Whether you are building a new commercial space or in contrast, renovating an existing one, the quality of your floor preparation is really important.

The durability and presentation of your floor’s final finish is reflected from your concrete floor. Floor flatness is certainly the most overlooked area of preparation.

As a result of incorrect surface grinding, coatings peel because of this. Coating over it again seems like a good idea right? Doing that is really bad idea.

If the existing coating is peeling, that is because the base was not textured. Think of it this way. How well is paint really going to go on glass?  

Fortunately, Ultimate Floors has been setting high standards for skilled concrete grinding commercial floors for years. We also take health and safety seriously on commercial and residential jobs alike. 

Consequently, Silica dust problems are not taken seriously enough. Many trades now have a duty of care to follow the rules. While we feel this is very positive still seems like many floor contractors aren’t investing in the right dust control equipment.

Below picture is of other tradesman fitting floor waste plates on a project we completed. While the personal PPE was in place, the vacuum being used was not fit for the task. This was even more of a concern due to the dust landing on shelves.   

Concrete grinding commercial floors and the right dust control measures.

 As noted before, on site dust control is really important. For the reason that we bring this to your attention and highlight the steps we take is to ensure our clients we are up to date and relevant.

What is also most noteworthy, concrete floors should never be swept. All of our grinding, concrete shaving and shot blast floors are always vacuumed.

Is dustless concrete grinding commercial floors really possible?

Yes it is. However, the correct dust extractor must be matched to the floor grinder being used.

Dustless floor grinding is really more like dust control. Because there are many under sized concrete dust extractors used with larger floor grinders dust is not controlled. Size does count and dust becomes impossible to contain. Effective dust control is all about the air volume. 

What we have seen more recently with concrete grinding commercial floors is cheap imported vacuums. Problem with imported dust extractors is this – they haven’t been tested in Australia to ensure they operate to HEPA H13 requirements. This is another area professional floor prepares have to compete with. 

What does HEPA mean?

For the reason that we get asked this question from time to time, HEPA means High Efficiency Particulate Air. These filters are manufactured and tested in accordance to HEPA filter standards. In short, dirty air comes into the vacuum and the filtered air goes out cleaned at a rate of 99.90% of all particles. Efficiency of H13 HEPA filters removes particles small as 0.003 micron.  This exhaust air is cleaner then the air we breathe.

In addition to our HEPA dust extractors, we also run portable air cleaners. The larger units filter two thousand cubic metres of air an hour. 

So you can now see why the right type of dust control for concrete grinding commercial floors is so important.  You will see one of our A2000 air cleaners in the work area. Yes, it is another item to move around but Ultimate Floors would rather do things correctly.

Our fleet of equipment for concrete grinding commercial floors is substantial. Besides the full range of Husqvarna floor grinders, we are fully equipped with a suite of HEPA dust extractors as well.

Regardless of what others aren’t doing,  we approach our concrete grinding commercial floors with seriousness. As a result of this, these dust control measures are costed in to each job. Just wanted to be transparent about this so you know upfront why we will always appear to have higher rates.