Modern houses use concrete floors, and the owners prefer to have them perfectly smoothed for their house’s aesthetics.
Normally, a professional builder is hired for this, but you wondered how to sand concrete? The reason is you want to learn how to do this yourself during a pandemic or save money for other activities.
Let’s see some tips to help you renovate your house independently.
How To Sand Concrete?
The eventual goal for how to sand concrete is to completely flat the surface and get rid of all redundant details. Achieving this goal will need proper instruction to guide you through.
Here are the steps we recommended to how to sand concrete
Ready the surface
Before repairing your floor, you will need to search for bumps that appear on the surface and fix them accurately.
Check the corners! They usually have concrete bumps around them. A trick for this is using Cold Chisels to clean those areas, and then you will find them quite easy to take care of.
You might want to get rid of those bumps as soon as possible. The more time they spend on your floor, the harder you can remove them!
Seek out professional supports
Let’s face it! You don’t have enough tools and experience to do this all by yourself. It is fascinating to think that you can accomplish it alone, but surely you will leave behind some unwanted arising.
Leave the hard work to an expert. They likely support you with the appropriate tools, experiences, and expertise to do it much more smoothly.
Although professional hiring ruins the goals to do it yourself and save money, this step saves you some time and effort, which is worth an investment.
If you are confident about your DIY skills and have enough knowledge of “how to sand concrete?”, then ensure you have all the necessary equipment before starting.
Equip with an automatic tool
Consider using an orbital sander when your floor is still being uncovered and becomes visible after several efforts. It still can be smoothed with glass paper, but it costs you a lot of time for desired results.
You can search several types of sanders online or directly at a tool shop. We recommend using the one that comes with a water hose. This variation keeps a constant flow of water when you are busy with some manual work.
You can also try a dry polisher that is attached to the vacuum. Use this to reduce the dust that you should avoid breathing in when contact near the floor.
Gather necessary gears
Not just sander, you will need some other types of equipment as well during your house renovation. These include abrasive tools, a densifier, and a sealant to complete your equipment collection.
Apply appropriate glasspaper
It is a very important step to how to sand concrete. The coarseness of the glass paper you choose depends on how much flatting needs to be done.
As a regular smoothen, use the grit from 40 to 60. Removing minor bumps requires 80 to 120 grit. Finally, for perfect smoothen, use superfine glass paper ranging between 200 and 400 grit.
There will be severe flaws so that you will need a floor grinder or special diamond disc. Remember to start with the coarsest disc then a higher-grit disc for later.
Work efficiently
Working by yourself seems very exhausting, so make sure to do it smartly to save you some energy. As mentioned, we recommend starting from the corners where the bumps appear then working towards the center.
Cover each corner within an area of 4-foot-square. Continue for the length and width. After you have finished the entire floor, dust it all off. Use your superfine glass paper to achieve smoothness for the area. After that, continue the process until it reaches the desired smoothness.
That is how to sand concrete all by yourself.
Seal your work with a finishing touch
Now your work has been done. It’s time to provide a protection method. Use your sealer to give your floor a new wet look.
Not only does it help the surface look clean and beautiful, but it also protects from wear, making it more resistant to spills and stains.
After the process is finished, you should apply one or two layers of sealer. Yet, to make sure the surface is always in great shape, you should do annual cleaning and apply the sealer each year as well.
Conclusion
Homeowners in modern days should always know how to sand concrete? It is a helpful skill for repairing your house on your own and saving a lot of money hiring professional builders.
Hope you have learned a lot from our article! Good luck, and see you in our next post!
