Level floors

[Ray K]

I'm always impressed with the smooth, level floors in a typical Home Depot or Lowe's. They look like concrete with some kind of coating over them. Questions:

1. Anyone know what the actual construction of these floors is, especially how they get the top layer so perfectly smooth?
2. What kind of contractors do this work?
3. Even though they may be an expensive overkill, are they practical for home use, as an underlayment for ceramic tiles or Pergo-type flooring, ? Yes, I am aware of self-leveling products that are hard to mix without a

1/2" drill, and even after mixing are thick enough to require troweling.

My situation is a bedroom where the edges of floor along three of the four walls are about 1/4" below the level of the floor two feet in from the walls. There are also some minor low spots in the center.

Thanks,

Ray

[David L. Martel]

Ray,

Polished concrete is usually called terrazo. Ask at the concrete place to find out if any does terrazo in residential property where you live. Are you sure that your house can support the weight? I'd get an engineer involved since you may need somestructural reinforcemant.

Dave M.

[DanG]

You would need to give a lot more information. You never bothered to tell whether your floor is a concrete slab or suspended on joists.

The store's floors are concrete. The newest trend is to grind the finished concrete after it is set with diamond. The concrete just begins to shine at about 600 grit. If you really want to know more about it, go here:

It is far too expensive to do under some other floor covering. If you want to flatten a floor under flooring, the standard approach would be to use a floor leveling compound. I prefer the cement based/vinyl modified products. I prefer Mapei and Ardex products.

[trader4]

Can't imagine why you would want a super smooth, polished concrete finish for a sub floor that Pergo, ceramic tile, or anything else is going over. Pergo, ceramic, etc floors are installed successfully every day over ordinary construction slabs, plywood sub flooring etc.

And as others have pointed out, for existing construciton, particularly if it's wood frame, you have the issue of supporting the additional weight. There are methods to deal with leveling your floor prior to applying most flooring products without going extreme.

[Ray K]

Thanks everybody. The house is a ranch on a concrete slab. Now that I have a better understanding of HD floors, I'll avoid that approach and struggle with a self-leveling product and try to improve my poor troweling abilities.

Ray

[cybercat]

"Ray K" wrote

It was a good question, and I found the answers interesting.

[nospam]

Same here. In fact I'd like to see a discussion in this group on the merits vs. drawbacks of slab foundations. Probably not a lot of love for them among repair guys, installers etc, but my last house was the first one that had a slab foundation and I loved it. Perfectly level floors, absolutely no creaks, squeaks etc. It just felt a lot more solid compared to a pier foundation.

[Big_Jake]

Not true. Here is an explanation (actually good info) from Wiki -

Note that they are now doing "thin-set" terrazzo, so weight shouldn't be an issue.

JK

[Barney]

so, what's the big deal?