About Mechanical Concrete Prep

Shot Blasting Concrete Flooring (also known as mechanical concrete cleaning)

'Mechanical Cleaning' is the preparation and cleaning of a large area of concrete floor surface through the use of particular mechanical methods.

Mechanical cleaning of concrete tops the list in the advantage of speed.  (When methods such as shotblasting or scarifying are attempted by inexperienced or  untrained operators, there's a likelihood of removal of too much of the surface area which could result in exposed aggregate, leaving an overly rough and porous surface. So it's important to know that improperly performed mechanical concrete preparation can severely damage a concrete floor.

Power grinding, sanding or scraping is normally used to open holes and voids and to remove curing membranes, some hardeners, loose matter and laitance from the surface of floor slabs. These methods can be used in place of blasting but are a considerably slower process.

Shot Blasting Method

The shot blasting method of industrial or commercial concrete floor preparation is regarded as the most professional and most effective surface preparation method for concrete is a light blast with a Vacuum Assisted Shot blaster. The objective is the same as acid etching. The shot blast removes form release agents, weak concrete, laitance, dirt and contamination and a highly powerful industrial vacuum assures that the resulting dust is well-contained.

Scarifying Concrete Floor Surfaces

When concrete floors must be chipped down to sound concrete, Scarifiers may be used to remove the top layer of concrete to expose a fresh, clean surface. This technique is really practical only for floor surfaces. Dust protection is required when used in areas where other items could be affected.

Diamond Grinders are powerful enough for almost any industrial requirement. They are used for various applications, from the ‘keying’ of existing surfaces, removal of existing paint and weak laitance, to the smoothing out of uneven surfaces.  Diamond grinding can smooth out floors to a laser level finish, removing minor pits and divots, high spots and roughness on concrete floors.  When dealing with concrete that has been poorly laid and different heights, the grinder is used to smooth out the transition from one slab to the other.  All can be connected to industrial dust recovery units.

Pressure controlled rubber mounted non-planetary grinding heads and specially designed diamonds enables me to grind and/or polish without scouring the concrete, even on cracks and expansion joints. The specialist disc, embedded with a coarse diamond grit can easily prepare, clean and abrade existing coatings for re-coat. This process will remove thin layer coatings and weak toppings and provide a textured finish suitable for two coatings to bond together. 

Should an existing coating be already down that is fundamentally adhering very well to the surface but one that simply needs rejuvenating, the keying off this existing surface in order to accept a further coat can also be easily achieved.  In comparison to shot blasting, diamond grinding work is more time-consuming and intensive, but the finish left can be far smoother.  In some cases I can actually polish the surface to a super smooth finish.