Polished Concrete Flooring: An Alternative to Hardwood Floors by Martin Helda

Martin Helda
3 min readDec 20, 2021

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Martin Helda

Most modern establishments, residences, and properties use hardwood flooring in almost every room and place indoors. This observation is more evident, especially for expensive fancy places like restaurants, large companies, and resorts. Due to this increasing demand and attached luxury, hardwood flooring is a pricey commodity for new homeowners and small businesses.

Luckily for you, many flooring companies and contractors have the best alternatives to hardwood floors without compromising their durability and stylish designs. The most popular among these alternatives is polished concrete flooring. Material costs for polished concrete floors are six to eight times lower than high-quality hardwood floors. Polished concrete is significantly less expensive than wood in new residential construction.

The highlighted benefits to getting polished concrete flooring, aside from being cheaper and more durable, are that they are highly customizable, provide a modern and unique aesthetic, and have a more efficient installation process. Specialist flooring contractor Martin Helda once said, “you can never go wrong with polished concrete flooring.” Here are more detailed accounts of why.

Flexible and versatile installation process

Polished concrete is an ideal flooring solution because of its easier implementation during the construction process of the residence or establishment. It is also unique because it does not require high skill to install since it is primarily a labor-intensive process. During the initial stages of its application, laborers pile slabs of hardened concrete as the foundation either before or immediately after the building’s formation.

What makes the installation process versatile is that you can either slowly get this done throughout the building construction or have it done altogether over a shorter time frame. This also saves you some labor costs due to shorter skill requirements and work periods.

Highly customizable depending on preference and utility

Pure hardened concrete as a foundation is similar to a blank canvas of an artist or painter. There are numerous ways to apply design ideas and then refine and polish the work after. Because of this highly customizable nature, many are transitioning to having concrete floorings compared to linoleum, carpet, tile, stone, or marble flooring. For instance, concrete contractors can stain concrete to nearly any color that you like. This property alone can help us determine the extent of polishing we can apply to concrete floors.

Polished concrete is also long-lasting, up to an average of ten to twelve years without maintenance. It lasts longer if you properly clean and maintain it, which is also more manageable than other floorings like wood and carpet. You can also specialize the polish applied to the concrete, such as floor-coatings to make the surface non-slip and waterproof.

Unlimited creative options are also available for you to choose and design your concrete flooring. Suppose you want to have a cozy and comfortable living room with concrete flooring. You can simply add furnishings like rugs or carpets placed directly over the concrete. Tiled concrete is also possible if you prefer to have it that way. Choose polished concrete flooring for your residence, and have a long-lasting, cheaper, and better alternative to hardwood flooring.

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Martin Helda
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Martin Helda - Founder of All Bay Area Floors