Polished Concrete VS Decorative Epoxy Flooring
The Pros, Cons & How to Make Your Choice
To begin with, let me state that both polished concrete and decorative epoxy are fantastic flooring options, will add value to your home or workplace, will enrich your overall interior design-work, and will save you the headaches involved with tiles and other floor coverings.
There is however, no perfect flooring solution, so the following set of pros and cons should help you make an informed decision.
1) Current Trends:
Polished concrete is the same basic finish every time, just different colour stones and concrete depending on the flavour you desire. It has been popular for a long time, but it’s popularity with interior designers seems to have been in the decline over the last 5 years. With increased familiarity, polished concrete is trending downwards.
The vast range of epoxy resin and cementitious overlays provides an ever-evolving range of modern, and also “antique style” floor finishes. It is one of the fastest growing flooring types for both commercial and residential.
2) Value-Adding
It’s to go past polished concrete for its ability to impact the value of a property. When selling, or valuing a property polished concrete speaks of a home well built and well maintained, by owner with style. Some people love floor-boards and some hate them, some like tiles and some hate them, but few would run from a beautiful, seamless polished concrete.
The same can be said for decorative epoxy resurfacing, depending on the style and colours you choose. Choosing a high end finish or a natural stone appearance would impress almost anyone, but a lower cost or unusual colour blend could be a negative.
3) Maintenance
Polished Concrete is exceptionally hard-wearing and difficult to damage. If however through abuse you manage to gouge the surface you may find it very difficult to repair without seeing the patch.
Decorative epoxy is almost as hard-wearing as polished, and if coated with polyurethane can be re-polished as desired to keep it looking new. As a resurface system (instead of just treating the existing concrete), epoxy damage can be repaired easier. Some systems, like Stone-Resin can be repaired very economically and quickly, other systems like the Pearl-Resin would require the resin re-applied over the entire floor to cover the damage. But unlike polished concrete, it can be made good.
4) Cleaning
Both polished concrete and decorative epoxy are non-porous and easy to clean with a mop.
5) Styles
The following galleries may be the ultimate decision making tool!
Polished Concrete Gallery Concrete Solutions Gallery
Acid Stained Concrete Gallery Stone-Resin Brochure
Decorative Concrete Flooring Gallery