FEATURE
Surface preparation can be a tedious, time-consuming and messy task, but shortcuts are always risky. By doing the job properly and thoroughly, you can ensure long-term bonding of the overlay and guarantee customer satisfaction.
The Beauty Underneath
Surface finishing involves no coating or overlay and is all about revealing the beauty of the concrete itself. The first step is to determine the condition of the floor, which may be new and flat, or old, uneven, cracked and covered in contaminants. All these problems can be addressed, but the client needs to be aware that a polished concrete floor is heavily dependent on the condition of the concrete at the start of a project.
After establishing the concrete’s condition, the contractor must determine whether the concrete will be able to meet the specifications of the brief and what processes to complete to achieve them. Concrete may require a simple polishing of the top surface, or a deeper grinding that reveals the aggregate stones. When revealing the aggregate, the type, distribution and colours in the mix can vary. Hand grinding a small sample area will give a good indication of the finished result. Evident cracks can be left and stabilised or filled and colour matched for a more uniform result.
Establishing the Right Technique
A single surface preparation or surface finishing project can require a variety of techniques that have a set number of steps, and only a qualified and well-trained professional can advise on how to achieve a quality result. As well as establishing the conditions of the substrate, it’s important to consider the size of the project. Large applications can accommodate large equipment like ride-on scrapers, wide shotblasters, big grinders and scarifiers or milling machines. However, some sites will only allow for compact, portable walk-behind or even hand-held devices.
Secondly, the contractor must respect the client’s requirements in terms of noise, vibration and dust, which might have to be limited due to proximity to other businesses or residential areas. Finally, when working on a surface preparation project, the contractor should consider what covering or flooring they will be applying. Thicker coverings, such as overlays, require rougher surfaces with a CSP of six and up. Thin film coatings usually require a smoother finish with a CSP ranging from one to four.
Depending on these variables, the contractor will decide what CSP to achieve and establish the best method to do so. Common techniques are abrasion, expansive pressure, pulverisation, impact, or chemical reaction.
The Importance of Tooling
Concrete profiling is much more efficient when done using the right machines. The first one to use is a floor stripper, which uses blades and shanks to remove all types of existing bonded solid and soft floorcoverings quickly and easily, minimising surface damage and limiting dust. Instead of removing coatings by hand, using a professional heavy-duty floor stripper helps contractors to preserve
twitter.com/TomorrowsTS
the surface, optimise the old coatings evacuation, guarantee operators’ safety and comfort and ultimately maximise profitability.
After that step, for fine profiling, the best option is a shot blaster. These machines throw a large amount of steel abrasive media at the surface – 400 km/hr – which then rebounds and is recycled by the machine. Dust and contaminants circulate through a clever system of deflectors and are sucked in and removed to a dedicated pre-separator and dust collector. This makes the process almost dust-free.
For rough profiling, scarifiers are best. In these powerful machines, cutters are loosely fitted on lateral shafts, which are then placed inside a drum housing. Once the machine is switched on, the drum rotates to generate a centrifugal force which throws the cutter at the surface, causing a mechanical cutting action. Like with shot blasters, dust and contaminants are moved to a dust collector and only heavier debris might remain on the floor.
Grinding machines are ideal for levelling any uneven floors without having to remove too much material or for prepping a concrete that is so soft that any other surface preparation technology would dig too deep. Single headed disc grinders use horizontally rotating discs to perform a multitude of tasks, from light texturing to opening the pores of the surface or removing paints and thin coatings. Planetary grinding machines are equipped with three grinding plates, which ensures that the grinding head will always follow the floor to give the best possible result.
Education
Though concrete profiling is an essential phase of surface preparation, it is often underestimated. Consequently, the biggest challenge is to educate the market on the importance of not taking shortcuts and explain that they should rely on the advice of trained professionals. Appropriate training can help contractors save time and money, as well as avoid health and safety hazards that may occur as a result of using equipment incorrectly.
Unfortunately, over the decades, contractors have often used harsh chemicals or other aggressive techniques that have irremediably damaged surfaces and jeopardised operators’ health, contributing to a poor reputation of our field in construction. For this reason, our priority at National Flooring Equipment is to educate the market to prefer mechanical and environmentally-friendly solutions, and to use each technology correctly. Every day our experts support contractors by advising on best practice to limit dust, noise and vibration, so that operators can work safely, comfortably and productively.
Artists study for years to master the secrets of their discipline and learn the best techniques and tools to express themselves. Similarly, contractors need to be trained in the best approaches made available by modern technology, so that the beauty of their flooring won’t be compromised by a poor preparation job.
www.nationalflooringequipment.com — 15 —
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
