I imagine) a somewhat grander building. As I said, it's neither here nor there, but there is some social history there if only we knew. I have a somewhat older house (in Normandy), and the way in which it has been pummeled and massaged down the centuries - including by me - is a large part of its charm.