Polishing concrete

Polishing concrete will cost more than having it tiled, by a professional, using top quality tiles, or carpetted with top of the range carpet.

Yes, but you wouldn't put carpet in a bathroom, let alone a shower.....

================================ The technique is loosely described as 'terrazzo'. Look at this for starters:

Q&A at

I'm sure the company will advise and their site lists planty of polishing pads but what you drive them with I couldn't see

Peter K

It's fine to polish a slab of concrete which can be manhandled. Try polishing it once it's already laid! - how do you get into the corners?

I have a shag pile in my bathroom - quite cosy 'twixt the toes, and a 'walk in shower' doesn't neccesarily mean an open plan one - I've recently seen a few that are just two parallel tiled walls where the 'door' would normally be.

The clever dick reply is with their "For polishing in a tight corner"pads but with a 90mm diameter that still leaves a significant triangle so I presume by hand with their rectangular hand pads Peter K

Yuk. A breeding ground for all kinds of flora and fauna.

Yes of course, that's one way that they should be.

However, carpets have no place in a bathroom.

lay a layer of terrazzo mix first, it will look fabulous versus very dull for plain screed. Having stayed in a terrazzo'd house I can assure you its a gorgeous flooring method.

In the early days of terrazzo the grinding/polishing was done with large abrasive stones on a broom handle, in progressively finer grades.

NT

Thanks for the response guys, much greater than I expected. I had heard that concrete polishing is an expensive process but I do like the finish when it is polished. The look I am going for is utilitarian/functional so that would be in keeping. Otoh, my son has a flat in Palma, Mallorca, which is terrazzod throughout. I like the idea of a continuous floor covering so may do some research into that. The alternative is to use the uneven natural floor tiles that I picked up off Freecycle! As for carpets - agreed, absoultely no place in a bathroom (unless you have little rugs around the loo and furry toilet seat covers!).

Maris

In your opinion.

Here's a good book on indoor decorative-grade concrete work (same author has a couple of useful books)

Be careful though, that not all concrete mixes are amenable to this.

OTOH, many of the polishing abrasives, especially the initial coarser ones, have become much cheaper in recent years.

Yes, saw this mentioned on the internet somewhere. The reviews in Amazon are unanimously very positive. I might just buy it (and it's sister volume) even if I don't go ahead with the polished concrete floor.

In your humble opinion

Nuffing humble about my opinions, mate. Get paid loads of money for those, I do. :o)

(OK, not about carpets in bathrooms...)

But slightly more seriously, I like carpet in bathrooms. But then, I'm the only male in the house, and I pee carefully.

In message , Huge writes

I like carpet in the bathroom too. It soaks up all the piss that misses the pan and avoids that annoying drumming noise that urine normally makes on linoleum.

Mind you, it's starting to get a bit sticky now. Are you supposed to wash it or something?

In message , Huge writes

There is a certain technique involving directing the stream at a tangent to the curvature of the urinal. If you aim directly into the centre of a parabolic wee-wee reflector then you will experience a significant amount of urinary rebound that is directly proportional to the volume and pressure of the source.

pv = c

Or something.

:o)

Where is Mary when she is needed :-)

Dave