If you have concrete floors in your commercial facility, they may have been cured when poured. If that’s the case, and you’re looking at installing some other type of surface, whether it’s ceramic tile, linoleum, or even polishing the concrete floor surface, then you need to understand the process that needs to take place to get it ready.
You can’t simply lay a ceramic tile floor over a cured concrete surface. That’s because the curing compound penetrates into the pores of the concrete, and it creates a surface that essentially inhibits bonding.
While great for limiting residue and other materials from adhering to the surface, it can be limiting with regard to applying a new floor surface. For example, if you’ve had a warehouse style facility for some time, but it’s being renovated to add some office space, you certainly don’t want to apply carpeting or some other surface to the concrete floor until it is properly prepared.
Without removing the curing compound completely, the tiles can come loose and that can create a significant safety hazard. The only way to truly remove the curing compound from concrete is through a process called scarification.
Scarification is essentially removing the top layer of concrete completely, all the way down to below where the curing compound penetrated originally. This could be a matter of millimeters or several centimeters, depending on the concrete used.
What happens if you don’t take this important step?
Keeping those concrete floor surfaces clean becomes a lot easier with the curing compound on it, but if you don’t remove the curing compound before applying the new commercial floor surface, it will not only prevent the floor surface from sticking, but it will also make cleaning that new floor surface a lot more challenging. For example, maintenance personnel trying to clean that new ceramic tile surface will begin noticing the tiles coming loose, inhibiting a smooth and clean surface.
Before renovating those commercial floor surfaces, find out if they were bonded. If they were, be sure to have them properly ground down to promote better bonding of the new surface.