Increasingly, polished concrete is the flooring of choice. It is a relatively new flooring that has only really been available for just over 20 years. This surprises many people because concrete has been widely used for floors and other structures for far longer than that.
A Brief History of Concrete
In fact, the history of concrete is far longer than many people realise. It was used in ancient buildings. Many Roman buildings still exist today because they were built from concrete. However, somehow, the art of concrete making was largely lost and there is a gap of about 13 centuries where it appears not to have been in use anywhere.
A British engineer called John Smeaton is credited with the invention of modern concrete in about 1756. However, there are in fact also Danish and French structures built in the early 1700s that were made from concrete. Some of these still exist today.
It is the fact that concrete lasts so long that makes it such a good building material. Floors made from it are extremely hardwearing and will last for decades without needing repair. So, it makes you wonder why it was not a widely used flooring material before the 1990s. Well the problem lay in the way it looked; plain concrete is just awful to look at. In some environments, like a factory or warehouse that is OK, but in a public area it is not acceptable. That all changed with the invention of polished concrete.
How Polished Concrete Was Invented
The odd thing is that the process that produces today’s beautiful polished concrete floors is said to have been invented by accident. Legend has it that a contractor who was given the job of wet polishing the floors of a palace made the mistake of leaving a new team do the job. They did not realise that they needed to keep the floor wet whilst deep cleaning the concrete floors. When the contractor returned the next morning, he was stunned to be walking across a beautiful high gloss floor. He immediately saw the potential of polished concrete for the construction industry and spoke to his polish machine supplier. The rest is legend.
To find out more about polished concrete contact Quest Ltd. They have been laying these floors for 20 years and use the latest laying techniques.